Recent gender diversity reports from Google, Facebook, and Apple (to name a few) have spurred a number of positive efforts to bring more women into computer science including the Supercomputing 2014 (SC14 WHPC) “Women in High Performance Computing” workshop, NVIDIA’s “Women who CUDA” campaign, and Google’s $50M “Women Who Code” program. The severely biased percentages for tech positions reported by Google (17% women, 83% men), Apple (20% women, 80% men), Twitter (10% women, 90% men), Facebook (15% women, 85% men), Yahoo (15% women, 85% men), and others shows that even sought-after technology careers at leading companies are not attracting young women. The causes behind the lack of gender diversity are many and generally subtle as gender bias in hiring is illegal in the US.
The TechEnablement article, “Gender Diversity Study “In Science, It Matters That Women Come Last“, noted a study that on average a female scientist is more likely to be first author (indicating the scientist is primarily responsible for the paper), but is less likely to be last author (indicating the senior scientist who supervised the work). The end result is that “even though women tend to work on papers with more authors, they have significantly fewer collaborators and are significantly less central to the overall community of people publishing scientific papers.” The end result is fewer publications by women scientists and a resulting social isolation in the network of scientists. Specifically, “even though women tend to work on papers with more authors, they have significantly fewer collaborators and are significantly less central to the overall community of people publishing scientific papers.”
A recent study by UC Berkeley sociologist doctoral student Michelle Rossi of white teenage girls in their last year of a well-funded U.S. high school identified a group that she dubbed “getting-by girls”. “These girls under-perform academically not because they lack ability, or self-esteem, or good teachers,” said Rossi, who presented her findings at the August 2014 meeting of the American Sociological Association in San Francisco. [UC Berkeley News]
Addressing such perception issues certainly plays a central role in the Supercomputing 2014 WHPC (Women in HPC) workshop, NVIDIA, and $50M Google effort to bring young women into technology careers. As Rossi said, “The getting-by girls’ emphasis on fun and cultivating social ties is appealing, as is their resistance to the cut-throat competitiveness and pursuit of self-interest they see among their ‘overachiever’ peers.”
A short interview with Michele Rossi by Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society:
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