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Women & Computing at Scottish Ruby

Women & Computing at Scottish 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.

Jessica Lynn Suttles

May 12, 2013
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Transcript

  1. ENIAC was the first electronic general computer, funded by the

    US Army to make these calculations faster Sunday, May 12, 13
  2. in 1944, women human computers were hired to ‘set up’

    the ENIAC to perform the calculations they had been doing by hand Sunday, May 12, 13
  3. in the 1940’s the idea was prevalent that the development

    of hardware was the real business of computing Sunday, May 12, 13
  4. Jon von Neuman said coding was a “static” process–one that

    could be performed by a low-level clerical worker Sunday, May 12, 13
  5. Maurice Wilkes said, “It had not occurred to me that

    there was going to be an difficulty about getting programs working.” Sunday, May 12, 13
  6. the women were integral to making the machine perform the

    intended calculations Sunday, May 12, 13
  7. the women could debug the ENIAC down to the one

    failing vacuum tube out of 18,000 Sunday, May 12, 13
  8. they worked around the clock for the first public demonstration

    to make sure that it went according to plan Sunday, May 12, 13
  9. after the successful public demonstration, the women were not invited

    to the celebration dinner Sunday, May 12, 13
  10. the women were also never given credit in press releases

    and were cropped out of photos Sunday, May 12, 13
  11. it wasn’t until the 1990s that the women’s accomplishments were

    discovered and given the credit they deserved Sunday, May 12, 13
  12. one of the first programming languages. *Lisp and Fortran in

    the same 3-year period. Sunday, May 12, 13
  13. 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 Sunday, May 12, 13
  14. in the 1950’s the use of computers expanded beyond scientific

    use and computing entered the business world Sunday, May 12, 13
  15. at first, the high demand for computer personnel left little

    room for sexual discrimination in hiring Sunday, May 12, 13
  16. hiring was hard: there were no formal training programs, no

    certification programs, no university programs Sunday, May 12, 13
  17. aptitude tests began to be widely used, and they relied

    heavily on mathematical and logical skills Sunday, May 12, 13
  18. programmers were given an unprecedented amount of freedom, and they

    encroached on the domains of operational managers Sunday, May 12, 13
  19. at this time we also see the start of the

    movement to ‘professionalize’ computing Sunday, May 12, 13
  20. this partially means distancing the ‘programmer’ from the low status

    and gender associations of the ‘coder’ Sunday, May 12, 13
  21. "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." Sunday, May 12, 13
  22. once the precent was set, the boy’s club self perpetuated

    and carried through to current day Sunday, May 12, 13
  23. so how can we change the future? let’s look at

    some programs that have worked. Sunday, May 12, 13
  24. 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 Sunday, May 12, 13
  25. over the period of 5 years they interviewed 100 computer

    science students of both genders Sunday, May 12, 13
  26. part way through the study they made some changes to

    admission standards Sunday, May 12, 13
  27. high GRE scores + emphasis on leadership - prior programming

    experience + catch-up courses Sunday, May 12, 13
  28. nearly 20% more women are earning computer science degrees at

    Harvey Mudd than before Maria Klawe became president Sunday, May 12, 13
  29. We have realized: We are not in an elite club.

    Anyone can join in. Sunday, May 12, 13
  30. We have realized: That ‘good programmers’ come in many forms,

    and may not think or look like us. Sunday, May 12, 13
  31. So how can we change the future? Be respectful &

    encourage others to be respectful Sunday, May 12, 13