Sexism isn’t rampant in computer science, says Kiki Davis, but it’s there — simmering beneath the surface, an undercurrent that bubbles up with small, insensitive comments and unfair assumptions.In class, she says, men are quick to assume the women need help or are likely incompetent. For many women these little things add up.
“I was worried at first when I got here that I might be judged if I wasn’t perfect, “ says Davis (pictured above), who spent ten years as a graphic designer before returning to school. “With the men, competence is assumed. But as a woman, you sometimes feel pressure to be the best, to prove you belong.”
Concerned that other women might struggle to find their place in such a male-oriented universe, Davis is injecting new life into the Women in Computer Science (WICS) group, which was originally founded by professors Sarah Douglas and Virginia Lo in 1984 to provide support for fellow women in the department. WICS’s first event of this school year, a “Movies and Munchies” Monday was held this week, and Davis even received donations from Google – techie trinkets such as USB ports and satchels – to help attract as many people as possible. Davis plans for this to be the first of many WICS social events, which will build a better sense of fellowship among the students.
A Pervasive Gender Gap
“The picture in computer science is very grim,” says Douglas. “I’ve gone five years teaching 400- and 500-level courses without seeing a single woman. When there’s so few, it’s hard to feel comfortable.”
Perhaps more than any other science, CIS is dominated by men. At UO, women account for only 12 of the department’s 57 graduate students and three of the 17 tenure track faculty members.
Douglas, who has her own anecdotes of being presumed ignorant by computer store staff, says half the country’s CIS schools have all-male faculty and estimates that less than 15 percent of UO’s CIS undergraduates are women.
Some of this disparity she attributes to an image problem. With the dot-com boom, computer science became, in the minds of many, the realm of geek culture and absurdly brilliant entrepreneurs. She thinks more women will be attracted to the field once it’s viewed as a regular profession again.
As the UO CIS department celebrates its 40 anniversary, the issue of gender diversity is a growing concern, especially at a time when some software and information technology companies are emphasizing collaborative work places where the communication skills women often possess would be highly valued.
Davis sees the issue not as a problem just for women but for both genders. Not only do women need to become more comfortable and confident in their abilities, but some men need to learn how to interact and collaborate with their female coworkers. She says it’s vitally important that WICS has men participate in its events as well as women.
“This is a field some people go into because they’re very comfortable working on their own, coding away for hours,” she says, smiling, alluding to the archetypal asocial nerd. “But we want to encourage everyone to socialize. We won’t make people uncomfortable. But we might push them a little.”
Hook Them When They’re Young
Davis believes the problem begins at an early age. Many young girls grow up with female role models who are often teachers and nurses and business women, maybe accountants and lawyers too. They may know vaguely that there are women in chemistry, physics and computer science, but they never see them, they exist only as myths or legends or characters from a movie.
“So many girls grow up with this mental block in their mind, and they can’t imagine what’s possible for them,” says Davis. “I want to try to remove that block.”
Thus, Davis is looking to expand the program to reach women of all ages. She’d like WICS to teach girls in local schools how to write basic programs and to help seniors in retirement communities access the Internet and e-mail.
“I want the girls to be able to write a program with their name on it,” Davis says. “I want them to see that we exist, and that this is a possibility for them.”
For Davis, a career in computers was never so far-fetched. Her father was a computer enthusiast, and he taught her how to write code in Basic, and later, before she went to college, he insisted that she build her first computer so she’d know how it worked.
“I grew up in a place where I was always told I could do this,” Davis says. “But a lot of girls start thinking of the way the female life goes, and they don’t envision staring at a monitor and coding all day.”
And, unlike other sciences where women are gaining ground, the disproportionate numbers in computer science are actually getting worse, Davis says. One study by the National Center for Women and Information Technology found that the percentage of computer science degrees earned by women nosedived from 36 percent in 1983 to 21 percent in 2006.
“I’m optimistic that it will get better,” Douglas says, “But it’s hard because women have so little visibility. And it’s not easy being a pioneer. Not every woman interested in computer science wants to do that.”
WICS on the Web: