That's What She Codes
Why should women get into coding?
There is a number of reasons why women, as much as men, are made for any
number of job fields. Whenever there are men and women on a team, there
will be a better outcome for the project at hand. So why is the
workforce in so many job fields, especially in IT, predominantely male?
When it comes to the compouter programming department, women have been
significantly under-represented for years. Within recent years however,
things are looking brighter for women who code. The numbers of female
coders are growing. There are more and more ressources and workshops out
there who focus solemnly on women and their pragramming potential. Maybe
that will bring women up to speed again, as it hasn't always been like
that for half of the population of the world in the past. Looking at the
history, women have started out strongly in the IT field and were held
back mostly due to the restrictive minds of society. Let's dive into the
topic even more below and find out, why programming might be exactly the
job field you should invest in right now. [1][2]
- First of all: Women and Men are equally as important
- History of Coding
- No time like the present
We shouldn't aim to kick men out, but rather set a good foundation early on for women and men to excel at whatever job they might be interested in. It is very important that we get to a place, where there are as much male coders as female coders out there, to achieve equality in the workplace. That is when we will achieve the best outcome to a project. But why is it, that today there are far more men in the programming industry than women? Has it always been like that? [1][2]
Around 200 years ago, Lady Ada Lovelace’s inventor husband was struggling to complete one of his inventions: the Analytical Engine. Lovelace wrote an algorithm with which the machine would calculate the Bernoulli sequence of numbers. This makes her broadly known as the first computer programmer in history. In the 2nd WW women had an important role, when operating some of the first computational machines used for code-breaking. Then, in the 1940s, digital computers became a reality and women were the first to write software for the machines. This task was seen as secondary and more like a secretarial work, as the hardware was the glorious part. Naturally the latter was dominated by men. In the 1950s/60s almost nobody who started working at a coding job, had great experience writing code. The workforce was 50 % men and 50 % women. When the 1980s came, the pioneer work done by women coders had been long forgotten. To the contrary, the IT industry was dominated by men. The indoctrination started early: the first video games were only pitched to boys. The culture shift started and computers and programming were seen as something that boys were good at. Boys were far more likely to receive a personal computer and gain experience before entering university. The sons were receiving far more encouragement from their fathers as the daughters. Slowly the sense in the classroom established that if you hadn’t already been coding before, you didn’t belong. You had to invest time in coding 24/7, or you weren’t considered to have a real interest. Although many men themselves didn’t fit this stereotype. But a bad double standard was established: It was O.K. for the men to have other interests, not for the women though. While programming was preferring men in academia, at the same time corporate America was shutting women out as well. The culture was changing and hiring managers began picking coders on the basis of personality type: the antisocial aloof male nerd. This powerful narrative kept accepting men who were unkempt and fitting the stereotype but again a double standard formed for women: they weren’t tolerated to be unkept, so they couldn’t fit that archetype. An underlying sexism established as well: coding required late nights and the managers deemed it unsafe for women to work this late with men. Meanwhile the old hierarchy of hardware and software had turned around. Now software was more lucrative and important to corporate America and few companies were willing to put a woman in charge of men. Even more so, women had a higher chance of receiving reviews with negative feedback, while men mostly got reviews that had only constructive feedback, with no negative material. In the 1990s and 2000s, the cultural stereotypes got even worse. Especially start-ups were only hiring people who were socially and culturally similar to them. By then though, almost everyone in charge was a white or Asian man. It even came so far that allegations were made that women cannot excel at programming because biology better endows men with the qualities necessary to do analytical thinking and therefore are the better coders. These assumptions preserve still today in many men of Silicon Valley. This also gives them the perfect explanation especially if they want to argue that there is no real sexism in the workplace. [1][2]
To this day, the industry is male dominated and less welcoming to women. Still, in the last few years there has been a cultural shift: women are more likely to be interested in programming. In 2012 the percentage of women who were interested in taking up a computer science degree was at a high not seen for 35 years. Nowadays, there are so many groups and free training for female coders, which makes it much easier to learn programming without getting a full degree. These opportunities emerged only in the last 10 years and opens up the market to us women for a well-paying and interesting workfield. It starts with us women, changing the male dominant culture. We need to take action already at schools. It will still be much harder to shift the culture of the industry, as there is still sexism and racism deeply ingrained in Silicon Valley. But together we are strong. When we women support each other and have our backs, we can break through the barrier and compete equally as successful as our male counterparts. If you want to start with your journey today, click to apply below and start with your first Workshop. [1][2]