1. STS 485: GENDER, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY
Week 2:
GENDERING SCIENCE AND SCIENTISTS
Dr. Maral Erol

2. BARBERCHECK Advertising race, gender science Stereotypes
The hero
The nerd
Men at work and play
Science made simple
Mother nature

3. WHY ARE THERE SO FEW WOMEN IN SCIENCE?
There are two explanations:
The deficit model
Attributes the lower number of women scientists to their differential treatment and structural barriers (legal, political, social) that exist in the social system of science
The difference model
Suggests that the lower number is because there are fundamental differences between men and women in outlook and goals (aggressive, successful man and the nurturing, supporting woman).

4. ADVERTISING AND MASS MEDIA
Mass media and advertising send strong cultural messages about desirable roles for men and women
Advertising reflect the aspirations, hopes, and beliefs of the audience
Even if real individual men and women are different, there are stereotypes: fairly consistent ideas concerning masculinity and femininity.
These stereotypes are not necessarily literally true, but individuals are susceptible to them

6. THE STEREOTYPES The hero The nerd
Scientist as a hero or the authority at the frontiers of progress
Serious, lab-coat wearing scientist gazing at the object of study, detached from the viewer
The nerd
The social nonconformist, often young, hip and a rebel
An undersocialized person whose scientific pursuits leave him detached from the “real” world

7. https://encrypted-tbn0. gstatic. com/images

8. AT WORK AND PLAY?
Most common nonscientist image of men in advertisements is an athlete or an explorer
Masculine ideals of competition, rugged individualism, independence, strength, and quest for high quality
In nonscientist image of women, the depiction is that of a consumer or beneficiary or science, often as a mother with a child or engaged with a domestic activity

9. SCIENCE MADE SIMPLE Men = accurate, fast, precise, reliable
In advertisements, women and men are associated with different sets of words:
Men = accurate, fast, precise, reliable
Women = easy, simple

10. MOTHER NATURE
In the history and philosophy of science, nature has long been depicted as a woman, and science as the method by which to know and control nature
In the advertisements we see examples of this in women and nature in fragments and identified with each other, or women represented as the unknown (women, the DNA and map of Africa)

11. ATEŞ Brief history of women in computing
Written in response to the Google memo incident
Engages with the biological argument at the base of the memo
Gives historical examples of women developing computing technologies

12. QUESTIONS What was the author’s main argument?
What is the argument of James Damore’s memo?
Why does the author object to it?
Who were some of the first software engineers?

13. Reflection Questions What do you find interesting in this article?
What do you have difficulty understanding?
What do you like about this article?
What do you dislike about this article?
What questions do you have about this article?

14. ADA LOVELACE
In 1843, Ada Lovelace became the first computer programmer by designing the first computer algorithm, and explaining how it would work on Babbage’s proposed (but non-existent) Analytical Engine.

15. HEDY LAMARR
During World War II, in 1942, Hedy Lamarr invents the frequency- hopping technology that would later allow the invention of wireless signals like Wi- Fi and Bluetooth.

16. JEAN BARTIK
In 1945–46, Jean Bartik and five other women developed and codified many of the foundations of software programming while working on ENIAC. The six women, whose software work was crucial to its operation and success, were not invited to the dinner celebration for the completion of ENIAC.

17. GRACE HOPPER
In 1952, Rear Admiral Grace Hopper created one of the world’s first compilers (in her spare time). She envisioned code to use English language- based instructions, and her programming language design work led to the creation of COBOL, used to this day.

18. «THE COMPUTER GIRLS»
Moving into the post-war era and the 1960’s, software engineering was considered “women’s work” because it was thought of as clerical.
Hardware was the difficult job, i.e. “for men”.
Cosmopolitan famously ran a 1967 issue about “The Computer Girls,” with Admiral Hopper saying women are “naturals” at computer programming.

19. Developments in the 1970’s
Starting in the late 1960’s, men realized programming was actually really hard, and thus, prestigious.
Professional organizations, smear marketing and ad campaigns were created that discouraged the hiring of women into computer science and programming roles.
Meanwhile, aptitude tests were made (by men) that favored men in their evaluation steps, and the answers to those tests were circulated across male-only groups like fraternities.
Films such as WarGames and Weird Science helped establish a stereotype of the “computer programmer” as an awkward male nerd.

20. Developments in the 1980’s
As a result of these developments in the 1970’s, the field of work largely invented by women had gone from a ~50% gender ratio down to 37% by 1986.
In the early– to mid-1980’s, another major factor compounded upon this: video game consoles came to market, and as they were marketed as toys, makers had to decide on a gendered market
Instead of arguing that everyone should love video games, the makers simply chose boys — and the marketing followed suit.

21. CULTURAL DIFFERENCES
For the year 2011, women in the U.S. made up only 18% of undergrads in Computer Science and Engineering, whilst in India that number was 42%.
In 2005 in India, looking at CS alone, women earned 55% of the Bachelor’s of Science degrees.
The cultural difference is key: in the U.S., CS is culturally tainted as a “male” field, but in India both men and women see the field as something for all genders, and people aspire to work in it accordingly.
In Canada, women comprised ~27% of CS enrollments during the years 2006 to In the US, that number was below 20%.