Accounting for the Role of Policy in the Underrepresentation of Women in Computer Science
Elizabeth Patitsas · 2016
Since the 1990s, a great deal of effort has been toward improving female participation in computing. Yet the numbers in North America haven't budged: women continue to make up 18\% of CS majors. Current efforts and research focus on societal, cultural, and psychological reasons for this underrepresentation. I argue that the political dimension also needs to be considered both in terms of why women are underrepresented and how to change it. I have found that admissions policies have a profound effect on how many women study undergraduate CS. I've also observed that diversity is not being considered in mainstream CS department policymaking, and ``women's issues'' are expected to be solved by women's groups. And in the women's spaces, I've observed a focus on individual career advancement (``Lean In'') rather than a push for political, collective action.