Opinion

More female techies needed

It’s Christmas morning, and little Timmy and Kate are anxiously opening their presents, eager to find out what Santa has brought them. Timmy opens his package to find a new model car. It can be programmed to run certain tracks and do tricks when it’s built. Kate opens hers to find another doll. Can you guess which of these children will be more likely to pursue science and technology?

According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, women currently hold 29 percent of information technology jobs and earn 81 percent as much as similarly qualified men. The statistics at the upper levels are even more disturbing. According to Forbes, only 2.4 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women, and only 12.5 percent of FTSE 100 board directors are women. As for the major tech companies, Facebook, Twitter, Groupon, Foursquare and Paypal have no female board members. Apple has one woman boardmember out of seven men; Amazon has one out of eight; and Google has two out of nine.

This dearth of women does not seem to be the result of discrimination, but of far fewer women applying for these jobs. Senior editor of Tech Crunch, Mike Arrington, echoes the views of many men in technology.

“The problem isn’t that Silicon Valley is keeping women down, or not doing enough to encourage female entrepreneurs,” Arrington said on techcrunch.com. “The problem is that not enough women want to become (technology) entrepreneurs.”

This lack of interest is reflected in college admissions as well. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, despite that 58 percent of college enrollees are female, only 22 percent of computer science degrees and only 19 percent of engineering degrees were awarded to women in 2005. At UH, women make up 22 percent of engineering students, and 27 percent of technology students — slightly above the national average. So, when do girls lose interest in science and technology?

The exceptions to the rule, women like Marissa Meyer, vice-president of Google, are leading the vanguard of ‘girl geeks’ in Silicon Valley. Meyer believes that more women do not enter the technology field because of limited role models in the industry.

“They don’t want to become the stereotype of all-night coders, hackers with pasty skin,” Meyer said in the New Yorker.

This bias seems to begin early during childhood, when girls like Kate get dolls for Christmas, and boys like Timmy get mechanical toys. Research has found that young girls generally do not have confidence in their abilities in math and science, despite performing similarly to boys in the classroom because they are told that girls are bad at math and science. Students tend to focus after-school activities and career ambitions on subjects in which they are confident in their abilities. For girls, this leads to fields such as education and psychology.

Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, gave this year’s commencement address to Barnard College graduates. She advised them to “lean in” and to “let the barriers you face – and there will be barriers – be external, not internal.”

But many of these graduates have chosen their path. The road to more women in technology does not begin in Silicon Valley, but rather in our public schools. It is time for parents and educators to stop telling children what is or isn’t gender-appropriate, and teach them to be the best that they can be at whatever career they choose.

Emily Brooks is an economics senior and may be reached at [email protected].

13 Comments

  • "It is time for parents and educators to stop telling children what is or isn’t gender-appropriate, and teach them to be the best that they can be at whatever career they choose."

    Yes. Everyone is responsible for there being more women in STEM but the women themselves.

    You know how all those chauvinist pigs became great at STEM? I'll give you a hint. It wasn't because they got a leg-up in their classes from the best male students. It's because they slept, eat and breathed STEM for 8 years, then got a degree.

  • Looking at comp sci, engineering, and tech only tells part of the story. What about the hard sciences?

    Maybe the girls can see the writing on the wall and don't want to be crawling around on the floor plugging in ethernet cables at a server farm somewhere. Or maybe they can spot the trend of IT jobs being outsourced to countries such as India.

      • that feature isn't new, and no – i was just making a stupid joke because the author said these kids got presents from Santa. it wouldn't surprise me if some UH students/faculty really still believe in Santa though. enough of them believe in yahweh, allah, etc.

        on the real – haven't studies shown that women's brains aren't as good at doing math? a female psyc. professor told me that. spatial reasoning too.
        maybe that's part of the reason why there aren't so many in tech jobs?

        why not focus on the more important issue of americans getting stupid because our schools/culture are shameful, and consequently all of the science jobs getting outsourced to foreigners?

        • Well you don't have to be the best at doing math. You just have to pass the classes and get the degree. It could be because the rewards aren't that great. Engineers salaries top out at right about where law and business salaries start off. So if you're a social misfit why not go for comp sci or engineering if that's the best you can do?

          I think the schools are fine but it's gotten to the point where non-foreigners just don't want to work anymore. By following the news and reading about the government's financial sector I am starting to agree.

          • Yeah, I suppose there is an intelligence threshold that most students could reach. It still might be more difficult for chicks to do math though. Not a total explanation for the disparities I'm sure.

            I think the schools are terrible, but maybe it's because I'm in liberal arts.
            Most of the education I've seen sold here is memorization rather than critical thinking.
            Our system of education is antiquated. We need to digitize lectures and use the school for stuff you can't do at home on a computer. We need to stop building so many buildings that are empty most of the time and use the money to improve the quality of what we already have. Students need to have more of a voice. Education shouldn't be treated like a business where you can market an inferior product because the numbers say it's ok or because most people are too wrapped up in their own lives to think about what an ideal education would be like and try to work towards it. Etc. etc.

          • Yeah, I suppose there is an intelligence threshold that most students could reach. It still might be more difficult for chicks to do math though. Not a total explanation for the disparities I'm sure.

            I think the schools are terrible, but maybe it's because I'm in liberal arts.
            Most of the education I've seen sold here is memorization rather than critical thinking.
            Our system of education is antiquated. We need to digitize lectures and use the school for stuff you can't do at home on a computer. We need to stop building so many buildings that are empty most of the time and use the money to improve the quality of what we already have. Students need to have more of a voice. Education shouldn't be treated like a business where you can market an inferior product because the numbers say it's ok or because most people are too wrapped up in their own lives to think about what an ideal education would be like and try to work towards it. Etc. etc.

  • Check out TX/RX Labs, there are plenty of female techies hanging around. They have a shop at 2010 Commerce St, check by on Friday nights after 8pm. txrxlabs.org

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