Feminizing the field of computer science

Do women and computers mix? Why are geeks usually seen as male?

Last night, History and Sociology of Science professor Nathan Ensmenger posed these questions in a talk about women and computers at the Wu and Chen Auditorium in Levine Hall.

The problem: a lack of women pursuing computer science degrees at the undergraduate and graduate levels. According to the National Science Foundation, only 25 percent of Bachelor's degrees in computer science are awarded to women each year.

Yet, Ensmenger said, "the very first computer programmers were women."

The first six programmers of ENIAC - the first electronic computer, which was created at Penn in 1946 - were "women with degrees in mathematics who did not want to become teachers," said Ensmenger.

Yet in the 1950s through the 1970s, women faced discrimination in the computing world. Ensmenger showed a slide of the 1967 Fortune advertisement to demonstrate this phenomena. The ad read, "Wanted: 500,000 Men to Feed Computers."

Aptitude tests created by IBM and implemented by many companies in the computer industry may have warded women off, Ensmenger said. These tests were often male-oriented and promoted the stereotype of a male-dominated computing profession.

Ensmenger said there is little evidence that men are actually better computer programmers.

Initially, companies were unsure which types of people would become good computer programmers. It was at one point thought that those good at chess or talented musically would have a knack for computer programming.

Eventually, however, computing became "masculinized," as Ensmerger put it. Today, he added, geeks are stereotyped as "young, male and even autistic in their social skills."

Engineering junior Matt Feczko, founder of Queer Undergraduates in Engineering, Science and Technology, said, "It's very interesting the way the media portrays women in the industry."

Brynn Shepherd, president of Women in Computer Science, also attended the event.

Regarding the original female ENIAC programmers, she remarked, "History has kind of been written out."

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