Women & Computing at Nordic Ruby

This is a co-presented talk with [Elise Worthy](https://speakerdeck.com/eliseworthy/).

Computer programming was once seen as "women's work." Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, Adele Goldberg, and others played pivotal roles in paving the way for today's computing professions. So why then do we see so few women in our community? We'll cover the history of women in computing, possible causes of the gender imbalance, and ideas for how our community can shape a future that includes more women.

Transcript

1. the history of women in computing 1
2. Elise Worthy @eliseworthy 2
4. anonymous 4
5. Jessica Lynn Suttles @jlsuttles 5
7. Rails Girls LA 7
8. http://railsgirlssummerofcode.org/campaign/ 8
9. the history of women in computing 9
11. 1800s 11
13. Jacquard Loom 1801 13
14. Analytical Engine 1837 14
15. Ada Lovelace 15
16. the first program. 16
17. the first program. 17
18. Lord Byron 18
19. “Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey.” 19
20. “Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey.” Blech! 20
24. 1940s 24
27. 1942 Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service 27
30. computer historically means ‘one who computes’ 30
31. during WWII human computers were used to calculate ballistic trajectories 31
33. these human computers were almost exclusively women 33
41. human computers took 40 hours to calculate a 60 second trajectory 41
42. the differential analyzer sped up these calculations by mechanical calculation 42
44. the differential analyzer took 15 minutes to calculate a 60 second trajectory 44
45. Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer 45
46. ENIAC was the first electronic general computer, funded by the US Army to make these calculations faster 46
48. the ENIAC took seconds to calculate a 60 second trajectory 48
49. in 1944 women human computers were hired to ‘set up’ the ENIAC to perform the calculations they had been doing by hand 49
51. in the 1940’s the idea was prevalent that the development of hardware was the real business of computing 51
52. Jon von Neuman said coding was a “static” process–one that could be performed by a low-level clerical worker 52
53. Maurice Wilkes said, “It had not occurred to me that there was going to be an difficulty about getting programs working.” 53
54. the women learned to ‘set up’ the ENIAC by studying block diagrams 54
58. ENIAC had 18,000 vacuum tubes 20 accumulators 200 decade counters 58
59. the women were integral to making the machine perform the intended calculations 59
60. the women could debug the ENIAC down to the one failing vacuum tube out of 18,000 60
61. they worked around the clock for the first public demonstration to make sure that it went according to plan 61
62. after the successful public demonstration, the women were not invited to the celebration dinner 62
63. the women were also never given credit in press releases and were cropped out of photos 63
65. it wasn’t until the 1990s that the women’s accomplishments were discovered and given the credit they deserved 65
67. 1942 Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service 67
68. Admiral Grace Hopper 68
69. Grace post-war 69
71. the first compiler. 71
72. the first compiler. 72
73. Mother of COBOL 73
74. one of the first programming languages. 74
75. one of the first programming languages. *Lisp and Fortran in the same 3-year period. 75
76. org xor ax, ax mov ds, ax mov si, msg boot_loop:lodsb or al, al jz go_flag mov ah, 0x0E int 0x10 jmp boot_loop go_flag: jmp go_flag msg db 'Hello, world', 13, 10, 0 times 510-($-$$) db 0 db 0x55 db 0xAA 76
77. MAIN-LOGIC SECTION. DISPLAY "Hello, world" STOP RUN. 77
78. puts “Hello, World” 78
80. The beginning of the stereotypical software engineer. 80
81. in the 1950’s the use of computers expanded beyond scientific use and computing entered the business world 81
82. at first, the high demand for computer personnel left little room for sexual discrimination in hiring 82
83. hiring was hard: there were no formal training programs, no certification programs, no university programs 83
84. but obstacles began to stack up against women and gender discrimination appeared as a function of historical accident 84
85. aptitude tests began to be widely used, and they relied heavily on mathematical and logical skills 85
86. personality tests began to be widely used, and they favored male traits 86
87. the stereotype became self perpetuating that people who were good at programming were anti-social, masculine, and formally trained in mathematics 87
88. programmers had to work at night to get unlimited access to the machines 88
89. many company policies did not allow women on the premises at night 89
90. government-subsidized vocational programs targeted women, but did not provide proper training 90
91. programmers were given an unprecedented amount of freedom, and they encroached on the domains of operational managers 91
92. managers critiqued programming for being and art and not yet a science 92
93. at this time we also see the start of the movement to ‘professionalize’ computing 93
94. this partially means distancing the ‘programmer’ from the low status and gender associations of the ‘coder’ 94
96. "It's just like planning a dinner. You have to plan ahead and schedule everything so it's ready when you need it. Programming requires patience and the ability to handle detail. Women are 'naturals' at computer programming." 96
97. once the precent was set, the boy’s club self perpetuated and carried through to current day 97
100. so how can we change the future? let’s look at some programs that have worked. 100
101. 1995 101
102. Carnegie Mellon University 102
103. Jane Margolis is a social scientist who studies gender and education Allan Fisher is the founding dean of the CMU undergraduate program in computer science 103
104. they began a study at CMU to understand the gender imbalance 104
105. over the period of 5 years they interviewed 100 computer science students of both genders 105
106. part way through the study they made some changes to admission standards 106
107. high GRE scores + emphasis on leadership - prior programming experience + catch-up courses 107
111. 2006 111
112. Maria Klawe became president of Harvey Mudd College 112
113. introductory courses split up students with previous experience and students without 113
114. first-year students attend a giant conference for women in computing 114
115. there are women instructors 115
116. nearly 20% more women are earning computer science degrees at Harvey Mudd than before Maria Klawe became president 116
118. 2013 118
119. http://railsgirls.com http://railsbridge.org http://girldevelopit.com 119
120. 2014 120
122. We have accepted: Diversity in the programming community helps everyone. 122
123. We have ensured: The Ruby community is inviting to new programmers. 123
124. We have realized: We are not in an elite club. Anyone can join in. 124
125. We have ensured: The Ruby community fights to retain its members. 125
126. We have realized: That ‘good programmers’ come in many forms, and may not think or look like us. 126
127. So how can we change the future? Be respectful & encourage others to be respectful 127
128. “If you think you don’t have biases, that’s your biggest bias.” - @avdi 128
129. 101 RR Diversity with Ashe Dryden http://rubyrogues.com/ 101-rr-diversity-with-ashe-dryden/ Anti-Oppression 101 by Lindsey Bieda & Steve Klabnik http://confreaks.com/videos/1089- madisonruby2012-anti-opression-101 129
131. Thank you. @eliseworthy & @jlsuttles 131