Statistics Show Computer Science Really is a Boys' Club

There’s been a lot of talk recently about the lack of women in STEM professions and in particular computer sciences. Google, after a lot of public media pressure, released a blog post with a breakdown of the company’s workforce. The results regarding the gender gap was unsurprising in that the female percentage of the workforce was significantly lower than the male.

In fact, it was found that out of Google’s 46,170 employees only 30 percent of them are female, only 21 percent of leadership positions in Google are held by women. The lowest percentage, predictably, was found in the tech sector where females hold only 17 percent of the jobs.

The problem is not just at Google as the table below shows Google and nine other large technology companies who released data after Google, showing the percentages of females working their companies.

Company	% of female employees	% of female employees in tech jobs	% of female employees in non-tech jobs	% of females in leadership positions
Google	30%	17%	48%	21%
Apple	30%	20%	35%	28%
Facebook	31%	15%	47%	23%
Twitter	30%	10%	50%	21%
Yahoo	37%	15%	52%	23%
LinkedIn	39%	17%	47%	25%
Pandora	49.2%	18%	57.8%	14%
Pinterest	40%	20%	66%	19%
eBay	42%	24%	49%	28%
HP	32.5%	18.4%	48.7%	25.6%

All data given in 2014 apart from HP which is from 2013.

Only three out of 10 of the world’s leading technology firms scrape 20 percent with eBay the highest on 24 percent. It shows that in other aspects of the company, percentages of people in non-tech fields are pretty equal, so why is there such a dramatic difference in tech?

One issue is something again that can be seen from the table; female leader numbers in the above companies are very low, which provides a lack of role models for aspiring female tech professionals. It is very difficult for women to get into managerial positions as the top firms are dominated by what the New York Times’ Claire Cain Miller describes as ‘a fraternity of chummy men.’ She states that there is a ‘sexist culture’ amongst companies in Silicon Valley. The females that work there are isolated and in some cases have been found to be harassed. A group of women working at major tech firms came out and stated that they were ‘harassed on mailing lists and called ‘whore/c—t’’ and received ‘creepy e-mails’ that haven’t been dealt with by higher powers. The ‘fraternity of chummy men’ may not be too far off the mark as many of the top firms will hire from only top schools where again, STEM courses such as computer science will be dominated by male students and teachers (14 percent of US physics professors are female); again a potentially off-putting statistic for young female scientists. 

Creating a more female inclusive tech world will not happen overnight; however steps are slowly being made. For example, many of the companies mentioned have set up initiatives and groups for their minority employees such as the Pandora Women in Business scheme. In fact, Columbia University has a group that brings together female computer science students to help expand their opportunities and provide direction. Initiatives like this will encourage more females to study computer science and by having more equal college gender ratios then the stigma of computer science being a boys club may start to fade out. I believe because these areas of study are dominated by men, when they then progress into companies also dominated by males and it becomes a culture. If computer science is seen as a unisex area of study from a younger age then it will eventually filter into the workplace too. 

About the Author: Harry Kempe, a marketing intern at IIR USA, who works on various aspects of the industry including social media, marketing analysis and media. He is a recent graduate of Newcastle University who previously worked for EMAP Ltd. and WGSN as a marketing assistant on events such as the World Architecture Festival, World Retail Congress and Global Fashion Awards. He can be reached at hkempe@IIRUSA.com.

Related articles

• What IT Managers think about Google
• Google Closes Gap on Facebook for Worldwide Social Logins
• The week's biggest tech news in pictures: Google, Facebook, Apple

Is Confidence the Reason Women are the Minority in STEM Fields?

A recent study has found that women often fail to do as well in a corporate environment due to a lack of confidence in their own abilities. This ties in closely with the fact that there is a distinct gender gap in STEM fields as it has been found that women make up only 24 percent of STEM professions.

From this, a study looked into how male and female college students view their own abilities. There was found to be a gender gap in terms of confidence levels in the STEM fields and in particular computer science. This study, carried out by Piazza, created a social learning platform where students and teachers could ask questions (anonymously if they wanted) and answered by fellow students. Piazza analyzed two million questions by almost one million students from US and Canadian schools over four semesters. The confidence gap was defined as the percentage difference between the average number of questions answered by female and male students. The gap for computer sciences showed women answered 37 percent less than men and for the rest of the STEM subject’s women were 18 percent fewer.

The difference in levels was found to be biggest at the top computer science programs – females at Carnegie Mellon University answered 62 percent less than males whilst at Cornell, Stanford and Harvard there were 60 percent, 49 percent and 39 percent differences again in favor of the males. The gaps at slightly smaller institutions were a lot smaller and in the cases of Boston University and Caltech the females had higher percentages with three percent higher at Boston and 22 percent higher at Caltech.

This leads me to believe that the reason behind the disparity in confidence levels comes from the fact that STEM fields and in particular computer science are still boys clubs and this stems from college level. The top level courses themselves are still male dominated and by teachers as well as students. The top universities were found to have 14 percent female undergraduate degrees awarded in computer science.

The disparity means females are less likely to be able to find friends to help with work and mentoring as the males tend to group together. Male teachers as well are more likely to bond with male students as they will have also worked or studied in a male dominated environment. Studies have also shown that males are also more likely to receive more positive classroom attention from teachers than females.  It is similar in other courses such as business where it is found at Harvard Business School between 2006 and 2007 a third of the junior female faculty left. Trends like this show that females have less female mentoring so often feel excluded and intimidated. Another study shows that at Carnegie 53 percent of male college freshmen rated themselves as highly prepared for their computer science exams whilst zero percent of females said the same. However at the end of the year 86 percent of the females interviewed received A or B grades which shows the extreme difference in confidence levels despite actually having no need to be worried.  

From this evidence it is not surprising that females feel less confident to firstly go into these professions or courses where they are the minority and secondly when there, they are less likely to want to speak up. If there is less of a social stigma surrounding these STEM fields being for men then maybe there would be a positive change in more women taking up STEM professions and succeeding. 

About the Author: Harry Kempe, a marketing intern at IIR USA, who works on various aspects of the industry including social media, marketing analysis and media. He is a recent graduate of Newcastle University who previously worked for EMAP Ltd. and WGSN as a marketing assistant on events such as the World Architecture Festival, World Retail Congress and Global Fashion Awards. He can be reached at hkempe@IIRUSA.com.

Related articles

• STEM Interest on the Rise
• State report highlights importance of STEM education
• Can nanoscience help connect STEM subjects?