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Video Summary
Women and
Computing
(Video published ca 1995)
Preface
Women are not quite full
citizens in today’s high-tech universe. Once a strong presence among the
computer pioneers, there are relatively few women in computing today. At a time
when the field needs them most, girls from grade school to high school are
losing interest. Why?
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We will meet several women in
computing, explore their work and follow their paths to success.
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We will also examine the computer
gender gap, and
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Finally, ask what has been done to
bridge the gap.
I. Women in
Computing
Ada Byron,
Accomplished mathematician, thought of as the first programmer
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She became fascinated with
Babbage’s “Difference Engine”.
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She championed Babbage’s second
machine, the “Hypothetical Analytical Engine”.
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She wrote detailed notes describing
how it would be worked.
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Ada’s instruction for running it
earned her a place in history as the first computer programmer. Today, a
computer language is named in her honor.
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Byron & Babbage’s version of a
programmable machine would not be realized for over one hundred years
It
would take fifty years before women would gain limited admission to scientific
and mathematical circles. By and large, women were prepared for culture and the
arts.
Betty Vetter,
Statistician, Commission on Professionals in Science & Technologies
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“During the late 19th
century, women were doing quite well in education. By the 1920’s, women earned
13% of the PhD’s in Science & Engineering. As we came to the 30’s, that number
fell to 11%. During the onset of WWII, it fell to 8.9%. Returning GI’s were
getting their deferments, requirements were elevated, space was limited & there
were fewer women in college, thus, it fell to 6% by the 60’s.”
In 1946, the first digital
computer known as the ENIAC was created. Primarily programmed by women until
1948; the women were professionals. They were primarily college graduates in
mathematics.
Computer Science was a new
field with no history of prejudice or discrimination. Women came in and grew,
earning degrees on all three levels.
RADM Grace Murray Hopper,
Legendary figure in Data Processing
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“If, during the next twelve
months, any one of you says “But we’ve always done it that way”, I will
instantly materialize beside you and I won’t look at you for twenty-four hours”
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As early as 1944, she coined the
term “BUG” referring to errors in computer programs.
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She played a key role in the
creation of an early computer language, COBOL.
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She toured Navy bases and college
campuses, paving the way for the new technology.
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Retired in 1986 as Rear Admiral of
the US Navy and she earned the 1991 National Medal of Technology.
Thelma Estrin,
Professor Emeritus UCLA
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“John Von Neumann was very
interested in the brain…it was at their suggestion that I should think about
using computers to study brain waves”
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Began during the WWII era.
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Earned 1990 Medal of Technology.
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Pioneered the use of computers in
biomedical engineering.
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Collaborated with husband Jerry
Estrin and John Von Neumann at Princeton to build a new digital computer.
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She and her husband built Israel’s
first computer, the Weizac, while starting her family.
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She pioneered the use of computer
graphics in the CAT Scan to simulate neurosurgery.
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As a National Science Foundation
appointee in the early 1980s, she oversaw grants totaling over $30 million
annually.
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She appeared on television to
discuss the future of computers.
Cynthia Harvey,
Morgan State University / NASA
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“I became interested in science
through my father…my father had a philosophy that said that you can be anything
you want to be”
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After double-majoring in
mathematics and physics, she got her first job at a Naval Research Center.
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Like Thelma Estrin, she built one
on the first computers.
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In 1956, she joined the digital
computing lab at Westinghouse Aerospace where she simulated NASA’s first
satellite launches.
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Unlike her male colleagues, she was
not promoted or allowed to attend conferences.
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Upon her resignation, she was
informed that conferences were reserved for career persons. She ultimately
convinced management that she was a career person and was reinstated.
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Two years later, she joined the
Mathematics Department of Morgan State University; she ran its Computer Center
and then eventually founded the Computer Science Department.
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For two decades, she lobbied the
State of Maryland for support for
computer science.
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Today she has a joint appointment
with Morgan State and NASA where she
is the Technical Coordinator for MUSPID, The Minority University Space
Inter-Disciplinary Network.
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Of her many accomplishments, she
take great pride in mentoring students in the local computer club.
There has been progress.
In the mid-1980s, more women have gotten their PhD’s in Computer Science
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Approximate Half-way Marker
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The
environment has been inhospitable, but merely raising the age-old issue of
differences, regardless of whether they are inherent or are culturally
determined, unleashes criticism from women.
Marie Wilson,
President, The Ms. Foundation
Cornelia Brunner,
EDC Center for Children and Technology
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“If we really did allow in our
society for different ways of knowing, thinking & doing things, then it wouldn’t
really matter what causes the particular preferences or styles of thinking and
doing, but it matters because we have a completely dual society in which
everything has to be either female or male…. in one of those two, always has to
be better than the other”.
Ellen Spertus,
PhD Candidate, MIT, Microsoft Research
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“I knew it was un-feminine to go
into math or computers”
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She is one of the few female computer science PhD candidates to date… a
child of the PC revolution, she matured within the computer culture.
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In updating the report (Barriers
to Equality in Academia--Women in Computer Science at MIT),
she observed improvements in MIT, but found persistent discrimination elsewhere.
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She found that it wasn’t the women being stupid, but all the barriers
against them.
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Then, as a result, women try to find alternatives.
Brenda Laurel,
Interval Research Corp., Author, Computers as Theatres
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“You have to start with the basic
idea of what it is…this thing is not a giant calculator…it’s not a number
cruncher, it is a representation device.”
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In the mid 1970s, she was experimenting with interactive theatre, so
telling stories with computer graphics was a natural progression.
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In 1993, she conducted the Placeholder Project with Rachel Strickland, an
experiment in virtual reality (or computer-generated worlds). Its purpose was
to explore new ways that people might play with computers.
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Her job was coordinated with technical and cultural issues and how to
solve that problem…One of her focus groups were 12-year-old girls, which have
not benefited very well from computer technology.
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It’s galvanized her on the issues of making math, science and engineering
socially and culturally acceptable.
Because video games are often a child’s first experience, there is a concern
that girls, uncomfortable with these games are already behind in the computer
classroom
Eugene Provenzo,
President, University of Miami
Joel Cooper,
Professor, Princeton University
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“Teacher’s were trying to make
instruction more exciting, more efficient for children by using computers…they
were using software packages that were incorporating many of the aspects of
video games…we were noticing that girls are hesitant to use. The computer
designer may be thinking that a boy was on the other end of the computer. That
would be consistent with the way most of society thinks about computers &
computer users.”
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Studied the underlying reasons why the video game model has been
transferred to educational software
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They asked teachers to design educational software for Middle School
kids, 12 and 13 year-old adolescents. The three categories are:
girls, boys, and most
important, students.
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They seemed to form the assumption the software that was designed for
students was designed for boys. She effectively designed video games that boys
like and leave girls out in the cold.
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The software designed for girls was very consistent with what we know
girls like in computer assisted instructions program.
They are very
straightforward, a learning tool program. There was no space, no war, no sport,
no eye-hands coordination, but interesting programs created with direct feedback
just as we thought, girls like learning tool programs.
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Gender is one of the very important variables that discriminates
children’s preferences, children’s comfort, and children’s ability to learn with
an educational software package.
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Another solution is to increase the awareness of gender issues in the
computer classroom.
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The computer equity project has prepared teacher-trainers across the
country.
Joan Sanders,
Gender Equity Programmer CUNY
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“We have taught the
teacher-trainers to recognize all the sources of influence that encourage girls
to stay away from computing after a certain point…main thing that you really
need to do is to understand these influences do exist.”
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Some game manufacturers are exploring ways to attract girls.
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It would be very difficult to determine what girls’ need because we can
only obtain feedback based on what is already out there & very few girls games
exist…It would be at relatively serious & expensive research on how to make
games that would actually be of genuine interest to girls of different ages
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One of Cornelia Brunner’s solutions is to make software that will
stimulate girls imaginations
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To invite girls into the technological design process, allowing them to
tinker & move things around like the movers & shakers of Designing Technology
without the bottleneck of not knowing enough Math & Science & to make it work
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Operation SMART (Science, Math & Relative Technology) – One of the
projects intended to increase girls interest in Science
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Another broad approach to increase a girl’s self-confidence is Take Our
Daughter To Work Day.
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There are also women’s organizations (like Hoppers), conferences &
seminars that drive more women to be involved
Are these programs
sufficient?
Marie Wilson
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“If we are not careful, we’ll put
girls further behind…If they’re not computer literate, If they’re not able to
sit down and work with these machines then they won’t be left out of just jobs
as far as I know, they’ll be left out of life”.
Jo
Sanders
Joan Feigenbaum
Cynthia Harvey,
Morgan State University / NASA
Thelma Estrin,
Sandra Baylor Johnson
Lucie Fjeldstad
Starr Roxanne Hiltz
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“Rather than have to drop out for
five to ten years to raise a family, I think that communication technology
allows them to stay actively involved in the work force and still not have to
totally abandon their children for 10, 12 hour days…”
Cornelia Brunner,
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“I think it’s very important to
have this dialogue go on between people who really think about technology in
this more socially grounded way, mostly women, but obviously not exclusively and
the people who are inventing it…
Without a meaningful dialogue, everyone stands to lose.
As it
is, we can only wonder how many ideas that could have been contributed by female
talent will never enrich us all.
Looking to the future, we must ask: What will the repercussions be to our
increasing computer-oriented society if women, half the population and
professional workforce, are not as prepared in computing as men?
Hopefully, we will not have to find out
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Learning Computing History