Women and ICT






 * "If women are to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things." (Plato; Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world; 428/427 BC–348/347 BC.)


 * "Nothing can be more absurd than the practice that prevails in our country of men and women not following the same pursuits with all their strengths and with one mind, for thus, the state instead of being whole is reduced to half." (Plato; Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world; 428/427 BC–348/347 BC.)


 * “One of the things that I really strongly believe in is that we need to have more girls interested in math, science, and engineering. We’ve got half the population that is way under-represented in those fields and that means that we’ve got a whole bunch of talent…not being encouraged the way they need to.” (U.S. President Barack Obama, February, 2013.)

This document is broken into two major parts. The first part is an introduction to women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). This provides background information for the second and much longer part, which focuses on women in Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

Here is some data from a 9/12/2015 Google search for women in the STEM areas:


 * A search of women in science produced 654 million results.
 * A search of women in technology produced 982 million results.
 * A search of women in engineering produced 426 million results.
 * A search of women in mathematics produced 179 million results.

Women in STEM
Currently in the U.S., women are under-represented in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) professions. Many people view this situation as being due to a type of discrimination against women. Others point to the potential of women to help meet the ever-growing need for well-educated people (workers and users) in the STEM areas. For these and other reasons, currently there are a number of organization and governmental programs designed to help increase the number of women going into the STEM areas.

To begin, here is a very brief summary of some of my own current beliefs about women in STEM. Think back 200,000 years ago when anatomically modern homo sapiens first came on the scene. People lived as hunter-gatherers. The average life span was probably in the range of 20 to 25 years, and women produced as many babies as the time and their bodies allowed.

Homo sapiens survived and eventually prospered through cooperation, the development of tools, and through a division of labor. Very roughly speaking, women focused on having and rearing babies, and providing a “home” environment suitable to these endeavors. Men focused on hunting and fighting types of activities. Both women and men were gatherers. Groups (clans, tribes) of people developed social structures that were suited to their hunter-gatherer, environmental, and survival needs.

About 12,000 years ago agriculture began to develop and spread. Both hunting and gathering initially remained quite important. But, raising and harvesting crops gradually replaced gathering, and hunting was gradually replaced as various farm animals were domesticated. The major change in division of work between women and men is that men switched from being hunters to being farmers, and women switched from a combination of child rearing and gathering to a combination of child rearing and farm work.

The Industrial Revolution began about 250 years ago. The division of labor pattern that developed was one of women continuing to “make” the home and raise children, while men became “breadwinners” through working in factories and through other jobs outside the home. In the U.S., it wasn’t until World War II, 1941-1945, that large numbers of women began to work in industrial age types of factory jobs. During that war, women demonstrated they could be quite capable breadwinners.

As a personal aside, my father (born in 1901) taught me about education in his home state of Texas and in the rest of the country during his childhood, where very few girls continued in school beyond age 16. My mother was an exception. She was born on the east coast, earned a master’s degree in mathematics, and was encouraged to continue for a doctorate—which was certainly unusual for that time. However, after achieving her master’s degree, she followed the route of being a homemaker, raising four children, and working part-time as in instructor in Mathematics at the University of Oregon.

To continue this brief history, currently in the U.S. women far outnumber men in undergraduate college enrollment. Quoting from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cha.asp:


 * In fall 2013, female students made up 56 percent of total undergraduate enrollment at 9.8 million and male students made up 44 percent at 7.7 million. Enrollment for both groups increased between 1990 and 2013, but most of the increases occurred between 2000 and 2010, when female enrollment increased by 39 percent and male enrollment increased by 36 percent.… Between 2013 and 2024, female enrollment is projected to increase by 15 percent (from 9.8 million to 11.3 million students), and male enrollment is projected to increase by 9 percent (from 7.7 million to 8.3 million students).

This type of data suggests that women are more academically capable (in our current type of educational system) than men. There have been many research studies attempting to compare women and men in the STEM areas of study. My 9/4/2015 Google search of the expression comparing women and men in the science, technology, engineering, mathematics fields of study produced about 1.1 million results. My search on the expression gender gap in STEM fields produced about 127,000 results.

It's a Worldwide Issue On a worldwide basis, there are considerable differences among the various countries. Quoting from UNESCO's Institute of Statistics:


 * Just 30% of the world’s researchers are women. While a growing number of women are enrolling in university, many opt out at the highest levels required for a research career. But a closer look at the data reveals some surprising exceptions. For example, in Bolivia, women account for 63% researchers, compared to France with a rate of 26% or Ethiopia at 8%.




 * In Sweden, for example, women form the majority (60%) of students enrolled in a Bachelor’s programme, but their numbers decline as they move up the education ladder, accounting for 49% of doctoral students and only 36% of researchers. The data tool reveals this trend across every region, highlighting the conflict that many women face as they try to reconcile career ambitions with family-caring responsibilities.


 * Women researchers also tend to work in the academic and government sectors, while men dominate the private sector which offers better salaries and opportunities. This is the case even in countries with high shares of women researchers. In Argentina, for example, 52% of researchers are women. However, they account for only 29% of researchers employed in the private sector.


 * Perhaps most importantly, the data tool shows just how important it is to encourage girls to pursue mathematics and science at a young age. In every region, women researchers remain the minority in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). In the Republic of Korea, for example, only 17% of researchers are women and they account for just 9% of those working in the field of engineering and technology.

A PBS News Hour Report Denise Cummings' PBS News Hour presentation provides a good introduction to women in STEM.


 * Cummings, Denise (4/17/2015). Why the STEM Gender Gap is Overblown. PBS News Hour. Retrieved 9/4/2015 from http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/truth-women-stem-careers/.

Quoting Denise Cummings:


 * There are two universally accepted “truths” about women and STEM careers (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). The first is that men outnumber women in these fields, and the second is that women are socialized to avoid STEM as career choices, because society considers them “unfeminine.”


 * These beliefs have spawned a national effort on the part of the National Science Foundation to attract girls and young women into STEM. The preferred strategy is to attract females by “unbrainwashing them” into accepting STEM careers as appropriate for women.


 * On closer inspection, it turns out that these “truths” are nothing more than assumptions, and that these assumptions are inconsistent with the facts. [Bold added for emphasis.]

Cummings then goes on to briefly explore some of the major issues about women and STEM. The article contains sections focusing on:


 * 1) Men do not outnumber women in all STEM fields, but they do so in some.
 * 2) Women and men are equally capable of doing STEM work.
 * 3) Sex-linked interest preferences are not mere artifacts of socialization. Both women and men are a product of nature and nurture. Research suggests we should not blame all of the STEM education and employment differences just on the nurture of girls.
 * 4) Different preferences don’t mean women’s are less important.

In summary, Cummings states:


 * Women are clearly capable of doing well in STEM fields traditionally dominated by men, and they should not be hindered, bullied, or shamed for pursuing careers in such fields. But we [women] also should not be ashamed if our interests differ from men’s. If we find certain careers more intrinsically rewarding than men do, that does not mean we have been brainwashed by society or herded into menial fields of labor. Instead, we should demand that greater intrinsic and monetary compensation be awarded to the work we like and want to do.

Federal Effort to Boost Women, Girls in STEM


 * Ravipati, S.(3/2/2017). Trump Signs Bills to Boost Women, Girls in STEM. THE Journal. Retrieved 3/2/2017 from https://thejournal.com/articles/2017/03/02/trump-signs-bills-to-boost-women-girls-in-stem.aspx.

Quoting from the article:


 * Only 26 percent of women who obtain STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) degrees work in STEM jobs. New legislation coming out of the Oval Office earlier this week seeks to tackle this issue by creating new opportunities for these women, as well as girls who are interested pursuing STEM and entrepreneurial careers. President Donald Trump signed two bills Tuesday — both introduced by women in Congress — aimed at recruiting more women for STEM fields.

The two bills are:


 * Inspiring the Next Space Pioneers, Innovators, Researchers, and Explorers Women Act (INSPIRE Act), proposed by Congresswoman Barbara Comstock (R-VA), authorizes NASA administrators to encourage K–12 female students to participate in the aerospace field.


 * Promoting Women in Entrepreneurship Act, authorizes the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support entrepreneurial programs for women. It was introduced by Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty (D-CN.) and gives NSF authority to expand programs that “recruit and support women to extend their focus beyond the laboratory and into the commercial world,” according to the bill.

Sex Differences in Learning and Doing Math

The topic of women and math is frequently raised in discussing gender equity. The basic question is whether the seeming differences between women and men in math is due to nature (genetic/innate) or due to nurture.

In recent years, there have been a number of studies looking for innate math-related differences and similarities between girls and boys. The following 2007 article provides a nice, readable summary of some of the findings up to that date.


 * Halpern, D.F., Benbow, C.P., Geary, D.C., Gur, R.C., Hyde, J.S., & Gernsbacher, M.A. (December, 2007). Sex, Math and Scientific Achievement. Scientific American. Retrieved 9/5/2015 from http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=sex-math-and-scientific-achievement.

The following quoted material captures some of the findings from the article that relate to sexual differences and schooling:


 * Because grades and overall test scores depend on many factors, psychologists have turned to assessing better-defined cognitive skills to understand these sex differences. Preschool children seem to start out more or less even, because girls and boys, on average, perform equally well in early cognitive skills that relate to quantitative thinking and knowledge of objects in the surrounding environment.


 * Around the time school begins, however, the sexes start to diverge. By the end of grade school and beyond, females perform better on most assessments of verbal abilities. In a 1995 review of the vast literature on writing skills, University of Chicago researchers Larry Hedges (now at Northwestern University) and Amy Nowell put it this way: “The large sex differences in writing … are alarming. The data imply that males are, on average, at a rather profound disadvantage in the performance of this basic skill.” There is also a female advantage in memory of faces and in episodic memory—memory for events that are personally experienced and are recalled along with information about each event’s time and place.


 * There is another type of ability, however, in which boys have the upper hand, a skill set referred to as visuospatial: an ability to mentally navigate and model movement of objects in three dimensions. Between the ages of four and five, boys are measurably better at solving mazes on standardized tests. Another manifestation of visuospatial skill in which boys excel involves “mental rotation,” holding a three-dimensional object in memory while simultaneously transforming it. As might be expected, these capabilities also give boys an edge in solving math problems that rely on creating a mental image.

There has been considerable change during the past decade. See:


 * Moursund, David (11/3/2010). Large study shows females are equal to males in math skills. IAE Blog. Retrieved 9/5/2015 from http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/entry/large-study-shows-females-are-equal-to-males-in-math-skills.html.

Here is a quote from the article:


 * One of the signs of improvement in our educational system is that girls are now allowed and encouraged to do as well as boys in math. Back when I was growing up, girls were discouraged from taking advanced math courses in high school and from being math or science majors.


 * The extensive report noted in the title of this blog entry is currently one of the free articles made available by the American Psychological Association. See also the related article by Else-Quest, Hyde, and Linn at http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/bul-136-1-103.pdf.


 * The focus of this blog entry is the article cited below:


 * Tenenbaum, David (10/11/2010). Large study shows females are equal to males in math skills. University of Wisconsin-Madison News. Retrieved 11/3/2010 from http://www.news.wisc.edu/18508. Quoting from the Tenenbaum article:


 * The mathematical skills of boys and girls, as well as men and women, are substantially equal, according to a new examination of existing studies in the current online edition of Psychological Bulletin.


 * One portion of the new study looked systematically at 242 articles that assessed the math skills of 1,286,350 people, says chief author Janet Hyde, a professor of psychology and women's studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.


 * These studies, all published in English between 1990 and 2007, looked at people from grade school to college and beyond. A second portion of the new study examined the results of several large, long-term scientific studies, including the National Assessment of Educational Progress.


 * In both cases, Hyde says, the difference between the two sexes was so close as to be meaningless.

A Report from U.S. News and Raytheon A 2015 report from U.S. News and Raytheon provides data on gender and racial inequalities in the STEM areas.


 * U.S. News & Raytheon. (June 29, 2015). The U.S. News/Raytheon STEM Index shows gender and racial gaps widening in STEM fields. Retrieved 9/4/2015 from http://www.usnews.com/info/blogs/press-room/2015/06/29/the-us-news-raytheon-stem-index-shows-gender-and-racial-gaps-widening-in-stem-fields.

Quoting from this article:


 * Washington, D.C. – June 29, 2015 – Multi-million dollar initiatives by both the public and the private sectors have failed to close gender and racial gaps in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, according to the second-annual U.S. News/Raytheon STEM Index, unveiled today at http://www.usnews.com/stemindex.


 * The STEM Index, developed exclusively by U.S. News & World Report with support from Raytheon, provides a national snapshot of STEM jobs and education. The index measures key indicators of economic- and education-related STEM activity in the United States since the year 2000.


 * The 2015 STEM Index shows that while employment and degrees granted in STEM fields have improved since 2000, gaps between men and women and between whites and minorities in STEM remain deeply entrenched.


 * Mathematics remains the Achilles’ heel of STEM fields: Across all demographic groups, interest in mathematics has declined since 2000.

The article provides data on educational attainments of women and men in the STEM areas. Quoting again from the article:


 * The gender gap in engineering and technology fields is already well-formed by high school:


 * High school girls are much less interested in pursuing engineering and technology than their male peers. In 2014, only 3 percent of high school females reported an interest in engineering, compared to 31 percent of males. In the same year, just 2 percent of girls reported an interest in technology, while 15 percent of boys expressed an interest in the field.


 * On Advanced Placement (AP) tests, male students scored higher than females in all STEM subjects; on the SATs, males of all demographics scored at least 30 points higher on the math section than females.

Gender gaps remain deeply entrenched in college and graduate school. Continuing to quote from U.S. News & Raytheon:


 * • At the college and graduate levels, women earned more STEM degrees each year, but they kept pace—rather than catching up—with their male counterparts.


 * • In 2014, only 6 percent of associate degrees and 13 percent of bachelor’s degrees granted to females were in a STEM field. By contrast, 20 percent of associate degrees and 28 percent of bachelor’s degrees granted to males were in STEM fields.


 * • At the graduate level, in 2014 only 10 percent of graduate degrees earned by females were in STEM fields. In the same year, 24 percent of graduate degrees granted to males were STEM degrees.

STEM Schools Precollege schools vary considerably in their emphasis on the STEM disciplines. Some school districts have designated one or more of their schools as a STEM school. One example of such a school is the STEM School and Academy, a charter public (no tuition) grades 5-12 school located in the Denver, Colorado area. It has about 1,150 students.

Quoting from http://www.stemhigh.org/about-us/key-facts:


 * [It provides] an integrated educational system of high standards to engage all students in an academically rigorous core curricula, promoting a strong foundation in the sciences, technologies, engineering and math, relevant and real-world contexts, and building on student character and community assets to prepare students for successful post-secondary endeavors.

The following article focuses on some of the girls attending this school.
 * Henddee, Caitlin (9/8/20q5). Colorado Girls' Path to STEM Jobs Is Being Cleared. Denver Business Journal. Retrieved 9/110/2015 from http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/blog/broadway_17th/2015/09/more-on-the-cover-story-colorado-girls-path-tostem.html.

Quoting from the article:


 * "When you put the helmet on, it doesn't matter if you are woman or man. Your mission is to compete to win."




 * [This is] the attitude of the girls at the STEM School and Academy in Highlands Ranch, such as 15-year-old 11th grader Olivia Kreski and 16-year-old 11th grader Lecia Lamb.


 * Both Kreski and Lamb can hang with the best of them when it comes to running a 3D printer, and in addition to spending her summer building a wind tunnel (aerodynamic research to study the effects of air moving past solid objects), Lamb is captain of the school's robotics team.


 * Both girls are among the many females attending the school and joining the growing number of female metro Denver students interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subjects. [Bold added for emphasis.]

Women in ICT
The remainder of this document provides an overview and brief introduction to various aspects of the role of girls and women in the overall field of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Here we are taking ICT in a very broad sense to include computer science, computer technology, and computer applications. The emphasis is on girls and women gaining and making use of a level of ICT knowledge and skills that is far beyond the "black box" approach. (The term "black box" refers to a unit in an electronic system, with contents that are mysterious to the user.)

In many countries, such as the U.S., Information and Computer Technology (ICT) is thoroughly integrated into the everyday lives of a great majority of the residents. Worldwide sales of Smart Phones now exceed a billion a year. A billion is 1/7 of the world's population. In September, 2015, the Amazon company announced a new 7-inch tablet computer with retail price of $49.99. A six-pack can be purchased for $250. Such sales levels, continuing price decreases, and increasing capabilities of the products are steadily increasing the world's access to ICT.

However, different people have widely varying levels of knowledge and understanding about computer technology. I can turn on an electric light without having an understanding of the role computer technology plays in our power distribution grid. I can make a purchase using my debit or credit card at a store or online without understanding the computerized telecommunication system and banking system that underlies this transaction.

Indeed, I can make use of a modern Smartphone that includes a built-in digital camera, email, GPS, music storage and playback, games, and so on, with almost no understanding of computer technology.

So, you might ask, "What is this 'big deal' about Computational Thinking for All?" "Why do we make such efforts to encourage more women to go into computer science and other computer-related fields of study?"

My overly simplistic answer has two parts:


 * 1) Many individuals can benefit considerably from understanding and making use of computer technology far above a "black box" level of knowledge and skill.
 * 2) Our nation—and all nations of the world—can benefit economically, socially, politically, and in other ways via a greater percentage of their populations knowing and effectively using computer technology above the level of a "black box."

Probably it is the second of these two ideas that motivates our federal government and many other levels of government to place an increasing emphasis on recruiting more women to study computer and information science. These women are encouraged to pursue fields of study to prepare them for jobs that require a relatively deep understanding of computer technology and other aspects of the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines.

As discussed earlier, in the United States, more women than men are now going on to higher education and earning college degrees. However, the number of women pursuing degrees and careers in the STEM areas remains below the number of men in these areas. There have been many studies of this situation and many programs designed to change it.

The U.S. Federal Government funds a variety of programs and studies designed to increase the number of women pursuing degrees and careers in the STEM areas. For example, they funded the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, which now sponsors an annual Grace Hopper Celebration. See http://gracehopper.org/2013/.

History of Women and ICT


Historically, women have been under-represented in the STEM fields. Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper are examples of women who made early and pioneering contributions to the computer field.

In more recent years, women have played an increasingly important role in the field of computer science. They are playing a still larger role in the general field of ICT and in ICT in education. The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) provides an excellent example of women playing leadership roles in the field of ICT in education.

Ada Lovelace</Center>
Quoting from the Wikipedia:


 * Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (10 December 1815, London – 27 November 1852, Marylebone, London), born Augusta Ada Byron, was the only legitimate child of poet Lord Byron. She is widely known in modern times simply as Ada Lovelace.


 * She is mainly known for having written a description of Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the analytical engine. She is today appreciated as the "first programmer" since she was writing programs—that is, manipulating symbols according to rules—for a machine that Babbage had not yet built. She also foresaw the capability of computers to go beyond mere calculating or number-crunching while others, including Babbage himself, focused only on these capabilities.


 * During a nine-month period in 1842-43, Lovelace translated Italian mathematician Luigi Menabrea's memoir on Babbage's newest proposed machine, the Analytical Engine. With the article, she appended a set of notes. The notes are longer than the memoir itself and include, in complete detail, a method for calculating a sequence of Bernoulli numbers with the Engine, which would have run correctly had the Analytical Engine ever been built. Based on this work, Lovelace is now widely credited with being the first computer programmer and her method is recognised as the world's first computer program. [Bold added for emphasis.]

Grace Hopper</Center>
Grace Murray Hopper (1906–1992) was a Ph.D. mathematician, a computer scientist, an educator, and a very successful spokesperson for the field of computer science and for women in computing.

Quoting from http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/tap/Files/hopper-story.html:


 * Rear Admiral Dr. Grace Murray Hopper was a remarkable woman who grandly rose to the challenges of programming the first computers. During her lifetime as a leader in the field of software development concepts, she contributed to the transition from primitive programming techniques to the use of sophisticated compilers. She believed that "we've always done it that way" was not necessarily a good reason to continue to do so.




 * By 1949, programs contained mnemonics that were transformed into binary code instructions executable by the computer. Admiral Hopper and her team extended this improvement on binary code with the development of her first compiler, the A-O. The A-O series of compilers translated symbolic mathematical code into machine code, and allowed the specification of call numbers assigned to the collected programming routines stored on magnetic tape. One could then simply specify the call numbers of the desired routines and the computer would "find them on the tape, bring them over and do the additions. This was the first compiler," she declared.

Linda Roberts</Center>


Linda Roberts led the early development of educational technology programs and grants funded at the Federal level.

Quoting from http://www.aaas.org/news/linda-g-roberts-incredible-power—and-untapped-potential—-education-technology:


 * Linda Roberts has had a distinguished career as an educator and a policymaker focused on education technology—she’s served as an adviser to Sesame Street, Apple, and the White House—and she joined AAAS [the American Association for the Advancement of Science] earlier this year [2011] as a visiting scholar in the Education and Human Resources division. Today, she says U.S. schools—from kindergarten through undergraduate levels—are at an inflection point.

Quoting from http://www.mouse.org/about-mouse/board-of-directors/linda-g-roberts:


 * Linda G. Roberts directed the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology from its inception in September 1993 to January 2001, and served as the Secretary of Education’s Special Adviser on Technology. Roberts developed the first National Technology Plan, launched five new technology programs for the Clinton Administration, and increased the Federal technology budget from $30 million to over $900 million annually.


 * Smithsonian magazine recognized Roberts as, “America’s advocate for educational technology at the highest levels of government.” Roberts played a key role in the development of the E-RATE, a $2.25 billion program to bring the Internet and advanced telecommunications to the Nation’s schools and libraries. Along with program development, Roberts supported research and international efforts to advance the effective use of technology.

Sylvia Charp</Center>
Sylvia Charp (1918-2003) was a pioneer in the field of computers in education. She was a member of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Computer-Oriented Mathematics Committee that wrote the 49-page booklet:


 * Albrecht, R., Charp, S., Johnson, D.,Merserve, B., Parker, J., Thompson, D., & Atchison, W. (1968). Introduction to an Algorithmic Language (BASIC). Publisher: NCTM.

Here is a 1972 report that helped to shape the early days of computers in precollege education:


 * Begle, E., Atchison, W., Charp, S,. Dorn, W., Johnson, D., & Schwartz, J. (April 1972). Recommendations regarding computers in high school education. Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences Committee on Computer Education. Prepared with the support of the National Science Foundation.

Quoting from http://www.upenn.edu/heia/people/bio/charp.html, Sylvia Charp:


 * * [Worked as a] teacher and administrator at the elementary,secondary and university levels.


 * * Worked with educational institutions on planning and implementing technology in education.


 * * [Was a] consultant on use of technology in education and training to organizations such as Bell Atlantic, IBM, AT&T, Hewlett Packard, Digital Corporation, New York Institute of Technology, University of Hartford, University of Delaware.


 * * [Was an] international consultant to UNESCO--worked with countries including Turkey, Russia, South Africa, India, Columbia, Japan, South America.


 * * [Is] past President of American Federation of Information Processing Societies (AFIRS), U.S. Representative to International Federation of Information Processing (IFIPI), and Past President of International Society of Technology in Education (ISTE).


 * * [Is] author of numerous articles and texts.

Sylvia Charp was the founding editor of the publication, Technology Horizons in Education, T.H.E. Journal, and served in this position for 30 years, until she died in a car accident in 2003.

Anita Borg</Center>
The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI) was founded in 1997 by renowned computer scientist Anita Borg, Ph.D. (1949–2003). Initially known as the Institute for Women in Technology, IWT was renamed in 2003 to the Anita Borg Institute in order to honor Dr. Borg.

Quoting from the Wikipedia:


 * Anita Borg was one of a relatively small group of female computer scientists at the Ph.D. level. After getting her doctorate in computer science from New York University in 1981, she worked for several computer companies and then spent 12 years in Digital Equipment's Western Research Laboratory and as consultant engineer in the Network Systems Laboratory in Palo Alto, California. Her primary responsibility was for the MECCA Communications and Information Systems project. She developed and patented a method for generating complete address traces used for analyzing and designing high-speed memory systems.

The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology includes an initiative named Systers. Quoting from its webpage:


 * Systers is the world’s largest email community of technical women in computing. It was founded by Anita Borg in 1987 as a small electronic mailing list for women in “systems”. Today, Systers broadly promotes the interests of women in the computing and technology fields. Anita created Systers to “increase the number of women in computer science and make the environments in which women work more conducive to their continued participation in the field.” See Why Systers? . It serves this purpose by providing women a private space to seek advice from their peers, and discuss the challenges they share as women technologist.


 * Systers is a forum for all women involved in the technical aspects of computing. The list has over 3,000 members in at least 54 countries around the world. We welcome technical women of all ages and at any stage of their studies or careers to participate.

Quoting from the Wikipedia:


 * In 1999, President Bill Clinton appointed her to the Presidential Commission on the Advancement of Women and Minorities in Science, Engineering, and Technology. She was charged with recommending strategies to the nation for increasing the breadth of participation fields for women.
 * Borg received the Augusta Ada Lovelace Award from the Association for Women in Computing for her work on behalf of women in the computing field in 1995.
 * In 1996 she was inducted as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery.
 * Dr. Borg received additional awards and recognition from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Girl Scouts of the USA and was listed on Open Computing Magazine's "Top 100 Women In Computing."

Jo Sanders</Center>
Jo Sanders has many years of experience working in the area of women and technology, science, and mathematics. Quoting from her website:


 * Jo Sanders has been the director of the Center for Gender Equity since the mid-80s. Under her leadership the Center has carried out numerous precedent-setting research and development projects on gender equity in technology, science, and mathematics. The projects have for the most part been nationwide in scope, frequently funded by the National Science Foundation. The Center has also provided extensive staff development for educators at all levels on gender equity, with workshops, seminars, and lectures delivered extensively throughout the United States and abroad.

The website includes many publications available online. Her June 2005 40-page document on "Gender and Technology in Education: A Research Review" includes a huge number of references. Her July/August 2005 article, "Lessons I’ve Learned in 22 Years of Working with Teachers About Girls in IT" focuses on Crossing Cultures, Changing Lives: Integrating Research on Girls’ Choices of IT Careers.

WWII Female "Computers"</Center>
Gumbrect, Jamie (2/8/2011). Rediscovering WWII's Female 'Computers.' CNN Tech. Retrieved 3/3/2011 from http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/02/08/women.rosies.math/index.html?hpt=Sbin. Quoting from the website:


 * It was 2003 and Erickson was interviewing sisters Shirley Blumberg Melvin and Doris Blumberg Polsky for her documentary, "Neighbor Ladies," about a woman-owned real estate agency that helped to peacefully integrate a Philadelphia neighborhood. The twins, long-retired by then, reluctantly mentioned a different sort of job they'd held during World War II: Female "computers."


 * Computer, at that point, was a job title, not a machine. Long before the sisters were businesswomen, community activists, mothers or grandmothers, they were recruited by the U.S. military to do ballistics research. They worked six days a week, sometimes pulling double or triple shifts, along with dozens of other women.


 * The weapons trajectories they calculated were passed out to soldiers in the field and bombardiers in the air. Some of their colleagues went on to program the earliest of general-purpose computers, the ENIAC.

Women Recipients of ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) Turing Awards
The ACM Turing award is named in honor of Alan Turing. Quoting from the website:


 * The Turing Award is ACM's most prestigious technical award. ACM announced on November 13, 2014 that the funding level for the ACM A.M. Turing Award is now $1,000,000, to be provided by Google Inc. The new amount is four times its previous level.


 * The award is given to an individual selected for contributions of a technical nature made to the computing community. The contributions should be of lasting and major technical importance to the computer field. Financial support of the Turing Award is provided by the Intel Corporation and Google Inc.

One or more people have received this award each year, beginning with Alan Perlis in 1966. Most of these awards have been received by men. The first three women to win the Turing Award are:


 * Shafi Goldwasser, 2012. See http://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/goldwasser_8627889.cfm.
 * Barbara H. Liskov, 2008. See http://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/liskov_1108679.cfm.
 * Frances E. Allen, 2006. See http://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/allen_1012327.cfm.

Women in ICT – Education Pioneers
Here are some of the women who played major leadership roles in the early development of the field of ICT in education. This is a growing list of women who have been identified as Information Age Education Pioneers.

Some of the Information Age Education IAE-pedia entries for the people listed below are merely place holders for pages to be written, and other pages are far from complete. Much work remains to be done. Volunteer contributions to helping to complete one or more of these pages will much appreciated. Please send your articles and information to Dave Moursund at moursund@uoregon.edu.

Bialo, Ellen.

Bigham, Vicki Smith.

Billings, Karen.

Cappo, Marge.

Crane, Therese (Terry).

Davidson, Jan.

Goodson, Roberta (Bobby).

Hawkins, Jan.

Hunter, Beverly.

Hurley, Kathy.

Kopec, Anita.

Kurshan, Barbara.

Lathrop, Ann.

Linn, Marcia.

Loop, Liza.

Talley, Sue.

Yoder, Sharon.

Organizations for Women in Computing
There are many organizations dedicated to Women in Computing and that have as one of their goals to help increase the participation of women in the overall field of ICT. Some of these are briefly discussed in the alphabetized list given below.

ACM's Women in Computing (ACM-W)</Center>
Quoting from the website of the Association for Computing Machinery–Women:
 * ACM-W's mission is to celebrate, inform and support women in computing, and work with the ACM-W community of computer scientists, educators, employers and policy makers to improve working and learning environments for women. This includes promoting activities that result in more equal representation of women in CS such as mentoring or role modeling; monitoring the status of women in industrial and academic computing through the gathering of statistics; providing historical information about women's accomplishments and roles in CS; and serving as a repository of information about programs, documents and policies of concern to women in CS.


 * Through international and local activities and chapters, educational outreach, recognition of leading women in CS, cooperation with other organizations, and the dissemination of information via newsletters, blogs, and reports, ACM-W promotes the growth and development of women seeking to attain careers in computing.

American Association of University Women (AAUW)</Center>
The American Association of University Women (AAUW): Breaking through barriers for women and girls. The mission is "Advancing equity for women and girls through advocacy, education, philanthropy, and research." Women in computer technology is one focus of AAUW. Opening Opportunities for Girls in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). Quoting from the AAUW website:


 * The vision of the National Girls Collaborative Project (NGCP) is to bring together organizations that are committed to informing and encouraging girls to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). AAUW's partners in the project include the Puget Sound Center for Teaching, Learning, and Technology; Assessing Women and Men in Engineering; and the Education Development Center.


 * There are many projects devoted to increasing the number of girls interested in STEM across the country, but, often, individuals working on one girl-serving STEM project are unaware of similar projects nearby. A large part of the NGCP is the creation of a Program Directory of these girl-serving projects and others interested in increasing gender equity in STEM. The Program Directory allows organizations and individuals to network, share resources, and collaborate on STEM-related projects for girls.

AAUW has recently published the following report:


 * Hill, C. & Corbett, C. (2015). Solving the Equation. AAUW. Retrieved 9/10/2015 from http://www.aauw.org/research/solving-the-equation/.

Quoting from this report:


 * More than ever before, girls are studying and excelling in science and mathematics. Yet the dramatic increase in girls’ educational achievements in scientific and mathematical subjects has not been matched by similar increases in the representation of women working as engineers and computing professionals. Just 12 percent of engineers are women, and the number of women in computing has fallen from 35 percent in 1990 to just 26 percent today.


 * The numbers are especially low for Hispanic, African American, and American Indian women. Black women make up 1 percent of the engineering workforce and 3 percent of the computing workforce, while Hispanic women hold just 1 percent of jobs in each field. American Indian and Alaska Native women make up just a fraction of a percent of each workforce.

Anita Borg Institute (ABI)</Center>
Quoting from the website of the Anita Borg Institute:


 * ABI is a social enterprise founded on the belief that women are vital to building technology that the world needs.




 * ABI helps women grow their careers and make significant contributions to technical fields. Our programs and awards highlight the accomplishments of women technologists, and recognize organizations building innovation-driven teams. Our events and communities enable women to find their peers and form relationships that result in mutual benefit.

Association for Women in Science (AWIS)</Center>
Quoting from the website of the Association for Women in Science (AWIS):


 * The Association for Women in Science is dedicated to achieving equality and full participation for women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.




 * In 1971, at the annual FASEB meeting, flyers were posted inviting women scientists to a champagne mixer and meeting to encourage the exchange of ideas and solutions to overcoming job discrimination, lower pay, and professional isolation. Those 27 women who took the initiative to make science a better place for women founded the Association for Women in Science (AWIS), today's premiere leadership organization advocating the interests of women in science and technology. For nearly 40 years, the Association for Women in Science has fought for equity and career advancement for women–from the bench to the board room.


 * We unite women through our nationwide network of chapters and partnerships with aligned professional organizations.

Black Girls Code</Center>
Quoting from the website Black Girls Code:


 * Our Vision: To increase the number of women of color in the digital space by empowering girls of color ages 7 to 17 to become innovators in STEM fields, leaders in their communities, and builders of their own futures through exposure to computer science and technology.

Also see the article, Girls Who Code, Black Girls Code and Others Are Growing Fast, Making a Real Difference, available at https://pando.com/2015/04/02/girls-who-code-black-girls-code-and-others-are-growing-fast-making-a-real-difference/.Quoting from the article:


 * Black Girls Code, which by promoting STEM programs works to create more opportunities for women of color in technology, has grown beyond beyond its first operations in the Bay Area. Currently, Black Girls Code has programs in Atlanta, New York, Memphis, Detroit, Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., and Johannesburg, South Africa.

 Center for Gender Equity in Science and Technology</Center>
Arizona State University created the National STEM Collaborative. Quoting from the linked website:


 * Arizona State University’s Center for Gender Equity in Science and Technology formed The National STEM Collaborative (NSTEMC) as a consortium of 12 higher education institutions and 15 non-profit partners to scale research-based best skills and knowledge, resources and practices on access, completion, and workforce development for women of color in STEM. The Collaborative and plan of work are important because African American and Latina adolescent girls express more interest in STEM careers than their White counterparts; yet, relatively fewer enter and persist in STEM majors and in the workforce. According to the National Science Foundation (2012, 2013), minority women comprise fewer than 1 in 10 employed scientists and engineers with only 5 percent of Asian women, 5 percent of African American women, less than 1 percent of Native American women, and 2 percent of Hispanic women represented in the science and engineering labor force in the U.S. This compares poorly with women as a whole, which made up 28 percent of all workers in science and engineering occupations in 2010.


 * Our Mission is not to simply populate the STEM pipeline with more women of color. Rather we seek to provide institutions, students, leaders, corporations, and organizations the skills and resources to change the pipeline to be more equitable for more underrepresented women.

Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research</Center>
Quoting from the website Computer Research Association's Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research:


 * The goal of the CRA Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) is to take positive action to increase the number of women participating in Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) research and education at all levels.


 * The Computer Research Association's Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) is an action oriented organization dedicated to increasing the number of women participating in Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) research and education at all levels.


 * In addition to increasing the number of women involved, we also seek to increase the degree of success they experience and to provide a forum for addressing problems that often fall disproportionately within women's domain. We are hopeful that the committee activities will also have a positive impact for other underrepresented groups in CSE and we are committed to improving the working environment for Computer Scientists and Engineers of both genders.

Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility: Women in Computing</Center>
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility: Women in Computing addresses these major topics:


 * The Debate over Gender Differences
 * Women & Computing Careers: Problems & Solutions
 * Advances for Women in Computing
 * Women Networking
 * More on Women in Computing from the CPSR Archives

EDUCAUSE Women in IT Constituent Group</Center>
Quoting from the EDUCAUSE Women in IT Constituent Group website


 * The Women in IT Constituent Group collects and disseminates effective practices in the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women in higher education IT. Through both virtual and face-to-face networking opportunities and by making good use of its affiliation with the National Center for Women & IT, this group provides a venue for addressing a wide range of issues affecting women IT professionals in colleges and universities, including securing high level leadership roles in higher education. This group meets at the EDUCAUSE Annual Conference and uses the electronic discussion list to discuss issues throughout the year.

<Center>Expanding Your Horizons Network</Center>
Quoting from the Expanding Your Horizons Network (EYHN) website:


 * EYHN is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to providing gateway STEM experiences to middle and high school girls that spark interest in STEM activities and careers. We are guided by the understanding that engaging with female STEM role models and participating in hands-on STEM activities can help girls begin to see themselves pursuing STEM activities and careers.


 * Our Mission: Inspiring girls to recognize their potential and pursue opportunities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

<Center>Geek Girl</Center>
See http://geekgirlcamp.com/. Quoting from this site:


 * Geek Girl empowers women & girls (and dudes!) of all ages and all financial levels in technology, from beginner newbie to startup savant. We do this through full day Tech Conferences, workshops, seminars, public speaking, consulting and Geek Girl for Hire. Our goal is to have a more diverse workforce in tech, create a stronger tech bond between children and their parents, and create a future where every child can become their own Tech Superhero.

<Center>Girls and Math Contests</Center>

 * Whitney, A.K. (4/18/2016). Math for girls, math for boys. The Atlantic. Retrieved 4/24/2016 from

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/04/girls-math-international-competiton/478533/.

Quoting from this article:
 * Thirty nine teams from 39 countries, including the United States, Ecuador, Russia, and the United Kingdom, participated in this year’s European Girls Math Olympiad, up from 30 teams in 2015. This is an encouraging development, considering the week-long Olympiad, which started in 2012, was intended to encourage more girls to participate in math competitions in the first place, said Geoff Smith, the mathematics professor at the University of Bath who came up with the idea.


 * “There’s a problem in international mathematics competitions that the proportion of girls participating is very low,” Smith said, noting that it’s particularly low at world championships such as the International Math Olympiad, where only one in 10 contestants are female and many teams have no girls at all. (Last year’s Team USA, which took gold for the first time in 21 years, was all male.)


 * Smith noticed that, once China started having an annual contest only for girls in 2002, the country began adding girls to its co-ed international team. While he hesitates to say this was the direct cause, he decided it might be a good idea for European girls to have their own Olympiad, too—one whose questions would be just as challenging as those at male-dominated events.

The article continues with a discussion of possible reasons why the participation of girls in high level math contests is at a lower rate than boys.

<Center>Girls Who Code</Center>
Girls Who Code is a non-profit corporation started in 2012 by Reshma Saujani. My 9/9/2015 Google search of the quoted expression, "Girls who code" produced about 314,000 results.

Quoting from the website http://girlswhocode.com:


 * We are a national nonprofit organization working to close the gender gap in the technology and engineering sectors.


 * With support from public and private partners, Girls Who Code works to educate, inspire, and equip high school girls with the skills and resources to pursue  opportunities in computing fields.




 * Reshma Saujani is the founder and CEO of Girls Who Code and the former Deputy Public Advocate of New York City. As Executive Director of the Fund for Public Advocacy, Reshma brought together public and private sectors to encourage entrepreneurship and civic engagement across NYC. She has galvanized industry leaders to close the gender gap in STEM education and empower girls to pursue careers in technology and engineering.

Quoting from http://girlswhocode.com/programs/:


 * The Girls Who Code Summer Immersion Program is a 7-week intensive computer science course that embeds classrooms in technology companies and universities. Girls learn everything from robotics to mobile development to HTML and CSS while gaining exposure to the tech industry and receiving valuable mentorship from women working in technology.

<Center>Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing</Center>
The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing is the world's largest gathering of women technologists. It is produced by the Anita Borg Institute and presented in partnership with ACM. An annual conference is held to celebrate the work of Grace Hopper and other women in computing.

<Center>HeForShe</Center>
Quoting from the Wikipedia:


 * HeForShe is a solidarity campaign for gender equality initiated by UN Women. Its goal is to engage men and boys as agents of change for the achievement of gender equality and women’s rights, by encouraging them to take action against inequalities faced by women and girls. Grounded in the idea that gender equality is an issue that affects all people — socially, economically, and politically — it seeks to actively involve men and boys in a movement that was originally conceived as “a struggle for women by women”.

See the TED Talk:


 * Nyamayaro, E. (May, 2015). An invitation to men who want a better world for women. TED Talks,12:39). Retrieved 9/9/2015 from http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_nyamayaro_an_invitation_to_men_who_want_a_better_world_for_women.

Quoting from the website:


 * Around the world, women still struggle for equality in basic matters like access to education, equal pay and the right to vote. But how to enlist everyone, men and women, as allies for change? Meet Elizabeth Nyamayaro, head of UN Women’s HeForShe initiative, which has created more than 2.4 billion social media conversations about a more equal world. She invites us all to join in as allies in our shared humanity.

<Center>L'Oreal UNESCO Awards (2016)</Center>
The L’Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women Science International program was established in 1998. Awards program identifies and supports eminent women in science throughout the world.

Each year, five Awards Laureates are recognized for their contributions to the advancement of science, in Life or Physical Sciences in alternating years. Currently the award is €100,000.

In addition, a number of fellowships are awarded each year.

<Center>National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT)</Center>
National Center for Women and Information Technology. Quoting from the website:


 * NCWIT works to correct the imbalance of gender diversity in technology and computing because gender diversity positively correlates with a larger workforce, better innovation, and increased business performance. Increasing the number of women in technology and computing also has the potential to improve the design of products and services to better serve a more diverse population, and increase economic and social well-being by providing more women with stable and lucrative careers.

<Center>National Girls Collaborative Project (NGCP)</Center>
[ http://www.ngcproject.org National Girls Collaboration Project.] Quoting from the website:


 * The vision of the NGCP is to bring together organizations throughout the United States that are committed to informing and encouraging girls to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).


 * The goals of NGCP are to:


 * * Maximize access to shared resources within projects, and with public and private sector organizations and institutions interested in expanding girls’ participation in STEM.
 * * Strengthen capacity of existing and evolving projects by sharing exemplary practice research and program models, outcomes, and products.
 * * Use the leverage of a network and the collaboration of individual girl-serving STEM programs to create the tipping point for gender equity in STEM.

<Center>Society of Women Engineers (SWE)</Center>
Quoting from the SWE website:


 * The Society of Women Engineers (SWE) is a not-for-profit educational and service organization that empowers women to succeed and advance in the field of engineering, and to be recognized for their life-changing contributions as engineers and leaders. Founded in 1950, SWE is the driving force that establishes engineering as a highly desirable career for women through an exciting array of training and development programs, networking opportunities, scholarships, outreach and advocacy activities, and much more.

<Center>Women in Technology (WIT)</Center>
Women in Technology. [ http://www.womenintechnology.org/ ] Quoting from the website:


 * When one woman helps another, amazing things can happen. Professional careers leap forward. That's what Women in Technology is all about. As the premier professional association for women in the technology industry, we understand the unique challenges you face. No matter where you are in your professional development, or what technology-related field you're in, our community offers a broad range of support, programs and resources to advance women in technology from the classroom to the boardroom.

<Center>Women in Technology (WIT) Education Foundation</Center>
See Where women and technology come together. Quoting from the website:


 * Women in Technology Education Foundation (WIT Education Foundation) is a nonprofit organization that empowers women and girls to change the world by providing scholarships and financial support to programs that foster interest in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) related careers. It was founded in 2003 with seed grants from Washington D.C. technology entrepreneurs Mario Marino (Legent) and John Sidgmore (UUNET/MCI) as the philanthropic arm of Women in Technology (WIT).


 * WIT Education Foundation is committed to seeking out and supporting area school-sponsored, community and WIT programs that use education to create awareness and excitement in the pursuit of careers in these critical disciplines. Through WIT Education Foundation’s efforts, thousands of girls and young women in the metropolitan DC area have learned about the exciting opportunities available to them in STEM careers.


 * Our Mission


 * To provide women in the technology community a networking and professional growth environment to develop relationships and create new opportunities.


 * Our Vision


 * To be the premier organization contributing to the success of professional women in the technology community.

Gender Gap: Some of the Literature
My 9/2/2015 Google search of the term women and computer technology produced about 273 million results. Here are a few articles from that and more recent searches that have caught my attention.

AAUW (Spring, 2016). Barriers and bias: The status of women in leadership. American Association of University Women. Retrieved 6/1/2016 from http://www.aauw.org/research/barriers-and-bias/.Quoting from the document:


 * Women are not new to leadership; think of Cleopatra or Queen Elizabeth. Think of the women who led the civil rights and education reform movements. But women are still outnumbered by men in the most prestigious positions, from Capitol Hill to the board room. Barriers and Bias: The Status of Women in Leadership examines the causes of women’s underrepresentation in leadership roles in business, politics, and education and suggests what we can do to change the status quo.

Armstrong, D. (6/25/2013). More Women Pick Computer Science if Media Nix Outdated ‘Nerd’ Stereotype. University of Washington. Retrieved 4/30/2014 from http://www.washington.edu/news/2013/06/25/more-women-pick-computer-science-if-media-nix-outdated-nerd-stereotype/. Quoting from the document:


 * University of Washington psychologist Sapna Cheryan wanted to know if gendered stereotypes had any effect on young women’s interest in becoming computer scientists. Specifically, she and colleagues studied whether the stereotypical view of the geeky male nerd so often portrayed in the media, most recently in CBS’s “The Big Bang Theory,” discouraged women from pursuing computer science degrees.


 * “These stereotypes are inconsistent with the female gender role, the qualities that are considered appropriate for women,” said Cheryan, a UW assistant professor of psychology. “It’s inconsistent with how many women see themselves and how they want others to see them.”

Boaler, J. (4/28/2014). Changing the Conversation about Girls and STEM. Presentation to a meeting in the White House. Retrieved 4/30/2014 from https://docs.google.com/file/d/0By5LC4ZuJvJgVGR0TkxsQVBQMkk/edit. Quoting the first paragraph:


 * Achievement for girls and boys in STEM subjects is equal at all levels of school, but shocking inequalities persist in participation, especially as levels get higher (Boaler & Sengupta-Irving, 2006). This restricts girls' access to a wide range of jobs; it also impoverishes the disciplines of mathematics, science, and engineering, enabling a cycle of inequality to continue. Many factors contribute to the decisions girls make, some of which have received extensive funding and attention. The need for role models, and the positive contribution played by after school clubs and camps that engage girls in STEM work, are well understood and documented (GSUSA, 2008). But important and actionable causes of inequality have been neglected in recent decades and new research evidence underscores their importance. These may be considered under two broad headings: (1) Teaching and Identity development, and (2) Beliefs and Messages.

Bolkan, Joshua (10/1/2013). Intel's 'She Will Connect' Aims To Reduce Digital Gender Gap in Developing World. Campus Technology. Retrieved 10/2/2013 from http://campustechnology.com/articles/2013/10/01/intels-she-will-connect-aims-to-reduce-digital-gender-gap-in-developing-world.aspx?=CT21. Quoting from the article:


 * In a bid to narrow the digital literacy gender gap in the developing world, Intel will launch a new initiative dubbed She Will Connect. Working with non-governmental organizations and governments, the company will kick off the program in Africa, where the gender gap is widest, according to information released by the company.


 * Additionally, the company will continue working toward its goal of reaching 1 million Indian women with its Easy Steps digital literacy program and will expand its digital literacy and entrepreneurial skills training in Latin America, where the gender gap is widest, according to information released by the company.

Carnegie Mellon (n.d.). Women@SCS School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University. Retrieved 4/30/2014 from http://women.cs.cmu.edu/. Quoting from the website:


 * The Women@SCS mission is to create, encourage, and support academic, social, and professional opportunities for women in computer science and to promote the breadth of the field and its diverse community.

Damour, Lisa (11/9/09). Teaching Girls to Tinker. Education Week. Retrieved 11/22/09 from http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Finding-the-Kindle-a-Poor/8808/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en. Quoting from the article:


 * Girls now surpass boys in nearly every measure of academic success. A 2004 report from the National Center for Education Statistics confirmed that girls had higher educational goals than boys, were less likely to repeat a grade or drop out of school, took more Advanced Placement courses, and were more likely to go to and graduate from college.


 * Even in high school mathematics— a subject where boys have consistently held an edge—the playing field seems, somehow, to have leveled. As a 2008 report in the journal Science calmly declared, “Standardized tests in the U.S. indicate that girls now score just as well as boys in math.”


 * Yet, even as girls open new gender gaps by outpacing their male peers in most subjects, men still receive roughly 77 percent of the bachelor’s degrees awarded in engineering and 85 percent of those in computer science. Why aren’t girls choosing to enter these critical fields of the future?

Dean, Kari Lynn (01/19/2004). Awarding the Brains Behind AI. Wired. Retrieved 8/10/09: http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2004/10/65357. Quoting from the article:


 * [Daphne Koller's] creativity recently garnered a $500,000, no-strings-attached MacArthur Fellowship. And contrary to Eliot/Evans' antiquated dictum, Koller won the MacArthur "genius award" because her creativity in resolving uncertainty could benefit society.


 * By addressing fundamental problems with machine learning and exploring the foundations of intelligence, Koller is pushing the limits of present-day scientific understanding of how to build computer programs that learn efficiently and reason intelligently.


 * "Daphne has been at the forefront of work that demonstrates how real-world challenges can drive the developments of new theoretical principles and how those can be applied to teach us more about the world," said Eric Horvitz, Microsoft research manager and chairman of the Association for Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence.

Frohlich, T. & Kent, A. (10/16/2014). The 10 worst states for women. 24/7 Wall Street. Retrieved 10/10/2015 from http://247wallst.com/special-report/2014/10/16/the-10-worst-states-for-women-2/. Quoting from the article:


 * Based on recently released Census Bureau data, women made up almost half of the workforce last year. Yet, even working full-time and year-round, they were paid only 79 cents for every dollar men made. The wage gap varies considerably between states. Women receive 86 cents for every dollar men make in New York, for example, while in Louisiana, women are paid just 66% of what men earn.

Gardella, Adriana (6/24/2011). Why Women Have an Advantage in Technology. The New York Times. Retrieved 6/29/2011 from http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/24/why-women-have-an-advantage-in-technology/. This article is an interview with Audrey MacLean, a technologist and entrepreneur. Here are two of the questions:


 * Q. Technology is often described as a field that’s inhospitable to women. Has that been your experience?


 * Ms. MacLean: When I entered the industry, it was burgeoning. Though being a woman was a novelty, it was growing so fast the opportunity was there, just as the opportunity was there for women during World War II. Tech is a true meritocracy. Either you have the goods or you don’t. There’s less concern with gender, race, color, and creed. I really truly believe that, despite data on the dearth of women in technology, tech doesn’t have a barrier up to women. In fact, if anything, women who are technically prepared have an advantage.


 * Q. What would get more women to choose careers in technology?


 * Ms. MacLean: We need to get girls interested in computing by first grade. By fifth grade, it’s game over. Computing has an image crisis. A boy geek subculture has grown up around gaming that involves violence. It’s not something little girls aspire to. It’s not about lack of educational opportunities for women. Smart girls graduate from high school with straight A’s, go to college, and find themselves surrounded by guys who’ve been hacking for 10 years. So they’re way behind. They get discouraged, and go into law or medicine. [Bold added for emphasis.]

Houtman, Nick (5/13/2015). Elusive equity: Oregon State tackles the persistent bias inhibiting women in STEM fields. terra. Retrieved 9/12/2015 from http://oregonstate.edu/terra/2015/05/elusive-equity/.

This article tells the story of Jane Lubchenco. Her credentials include becoming the president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the first female administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a MacArthur “genius” fellow, the winner of numerous other scientific awards and a Distinguished Professor of zoology at Oregon State.

The article begins with the following (disgusting) story:


 * As a 25-year-old Ph.D. candidate at Harvard, Jane Lubchenco joined her classmates at the biology department’s annual orientation meeting for incoming graduate students. A professor welcomed the group and asked them to look around the room. Take note, he told them, that equal numbers of men and women were present.


 * “He said, ‘This is the first time in the history of the department that’s been the case. And we think it’s appropriate and remarkable, and I want you to understand why we have chosen to have this balance,’” Lubchenco recalls. “‘We have learned from experience that the men graduate students are not happy if they do not have women around. So we have chosen to accept more women graduate students to satisfy that need, and we don’t really expect all of you to finish.’”

The article presents information about Oregon State University's efforts to recruit more women science faculty members:


 * Despite these and other measures — a nationally recognized program known as Difference, Power, and Discrimination (DPD); offices of Equity and Inclusion and Work/Life Balance; a dual-career hiring initiative; and a spousal employment network known as the Greater Oregon Higher Education Recruitment Consortium — employment in STEM fields at Oregon State is still overwhelmingly male. In 2012, 21 percent of tenured and tenure-track STEM faculty were women. By comparison, women comprised 34 percent of tenure-track faculty in all fields and nearly 42 percent of faculty in the social and behavioral sciences.

The article includes the stories of four other women scientists at OSU.

Lewin, Tamar (3/21/2010). Bias Called Persistent Hurdle for Women in Sciences. Retrieved 3/22/2010 from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/science/22women.html?ref=education. Quoting from the article:


 * A report on the under representation of women in science and math by the American Association of University Women, to be released Monday, found  that although women have made gains, stereotypes and cultural biases  still impede their success.


 * The report, “Why So Few?,” supported by the National Science Foundation, examined decades of  research to cull recommendations for drawing more women into science,  technology, engineering and mathematics, the so-called STEM fields.

Miller, Claire Caine (April 2, 2013). Opening a Gateway for Girls to Enter the Computer Field. The New York Times. Retrieved 4/5/2013 from http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/04/02/opening-a-gateway-for-girls-to-enter-the-computer-field/. Quoting from the article:


 * Girls Who Code is among the recent crop of programs intended to close the gender gap in tech by intervening early, when young women are deciding what they want to study. With names like Hackbright Academy, Girl Develop It, Black Girls Code and Girls Teaching Girls to Code, these groups try to present a more exciting image of computer science.


 * The paucity of women in the tech industry has been well documented. Even though women represent more than half the overall work force, they hold less than a quarter of computing and technical jobs, according to the National Center for Women and Information Technology based at the University of Colorado, Boulder. At the executive and founder levels, women are even scarcer.




 * Even so, the number of women entering technology has been declining. Women earn just 12 percent of computer science degrees, down from 37 percent in 1984. Tech executives, recruiters and financiers say women simply do not walk through their doors seeking work.

Minero, E. (5/15/2017). 12 inspiring STEM books for girls. Edutopia. Retrieved 5/31/2017 from ttps://www.edutopia.org/article/12-inspiring-stem-books-girls-emelina-minero?utm_source=Edutopia%20News&utm_campaign=e4b42d4703-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_053117_enews_inspiringstembooks_mc&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_29295b4c8b-e4b42d4703-48618435. Quoting from the document::


 * Science, technology, engineering, and math are more important than ever, so we’ve put together a list of books to encourage girls to persevere in these subjects.

Peck, Morgan E. (6/27/2012). Breaking the Programmer Code: Margo Seltzer's Views on Women in Computer Science. Txchnologist. Retrieved 7/9/2012 from http://www.txchnologist.com/2012/breaking-the-brogrammer-code-margo-seltzers-views-on-women-in-computer-science. Quoting from the article:


 * Dr. Margo Seltzer is a computer science professor in Harvard University’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and an architect at Oracle. She spent several years at startup computer companies after receiving a bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics from Harvard and a PhD in computer science from the University of California, Berkley.


 * Her work developing software programs, databases and a log-structured file system has propelled her to the forefront of computer science research. She is the recipient of a number of fellowships for her work, most recently being named a fellow in the Association for Computing Machinery in 2011.


 * Txchnologist: Although women make up nearly half of the workforce in the U.S., the Department of Commerce reports that only one out of four employed computer scientists is female. Does this fit with what you see?


 * Margo Seltzer: It’s stunning. The numbers are bad, and they’re not particularly getting better globally. The only place that I’ve encountered worse numbers is actually finance and entrepreneurism. Those are the only events that I’ve ever gone to where I’ve felt that I was even more outnumbered.

Samuel, A. (4/5/2016). In video game addiction a "boy" problem? JESTOR. Retrieved 4/30/2016 from http://daily.jstor.org/is-video-game-addiction-a-boy-problem/. Quoting from the article:


 * Seven years later, I can only dream about getting my kid to hand over an iPhone without a struggle. Ditto for a tablet or laptop. And good luck getting my kid to wrap up a gaming session on the Xbox, Playstation, or Wii.


 * Well, one of my kids: the boy. Our daughter is far less likely to lose her tiny mind over the end of game time, and also, less likely to wake me up at 5 am in order to watch video games on YouTube.


 * When I commiserate with other tech-tortured parents, this seems to be a common pattern: yes, there are some girls who get really into video gaming, but it seems like it’s far more frequently an issue for little boys. Is this yet another case of parents making broad generalizations based on personal observation and preconceived notions about gender, or is there really a difference in how boys and girls game?

Shanahan, Marie-Claire. (3/29/2011). Can We Declare Victory for Women in Their Participation in Science? Not Yet. Scientific American. Retrieved 4/11/2011 from http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=can-we-declare-victory-in-the-parti-2011-03-29. Here is a short quote from the article:


 * When will we know when we can declare victory? For years I proceeded on the assumption that victory was equal participation of men and women in all branches of science and engineering. Today I'm not so sure.... It's possible that we will come to understand that some fraction of the asymmetries in the distribution of women in the sciences, with women far more well represented in the life sciences and less so in the physical sciences, is the result of women seeking those fields in which they are able to make the greatest contribution in their own judgement. As scientists we have to be open to that possibility.

Shankar, Vedantam (9/1/2015). Hard Evidence: Teachers' Unconscious Biases Contribute to Gender Disparity. NPR (Hidden brain). Retrieved 9/14/2015 from http://www.npr.org/2015/09/01/436525758/how-teachers-unconscious-bias-play-into-the-hands-ofgender-disparity.

This paper reports on a longitudinal study of 3,000 students in Tel Aviv, Israel. The study began with a math test graded both by teachers who knew the students and their gender, and by graders who did not know the students or their gender. There were marked differences in the scoring, with the gender-free scoring producing higher scores for girls and lower scores for boys, when compared to the possible gender-biased grading of the teachers who knew the students.

Quoting from the paper:


 * (Interviewer): So this is looking at sixth grade. And you are suggesting that girls are being scored unfairly, getting lower test scores in sixth grade and getting some kind of message that science and math are just not for them?


 * (Researcher): That's exactly right, David. And it works the opposite for boys. Boys are told, wow, you're really good at math, even though they might not be so good, and they get the message that science and math are for me. One of the very interesting things that Sand and Lavy find is that the children's family background seems to make a difference. Children whose mothers are as highly educated as their fathers seem to be protected against the effects of this bias when they reach high school.

Sherbin, Laura (6/11/2015). Female scientists feel the bias in their labs. The New York Times. Retrieved 9/11/2015 from http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/11/nobel-winning-sexism-in-the-lab/female-scientists-feel-the-bias-in-their-labs. Quoting from the article:


 * The Center for Talent Innovation found gender bias to be the common denominator for women in science who are turning off and turning out. As a result, nearly a third of women in science, engineering and technology (S.E.T.) fields say they are likely to quit within a year.


 * More than a quarter of female scientists in the United States – and even more in emerging markets – say they believe they are at a disadvantage purely because of their gender.


 * More than a third of women in S.E.T fields have suspected bias in their performance evaluation. And most S.E.T. women feel excluded from informal male “buddy” networks among their peers. Additionally, many S.E.T. senior leaders (31 percent in the United States, 22 percent in Brazil, 51 percent in China and 57 percent in India) say a woman would never get a top position at their company, no matter how able or high performing. [Bold added for emphasis.]

Snyder, Bill (11/14/2013). Shocker: Women outnumbered men in this year's tech hires. InfoWorld. Retrieved 11/15/2013 from http://www.infoworld.com/d/the-industry-standard/shocker-women-outnumber-men-in-years-tech-hires-230810. Quoting from the article:


 * Woman have been locked out, or at least badly underrepresented, in IT for years. And not just from the corner office, but in every job from janitor to the science- and engineering-related positions that make up the vast bulk of good-paying jobs in the technology industry.


 * That's finally changing—in a significant way. For the first time in at least a decade, a majority of the jobs created in technology so far this year have been filled by women, according to data collected by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.


 * During the first nine months of 2013, a total of 39,000 jobs were created in what the government calls "computer systems design and related services." Of those a bit more than 60 percent went to women, compared to just 34 percent for all of 2012. Over the last 10 years, the average proportion of women hired to fill new jobs in the sector—there were about 534,000—was just 30.8 percent.

Steele, Bill (11/20/2013) Something about STEM drives women out. phys.org. Retrieved 11/28/2013 from http://phys.org/news/2013-11-stem-women.html. Quoting from the website:


 * In the first study to compare women in STEM with other professional women, Sharon Sassler, professor of policy analysis and management, and colleagues found that women in STEM fields have been more likely to move out of their field of specialty than other professional women, especially early in their careers; few women in either group completely leave the labor force.


 * "A lot of people still think it's having children that leads to STEM women's exits," Sassler said "It's not the family. Women leave before they have children or even get married. Our findings suggest that there is something unique about the STEM climate that results in women leaving."

Weissimann, Jordan: (9/12/2013). The Brogrammer Effect: Women Are a Small (and Shrinking) Share of Computer Workers. The Atlanntic. Retrieved 9/17/2013 from http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/09/the-brogrammer-effect-women-are-a-small-and-shrinking-share-of-computer-workers/279611/. Quoting from the article:


 * According to a Census report out this week, women today still make up a frustratingly small 26 percent of workers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) jobs. But whereas their presence has at least grown or held steady in most of these fields, it's been on a 20-plus-year decline in computer workers, such as developers, programmers, and security analysts.


 * In 1990, a third of computer workers were women. Now: 27 percent.


 * One of the issues might well be academic, in a literal sense. Women peaked as a percentage of all computer science undergraduates in the 1980s, not long before they topped out in the computer workforce. And while researchers are still trying to explain the falloff, it seems pretty plain that culture--the way society at large still treats tech as a male bastion, and the often nerd-frat hybrid culture of the field itself--plays a role.

Wood, Colin (9/6/2013). National movement targets lack of women, minorities in computing. Government Technology. Retrieved 12/19/2013 from http://www.govtech.com/education/National-Movement-Targets-Lack-of-Women-Minorities-in-Computing.html. Quoting from the article:


 * Women dominate in U.S. universities, with 57 percent of all undergraduate degrees going to women. It’s not that women aren’t technically minded either, as 52 percent of all math and science undergraduate degrees are attained by women. But in computer and information science, women represent only 18 percent of all undergraduate degrees. And the trend starts early in a woman’s educational career, as females represent 56 percent of high school Advanced Placement (AP) test-takers, but only 19 percent of AP Computer Science test-takers.


 * There are broader problems perpetuated by American educational institutions, like the fact that most high schools don't require any kind of computer classes, or make any distinction between computer literacy classes and computer science classes. But these issues aren’t keeping white males out of computer science, so there must be other factors at work.

Wikipedia (n.d.). Timeline of women in mathematics in the United States. Retrieved 5/13/2016 from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women_in_mathematics_in_the_United_States. Example:
 * 1886: Winifred Edgerton Merrill became the first American woman to earn a PhD in mathematics, which she earned from Columbia University.


 * 1927: Anna Pell-Wheeler became the first woman to present a lecture at the American Mathematical Society Colloquium.

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IAE Resources
People interested in this Women and ICT document are also apt to be interested in:


 * Computational thinking.
 * What is computer science?
 * History of computers in education.
 * Knowledge is power.
 * What is mathematics?
 * Using humor to maximize learning.
 * History of computing for learning and education.

Authors
The original version of this IAE-pedia page was developed by David Moursund. Ann Lathrop served as editor for September, 2015 revision and expansion of this document.