Professional Documents
Culture Documents
EDITION
CA
THE BLOG
Women once dominated the world of coding. One of the first software businesses in the
U.S., CompInc., was founded in 1958 by a woman, Elsie Shutt, who hired female TREND I N G
programmers.
LOOK: Women Unrecognizable After Using
Makeup
"Women are 'naturals' at computer programming," pioneer computer scientist Grace
Hopper told Cosmopolitan magazine in 1967. "Programming is just like planning a What $300,000 Will Buy You In B.C.
dinner. You have to plan ahead and schedule everything so that it's ready when you
Danish Queen's Husband Shows
need," she continued. James Adams, director of education for the Association for Maximum Bitterness Over Not Being King
Computing Machinery, was quoted in the same article saying, "I don't know of any other
The Ta-Ta Towel Is The Answer To All Your
field, outside of teaching, where there's as much opportunity for a woman."
Boob Sweat Problems
So What Happened?
SUBSCRIBE AND FOLLOW
Today, computer science is dominated by men, as this report by AAUW shows. Women
Living
Get top stories and blog posts emailed to me each
are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) day. Newsletters may offer personalized content or
advertisements. Learn more
fields. Statistics Canada data shows that women accounted for 39 per cent of university
graduates aged 25 to 34 with a STEM degree in 2011, compared with 66 per cent in non
Newsletter
STEM programs.
address@email.com
The underlying reasons for this gender imbalance are complex but research suggests
Subscribe Now
gender stereotyping from the earliest age impacts the enrollment of women in STEM.
Facebook
YOU MAY LIKE Sponsored Links
Video: Princess Diana's sons tell her story
Reuters TV
Photo: Let Toys Be Toys Discover More About Cirque Du Soleil's
Latest Live Show "REFLEKT"
CNN for Expo 2017
Gendered Toys The Ultimate Cheap Flights Finder
Toys communicate important messages about gender expectations and stereotypes. For
tripsinsider.com
Manage Your Devices with Device Cloud
instance, in this flyer, which distinguishes between toys for girls and boys, the girls are
Intel
presented in deferential poses, as princesses who play at organizing their shoes. Boys
by Taboola
are presented in power stances, making a stop sign with their hand and wielding a light
saber. Body language conveys a lot about our attitudes and perceptions, particularly
VIDEO S
about ourselves, as explained by Amy Cuddy in her wildly popular TED talk.
No Canadian Invention
Is More Egg-cellent
Than The Egg Carton
Pain Management:
Ease Your Headaches
With These Exercises
Jessamyn Stanley
Wants You To Listen,
Not Talk About Yoga
Photo: KickAction.ca
'Crap' On Instagram
Toys continue to be promoted as being "for boys" or "for girls." The UKbased
Customer Rights: What
organization Let Toys be Toys is demanding that toy and publishing industries "stop
Businesses Can (And
limiting children's interests by promoting some toys and books as being only for girls, and Can't) Impose On You
others as only for boys." Some publishers have finally removed the "for girls" or "for
boys" labelling of their children's books. What To Do In Victoria:
Spots To Check Out In
B.C.'s Capital
Self-Confidence
Parental Attitudes
Enteroviruses Can Ruin
Your Summer. Here's
Parents provide more mathsupportive environments for sons than for daughters, How To Avoid Them.
according to a study by the University of Michigan. Even wellintentioned parents can
have unconscious bias, which affects the way they interact with sons and daughters.
Recognizing implicit bias can be difficult but this Harvard implicit bias test helps raise
selfawareness. Interestingly, the same study by the University of Michigan also suggests
that a father's attitudes about girls and STEM influence their daughter's choice to pursue
STEM. The degree to which a father's opinion matches traditional (and limiting) gender
stereotypes can directly impact his daughter's interest in math. This demonstrates the
important role and potentially positive influence of supportive fathers in encouraging girls
in STEM.
PC and Marketing
In 1984, the percentage of women in computer science started to fall, although numbers
of women enrolled in other disciplines, such as law and medicine, continued to climb.
This NPR article links this shift in enrollments to the arrival of the personal computer (PC)
with direct marketing to boys. As the article outlines, "This idea that computers are for
boys became a narrative. It became the story we told ourselves about the computing
revolution. It helped define who geeks were, and it created techie culture." Girls were not
presented as being interested in PCs and subsequently did not see themselves reflected
in the growing computer culture.
Casual Sexism
Casual sexism, which comes in many forms commercials, toys, phrases, jokes,
apparel or posters, among others, helps build and sustain a hostile environment towards
women. The casual sexism debate took the Internet by storm in 2014 when
astrophysicist Matt Taylor was interviewed about the Rosetta mission (#shirtstorm).
Taylor's shirt was printed with scantily clad, cartoon women extraordinarily
inappropriate attire for a professional setting. The shirt was offensive and exclusionary.
Taken together, "just" an offensive shirt or a sexist ad or a book "just" for girls, contributes
to a society that says women don't belong. As astronomer Phil Plait said, "No one cut
does the deed. In the end, they all do."
Recognizing implicit or systemic gender bias is the first step towards equity. We must fix
structures and/or processes that support or enable bias. We must support and
encourage girls and women in STEM and promote women to decisionmaking
committees, boards and speaking panels at conferences. We must address the gender
pay gap within our institutions as was done recently at one Canadian university.
We need to call out casual sexism. Men and women must be equal partners in raising
families and building a life. A recent blog post by Australian scientist Jenny Martin
describes what we all can do. Parents, especially fathers, need to recognize and boycott
gendered toys and books and spend equal time with all our children on STEMrelated
toys and activities. Most importantly, we need to help girls feel more selfconfident about
their abilities in STEM and to let them know that we want and need their voices and
contributions to build a better world for tomorrow.
Correction: A previous version of this blog mistakenly referred to Ann Cuddy, her name is actually Amy
Cuddy.
ALSO ON HUFFPOST: