January 6, 2009
TECHNOS QUARTERLY Fall 1994 Vol. 3 No. 3
Who Are the Role Models?
Sidebar for No Girls Allowed!
Women have played vital roles in the development of modern technologies. Augusta Ada Lovelace wrote the instructions for Charles Babbage's computing machine in the 1800s. Adele Goldstine wrote the first programs for the ENAIC, built in the 1940s. Grace Hopper was the central figure in the development of the computer language COBOL in the 1950s, and she coined the term bug to refer to a computer malfunction. In the 1940s, the Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr made major contributions to the science of electromagnetic waves.
In 1960, when the computer industry was young and there were only 2,000 computer operators, 65 percent of the operators were women. Since then, the situation for women in high-tech fields has taken a turn for the worse. Although in 1987-88 women constituted slightly more than half of the U.S. population and 45 percent of employed workers in the nation, they made up only 30 percent of employed computer scientists. In addition, only 2.5 percent of engineers were women. Women are a mere 7.8 percent of computer science and computer engineering faculty members. Only 2.7 percent of them are tenured, according to the 1988 report on women and minorities in science and engineering.
A group called Women of Vision at the Technology Museum in San Jose, California, was born in 1993 from the realization that since the museum's opening day on October 29,1990, more men than women had participated as exhibitors and attendees. Part of its outreach efforts involve sending women in the industry who are scientists, mathematicians, and technical writers to classrooms around the Bay Area to discuss how they chose their field, the classes they took, and who their mentors were. They primarily visit students 11 to 15 years old. They talk to classes of boys and girls, but direct their messages toward the girls. If the girls don't ask questions, they try to break through to them to draw them into the conversation.
Frankie Kangas, membership manager for the Mercury Center in San Jose, California, and a role model for Women of Vision, says, “I think we are role models for boys, too. We demonstrate that women are competent scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and computer scientists.” These encounters with role models provide girls with ideas and encouragement and improve their environment as a whole by exposing boys to these role models as well.
Return to No Girls Allowed! TECHNOS Quarterly article.