“Women cannot code because they menstruate”
“Women cannot code because their breasts get in the way”
“Women cannot code because their long eyelashes prevent them from seeing the screen”
To me or you, these propositions sound ridiculous. They come off as (at best) poorly thought-out, backhanded and arrogant on the side of men. To others, these propositions are justified and easy to hide behind. After all, it’s much easier to laugh when the joke doesn’t affect you.
The significant shortage of women in STEM is amply recognized as detrimental to women, since science and technology occupations, particularly those in engineering and computer science, are among the highest-paying and fastest-growing occupations. When high-paying and fast-growing occupations such as these are male-dominated, we can observe a distinct pattern of men selecting for men. Men have been shown to choose other men to collaborate with in technological settings. Men have also been shown to be more likely to trust other men when it comes to making executive decisions in these same settings. In fact, it’s been proven that men ‘select for’ men with coding specifically because they believe that by nature, women cannot code. I don’t think is what Darwin meant when he was talking about natural selection.
This tech gender gap that we are witnessing has implications not just for young women who, because they are not encouraged to pursue technical careers, miss personal opportunities, but the computer science industry at large which is bound to suffer from the lack of diversity. We as a society also stand to lose what would have otherwise been notable professional contributions on the behalf of young women. This leaves us questioning how the economy may have benefited from the unrealized value of so many.
Despite the challenges presented by COVID-19, the Canadian tech sector boasted nearly 135,000 job postings in 2019. Technology job postings through the first half of 2020 were down from the same period in 2019, but still totalled more than 54,700. The issue here isn’t lack of opportunity but rather the lack of approachability. It starts early. If girls saw other girls in their computer science classes, if they saw more female teachers teaching those classes, if the boys in those classes didn’t actively attempt to assert dominance and make girls feel small by comparison, maybe these gaps wouldn’t be so large. Maybe they wouldn’t even exist.
Ottawa’s own, Incubator13, is home to The Youth Business Incubator program which supports youth, below the age of 30, who would like to gain employment skills and/or start their own business. They have put their efforts toward hosting youth coding club events and have continually seen 0% retention rates among their female participants.
If we wish to see changes on this front we need to both encourage young girls who need help seeing their potential and place a greater emphasis on female coders that do exist. It is essential that these female coders are in their line of vision: girls may know that they can do it but they need to see it too. The only way to fix this perception problem is to show young girls how fulfilling it can be to have a grand idea and have the finished product be every bit of their own work.
That’s code.
References
CompTIA. “Canada's Technology Industry Continues on Growth Path, CompTIA Cyberprovinces™ 2020 Report Reveals.” Cision Canada, 9 Sept. 2020, www.newswire.ca/news-releases/canada-s-technology-industry-continues-on-growth-path-comptia-cyberprovinces-tm-2020-report-reveals-803520642.html.
Verspoor , Karin. “The Real Reason More Women Don't Code.” The Conversation, 10 Sept. 2020, theconversation.com/the-real-reason-more-women-dont-code-59663.
Wall, Katherine. “The Underrepresentation of Women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics and Computer Science) Has Attracted Considerable Attention, and Many Have Wondered Whether Women Are More Likely than Men to Quit STEM Programs at University. Using Data from the Education and Labour Market Longitudinal Platform (ELMLP), This Study Follows a Cohort of Students Who Enrolled in a STEM Program in 2010 over a Number of Years, in Order to See the Extent to Which Women and Men Persist in and Eventually Graduate from STEM Programs.” Persistence and Representation of Women in STEM Programs, Government of Canada, Statistics Canada, 2 May 2019, www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2019001/article/00006-eng.htm.
Welsh, Milly. Why Don't Women Code?, 2020, www.prioritylearningresearch.com/articles/WhyDontWomenCode.
White, Teresa. “The Surprising Reasons Why Most Girls Don't Code.” Fortune, Fortune, 9 Mar. 2016, fortune.com/2016/03/09/girls-who-code-international-womens-day/.
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