Introduction
As technical innovation plays an increasingly critical role in essentially every sector of the U.S. and global economy, computer-related positions is one of the fastest-growing occupations in the U.S as businesses strive to increase efficiency and reduce costs through the use of information technology (IT). The Bureau Labor of Statistics (2009) estimate that computer-related occupations will add 762,700 new jobs from 2008 to 2018, growing more than twice as fast as the average for all occupations in the economy.
However, despite this immense growth, interest in IT related careers and enrollments in computer science curriculums have steadily declined over the past decade (National Science Foundation 2010). The National Center for Women and Information Technology (2009) argues that if current disinterest in IT among student continues, by 2018 the industry will only be able to fill half of its available jobs with computer science graduates from U.S. universities.
This problem intensifies as the industry is failing to attract women who are well positioned to move into these open jobs. Ever since 1991, the participation by women in the IT industry has dramatically declined, while the percentage of jobs held by women in other scientific fields has increased (NCWIT 2009). The Women in Technology Foundation stated that:
“In 2008, women received 57% of all undergraduate degrees but represented only 18% of all Computer and Information Sciences undergraduate degrees. There has been a 79% decline, between 2000 and 2008, in the number of incoming undergraduate women interested in majoring in Computer Science. As a result, only 27% of computer scientists today are female.”
Furthermore, women already employed in the technolog...
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... attitudes. Journal of Educational Computing Research. Vol. 11 No.4 pp. 347-367.
13. http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/games-with-female-heroes-dont-sell-because-publishers-dont-support-them
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15. http://www.1up.com/features/getting-the-girl
16. Cheryan S., Plaut. V. C., Handron, C., & Hudson, L. (2013). The stereotypical computer scientist: Gendered media representations as a barrier to inclusion for women. Sex Roles, 69(1), 58-71.
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...roblems of integration. If the science world takes advantage of undiscovered female talent, science as a whole will benefit greatly. For example, the original group of ENIAC programmers consisted of 6 women. In 1946, these women helped to develop the first operating stored-program computer.6 If female talent such as this goes to waste because of social neglect, the science world will never know what possible discoveries that could have been made with the help of women. If Dr. Djerassi is accurate with his examples of discrimination, the science world should take note of these problems and attempt to solve them.
Through survey analysis and exploration of literature, we found that there was a correlation between females and college major choice. Our survey results signified that the majority of participants believe Textiles and Psychology are the most popular majors for females. The majority of participants reported that they believe the most popular major for males is Engineering. This indicates that people are aware of the gender gap between majors. We found that out of our sample of 105 participants, only one female was in Engineering, and one of the most popular majors for females was Textiles.
Currently, there are more job openings in the technological field than ever before. As stated in source two, this is “the age of entrepreneurs” (Siebold). This means the public is taking
In both “Oh, Come On, Men Aren’t Finished Yet” by Christina Sommers and “When Bright Girls Decide Math is a Waste of Time” by Susan Jacoby they discuss how gender effects opportunities when applied to continuing and changing stereotype deceived through gender opportunities. In “Oh, Come On, Men Aren’t Finished Yet” Sommers ……
It has become common today to dismiss the fact that there are few women in the STEM careers today. Why are not young women choosing to pursue careers in math and science? Throughout elementary, middle, and high school, boys and girls were in the same math and science courses. Once they begin college and can choose their own course study, they tend to shy away from STEM careers. Going into college, young women still want to do STEM studies and careers, but when graduation comes around, there are more men with STEM degrees when compared to women. Due to societal norms for young girls and it historically being male dominated field, as women they are not choosing careers in math and science. Society frames a picture on how women and men are supposed to choose careers for their lives. Young women themselves choose not to go into STEM because society is typically stereotyping men into these fields instead of women.
“Sexist discrimination in STEM is such incredibly old news that it is a serious wonder we have not discovered the words “Women cannot be trusted to add” in cave paintings.”(JR Thorpe)
Maybe America’s educational leaders don’t understand what computer science is, which is why they don’t place enough emphasis on this invaluable skill for now and the future. Less than 7 percent of the state’s high schools offer courses in the important science.
Ever since the study of mathematics and science has begun, women have been underrepresented in the STEM field. The STEM field is made up of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics careers. There have been a lot of efforts to increase the number of women in STEM careers; however, men remain dominant in the field. For example, in 2015 women filled 47% of all U.S. jobs, but held only 24% of the STEM careers ( ). Meaning that in 2015 men held 76% of all the STEM careers. The gap between men and women in STEM continues to widen and men continue to dominate the STEM field. Now one might ask, why is there such a large gap between men and women in STEM careers?
The largest factor in the increase in demand for STEM workers is that the world is quickly becoming more information-based and technological. According to present and former employees of Counseling and Career Development Rich Feller and Angela Taurig, the demand is
Parents and educators both display actions that could be and continue to affect the gender gap in STEM. By parents not giving both their sons and daughters an equal to the questions they ask, it supports the idea of why there is a lack of women in these areas of study. Female teachers also may be openly expressing their struggles with math and other similar areas have negatively affected the gap in STEM today. Direct biases and unconscious biases are both reasons that lead to a gap in these areas. But as female teenagers mature and grow older, they have different wants than men do when they grow
Studies show that retention of females in science, technology, engineering, and math (collectively, “STEM”) careers is consistently lower than that of their male counterparts. Between 2001 and 2009, the percentage of female recipients of bachelor degrees in engineering stagnated at a mere 18.1-20.9% (Jagacinski, 2013). A staggeringly large number of women switch majors by their junior year of college, and do not pursue their STEM-related degree to completion. Why is this? How can such a significant difference exist between the retention of men and women in the same field? Women face several obstacles that their male counterparts never have to deal with.
Carol B. Muller, “The Underrepresentation of Women in Engineering and Related Sciences: Pursuing Two Complementary Paths to Parity.” National Academies Press (US); Web. 2003.
Girls are seen as caring, nurturing, quiet, and helpful. They place other’s needs above their own. Girls get ahead by hard work, not by being naturally gifted. Boys are seen as lazy, but girls are seen as not capable. In class, teacher will call on boys more than they call on girls. Boys are seen as better at math and science; while girls are better at reading and art. This bias is still at work even out of the classroom. There are more males employed at computer firms than women. The ratio of male to female workers in STEM fields is 3-1. In college, more women major in the humanities than in the sciences. In education, women are often seen as lesser than; even though 65% of all college degrees are earned by women. Women are still often seen as needing to be more decorative than intellectual, as represented by the Barbie who included the phrase, “Math is hard!” and the shirt that JC Penneys sold that said, “I’m too pretty to do homework, so my brother has to do it for me.” While there was a backlash on both items, it points out that there is a great deal of work to do on the educational gender bias to be
In a study analysing the gender gap in authority in the workplace, Baxter and Wright found that even when such factors as the values of individual firms, the status of the job market, individual hiring bodies, and countries cultural beliefs were taken into account that an alarming amount of the disparities could only be explained by blatant discrimination (1995). Although this trend is decreasing, woman are still the most likely to be expected to occupy most of the mundane but essential family oriented tasks such as cooking, cleaning and caring for children. This belief in itself creates a stereotype that paints women as a sex more committed (forced or otherwise) to their family than their professions (Brinton, 2013; Waber, 2014). Gender based stereotypes such as these are proving to be extremely hard to shake. In fact, in a study analyzing the gender discrimination and the wage gap by Philip Cohen and Matt Huffman published in the American Sociological Review it was found that both male and female college graduates were more likely to devalue potential female applicants who stated motherhood on a job application form (2007). Another study by Mahzarin R. Banaji combining the faculties of psychology and gender studies found that during a memory test recalling a list of fictitious names, test subjects were more likely to incorrectly identify the names of fictitious males as being famous than the generated female names (Johnson, 2013). These interesting findings only further accentuate how deeply these stereotypes are ingrained in our everyday life, and that it will take a sustained generational movement to eradicate them (Brinton, 2014; Waber,
...ware and Software developers and Web designers are just some of the many new employment opportunities created with the help of IT. Probably new more jobs to come in more years.