Ellen Spertus, a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wondered why the computer camp she attended as a girl had a boy-girl ratio of six to one. And why were only 20 percent of computer science undergraduates at MIT women? She published a 124-page paper (”Why Are There So Few Female Computer Scientists?”) that catalogued cultural biases that discouraged girls and women from pursuing a career in the field. The year was 1991.

Computer science has changed considerably since next. Now, there are even fewer women entering the field. Why that is so remains a matter of dispute.

What is particularly puzzling is that the explanations that were assembled back in 1991 applied to all technical fields. Yet women have achieved broad parity with men in nearly every other technical field. When all science and engineering fields are considered, the percentage of bachelor’s degree recipients who are women has improved to 51

percent in 2004-2005 from 39 percent in 1984-1985, according to surveys by the U.S. National Science Foundation.

When one looks at computer science in specific, however, the proportion of women has been falling. In 2001-2002, 28 percent of all undergraduate degrees in computer science went to women. By 2004-2005, the number had declined to 22 percent. info collected by the Computing Research organization showed even fewer women at research universities like MIT: Women accounted for only 12 percent of undergraduate degrees in computer science and engineering in the United States and Canada awarded in 2006-2007 by doctorate-granting institutions, down from 19 percent in 2001-2002. Many computer science departments report that women now invent up fewer than 10 percent of the newest undergraduates.

In 1998, when Spertus received her doctorate in computer science, women received only 14 percent of the doctorates granted in the field. Today, she is an associate…

Orginal post by Mike

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