Skip to main content icon/video/no-internet
icon backReturn to Entries

Computer Science, Women in

The overriding issue for women in computer science has been determining why women are not entering and remaining in this field. Women have been largely invisible in computer science. Reports on the history of computer science usually ignore women who have made substantial contributions, while educational programs in computer science have few women enrolling. Not only does the computer job force have few women available to hire but those women hired are more likely than men to be dissatisfied and to leave the computer science workforce.

In the field of computer science, women can be divided into the areas of creators and users. Users include office workers, designers, artists, musicians, and most professionals who rely on computer applications to perform their professional and office responsibilities. However, this entry deals with the creators of computer science, which are the programmers, systems analysts, database designers, and other computer professionals who create the canon that others use.

Because men predominantly create the tools of computer science, there is fear that male domination of the field will be self-perpetuating, as male-created tools will be embedded with male values that may discourage their use by women. At the surface, this has not been shown to be true because women secretaries and office workers are avid computer users. Looking deeper into the many levels of software and hardware below the applications this claim gains more credence.

History of Women in Computer Science

The history of women in computer science in the United States is long and active. Despite this history, women are rarely mentioned in computer science textbooks and when they are usually only Admiral Grace Murray Hopper and Augusta Ada Byron Lovelace are noted. Hopper, an admiral in the U.S. Navy was the developer of the first programming language used in business. Lovelace, daughter of noted poet Lord Byron, was a collaborator with Charles Babbage who was the inventor of the thinking machine, or first conceptual computer. While these women are certainly noteworthy, other women should also be remembered. Almost all the early programmers were women. However, they did not achieve supervisory rolls in companies until World War II decimated the ranks of male workers.

ENIAC, the first general-purpose computer, was programmed by Kathleen McNulty, Frances Bilas, Elizabeth Jean Jennings, Frances Elizabeth Snyder, Ruth Lichterman, and Marlyn Wescoff under the supervision of Adele Goldstine, Mary Mauchly, and Mildred Kramer. UNIVAC followed ENIAC as the next general computer and again many women including Francis E. Holbertson, Jean Bartik, Frances Morello, and Lillian Jay were hired to program it under the supervision of Admiral Hopper. At this time, Hopper was developing programming languages that used English words rather than symbols to program and were thus accessible to businesses. After World War II, the number of women in computer science declined at about the same time U.S. universities were developing their first departments of computer science.

Judy Clapp was notable as a programmer of Whirlwind, the first real-time computer. Thelma Estrin was one of two electrical engineers who worked on the design of the Whirlwind computer. Sister Mary Kenneth Keller was one of the first women to receive a Ph.D. in computer science in the United States and went on to establish a department of computer science at Clarke University that included a master's degree in Computers in Education. She promoted the idea that women should be information specialists as a field in computer science.

...

  • Loading...
locked icon

Sign in to access this content

Get a 30 day FREE TRIAL

  • Watch videos from a variety of sources bringing classroom topics to life
  • Read modern, diverse business cases
  • Explore hundreds of books and reference titles

Read next

More like this

Sage Recommends

We found other relevant content for you on other Sage platforms.

close

Have you created a personal profile? Login or create a profile so that you can save clips, playlists and searches

close
close
close Signed In to profile You are signed in as:
close
Logged in Institution Institution