Nowadays, computer programming is dominated by men, but it has not always been the case. Computer programming has long been a female branch. Women have played an essential role in information and information technology (IT) and have developed some of the most important components of modern IT. Among the achievements that women have achieved in the IT field include creating the first computer program (Ada Lovelace), inventing computing methods and devices, the compiler (Grace Hopper), advancing human space exploration (Katherine Johnson), developing programs influencing how today's computer work (Margaret Hamilton), creating programs dedicated to studying technology's impact on social and ethical issues (Stephanie Shirley), and promoting diversity across IT workplaces (Megan Smith).
The first computer programmers were not only young men; they were more women. According to an article by the Clayman Institute for Gender Research, this does not reflect modern gender roles, but rather the early understanding of software as administrative work, and hence the domain of women. During World War II, women operated some of the first computing machines used to break code in Bletchley Park, UK. In the United States, according to government statistics, by 1960 more than one in four programmers were women. But this work was not very much appreciated.
When digital computers finally became a practical reality in the 1940s, women were again pioneers in writing software for machines. At that time, in the computer industry, writing code was a secondary, less interesting task. The real glory was hardware production. The Eniac women were among the first encoders to discover that software never works correctly for the first time - and that the main job of a programmer is to truly find and fix bugs. Their innovations included some basic software concepts. Betty Snyder realized that if you want to tune a program that is not working properly, it will help you to have a "breakpoint" when you can stop the program in the middle of its run. Breakpoints are still a key part of the debugging process.
The change came in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Until then, any student who had appeared in college had never touched a computer or been in the room with it. Computers were rare and expensive devices that were mostly available only in research laboratories or in the corporate environment. Almost all students were on the same level, in other words, and new to programming. As soon as the first generation of PCs, such as the Commodore 64 or TRS-80, got into their homes, teenagers were able to play with them and slowly learn the main concepts of programming in their free time. In the mid-1980s, some college students appeared as programmers for their first class. They were remarkably well prepared and perhaps a little tired of what computer science could bring. As it turned out, these students were mostly men.
Margolis found that first-year students coming to Carnegie Mellon with considerable experience were almost all men. They were exposed to much greater computer exposure than girls; for example, boys were more than twice as likely to receive one as a gift from their parents. And when parents bought a computer for the family, they most often placed it in their son's room, not their daughter. Sons also tended to have what was tantamount to a relationship with fathers, to work with them in Basic handbooks, to get encouragement from them; the same was not true of daughters. Almost every computer science student at Carnegie Mellon told Margolis that her father had worked with her brother and they had to fight their way to get some attention.
When computer science began to expand again in the mid-1990s, a coding culture was set up. Most of the students were male. Women 's interest never returned to levels reached in the late' 70s and early '80s. And the women who appeared were often isolated. In the room of 20 students there can be five or fewer women.
At the same time, the old hierarchy of hardware and software turned. The software has become a critical and lucrative sector of corporate America. Employers were increasingly recruiting programmers who could one day imagine playing key management roles in programming.
If biology limits the ability of women to code, the ratio of women to men in programming in other countries should be similar, but this is not everywhere. In India, about 40 percent of students studying computer science and related disciplines are women. However, Indian women had one great cultural advantage over their American peers, as they are very often encouraged by their parents. Besides, women considered coding to be a safer job by keeping them indoors and reducing their exposure to sexual harassment on the street. In other words, it was considered normal in India for women to code. A similar picture was in Malaysia, wherein 2001 women accounted for 52 percent of university computer science students and 39 percent Ph.D. candidates for the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur.
Interesting and empowering is how social views and stereotypes have changed in the relatively short history of computers several times. Computer science did not initially evoke images of twenty-year-old men writing code in the middle of the night, and pizza boxes were asking questions on their computers. This was a common stereotype during the early 21st century, but perceptions are changing again. We should not forget women's merits in computer technology in the past and the present. Some organizations are seeking to push our perspectives and attracting a diverse group of new talents to the field, as well as Yüce Yazılım.