Computer science, also known as computer programming, has somewhat of a reputation for being a “guy thing” in the modern day. Statistics reflect this attitude: In 2019, the National Center for Women & Information Technology found only 26% of professional computing jobs were held by women in the US, significantly less than the peak in 1984 at 37%. However, before this sudden drop, there are many women who made a name for themselves in the emergent field.
In the year 1980, programmer Dona Bailey left her job at General Motors to work for Atari, the prominent video game company of the time, where she hoped she could use her computer skills into something a little more fun than car displays. Despite difficult interviews, Bailey was hired quickly, in part due to her experience with the 6502 assembly language, which Atari was using for their arcade games. Not only was Bailey one of the few 6502 experienced engineers on the job market, she was one of the few female programmers that Atari had seen for interviews. When Bailey was hired, she was the only woman working for the “coin-op” department responsible for Atari’s video games. Bailey went on to create the game “Centipede” for Atari, which became a huge commercial success, and garnered the largest female audience for any video game at the time at 60% of the total audience. While Dona Bailey’s success as a programmer stands as a monument to women in computer science, the following decade of the 1980’s would mark a tragic decline for gender diversity in the field.
What Happened in the 1980’s?
The women’s liberation movement of the 1970’s was focused heavily on removing barriers from entry faced by women when trying to join specialized career fields, such as in the emerging tech industry. Companies at the time began to implement internalized affirmative action programs and other ways to minimize bias in the hiring process. A woman named Barbara Boyle created her own consultancy firm for these purposes after doing similar work as computer company IBM’s personnel executive. Much of this progress was unfortunately undone in the following decade due to a variety of factors.
Backlash Against Women in Computer Science
One reason was an apparent shift in cultural attitudes toward feminism. In the book “Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women”, author Susan Faludi documented what she believed was concerted effort by American media to shift the blame for the various problems faced by women onto women themselves, instead of systematic issues. While larger companies held on to their internal measures against bias, Faludi argued that “corporate America has yet to make an honest effort toward eradicating it.”
Computer Companies Gut Human Recourses
Market forces also created significant problems for women in tech. President Ronald Reagan was known for deregulating business and pushing for companies to maximize share-holder value over reinvesting gains into employee benefits. This trend, sometimes called “Neoliberalism”, combined with an increasingly competitive and international tech market, meant all but the largest corporations stripped their recruiting and HR departments of anything meant to advance women in the company, and used all available resources solely for the purposes of maximizing profit. Consequently, many of the Silicon Valley start-ups at the time, which would eventually become giants in the 21st century, had extremely male-dominated cultures with little resources for female employees who felt harassed or discriminated against within the workplace.
New Stereotypes About Women and Computers
Stereotypes regarding men and women’s interest in computer technology also proved a hindrance. Entertainment media in the 1980’s reinforced commercial computer use as a boy’s activity. Popular films such as “Tron” or “WarGames” featured computer savvy male protagonists. Advertisements for personal computers and video games targeted young men as a prime demographic. Interestingly, these stereotypes were somewhat new. in the 1940’s, when the US military funded the first programmable computer, much of the programming work was assigned to women, based on the belief that the hardware engineering would be the difficult part that could be handled by men. The leaders of that project misunderstood the analytic skills the programming work required, and later hid female contribution from the press after they realized how essential the women programmers’ skills were. On the commercial side of things, the early video game “Pong” was advertised as a family activity, like a board game, instead of as a personal toy for boys or girls in particular. Later arcade games like Pac-Man and its sequel Ms. Pac-Man were known for being popular with women. Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani stated in an interview in 2010 that he designed the game with the goal to appeal to a female audience because he and his collogues “wanted as many people as possible to enjoy the game.”
How Can Computer Science Become Less Sexist?
While advancements for women in various career fields are and should be celebrated, it is important to remember all of the progress that has been lost as well, and not to assume that winning fight for equality is an inevitable fact of history. Luckily, there are a variety of organizations trying to get women back in Computer Science again via tutoring programs, such as the Grace Hopper Program. In addition, as more women enter entrepreneurial or managerial positions in companies, this will hopefully give way to less discrimination in the hiring process.
