Women in Technology in the United States

Women in Technology in the United States refers to the involvement and contributions of women in various tech-related fields, including science, engineering, and information technology. Historically, societal norms have fostered significant gender disparities in these areas, with women often facing discrimination and being socially steered away from pursuing careers in technology from a young age. Although progress has been made—women represented 27% of STEM workers in 2019, up from just 8% in 1970—substantial challenges remain, particularly in fields like engineering and computing.

Barriers for women in technology begin early, influenced by childhood experiences, toy marketing, and educational guidance that historically favored boys. Initiatives to promote gender equality in STEM have emerged, supported by organizations aimed at inspiring girls and women to pursue these fields, such as the American Association of University Women and Black Girls Code. Notable women in tech history, including Ada Lovelace and the women of ENIAC, highlight the long-standing contributions of women, even as contemporary issues like pay inequality, workplace discrimination, and the challenges of balancing family life persist. Advances in awareness and policy changes indicate a gradual shift towards a more inclusive environment, yet ongoing efforts are vital to achieve true equity in the tech industry.

Published in: 2023

By: Flair, I.

Subject Terms

Women in Technology in the United States

Abstract

This article explores the topic of women in technology, looking at both modern and historical perspectives. To that end, it includes examples of women in technology from both past and present times. Many capable, talented, hardworking women continue to make important contributions to a wide array of technological fields. However, parity with men has not yet been reached in statistical reality or societal perception, so there are many strides still to be made.

Overview

After the Industrial Revolution, society saw substantial social stratification of women and men, with each relegated to specific spheres of life while concurrently being excluded in substantial part from other spheres of life. Men often had minimal time with the home and family sphere, as parents in particular, owing to social pressures to be income providers and to focus primarily on their careers. Women, on the other hand, were portrayed as less valued in the work sphere since they had been told that their primary place was with home and family. This social stratification left millions of men and millions of women dissatisfied, feeling that they were unable to pursue all aspects of a well-rounded life. Though women made large strides in their steps to equality in the workplace, hardships continued to exist in the twenty-first century. For women, discrimination in the career sphere has been particularly pronounced in areas that have been disproportionately male. Key among these areas is technology.

Technology includes a whole range of fields, including scientific research, biochemical engineering, electronics development, information technology, business development and outreach for companies that are technology focused, and work with vehicles and industrial machines, among others. Women entering these fields face a number of hurdles.

Often, those hurdles spring up long before job applications are filled out. Indeed, they start in early childhood, when boys are encouraged to play with toys that involve building projects, like Legos and erector sets. Historically, there has been a presumption that boys would be interested in these things and that girls would not be, even though there was no documented basis for that presumption. Additionally, parents presumed that boys would be more likely to go into careers that would require those kinds of skills, like becoming architects and structural engineers. Toy companies fell in line with those presumptions, marketing building and technology toys primarily to boys. These stereotypes remained systemically entrenched for years. Though this trend declined slightly in the 1970s, it returned during the 1980s and remained ingrained in societal norms. Only as the twenty-first century progressed did gender discrimination in toys once again begin to decline. However, these stereotypes remained systemically entrenched for years (Schroder, 2022).

In the twenty-first century, however, many parents want to foster their daughters' interest in building, mechanical, and electronic technology at an early age. Toy companies, which once marketed only caregiving and domestic toys like dolls and play stoves to girls, are picking up on this trend. Lego now markets to girls as well as boys and includes color schemes that the company feels will appeal to girls. Lego designed a line of blocks, Lego Friends, specifically aimed at increasing the number of girls who were drawn to the toys. Sites like AMightyGirl.com market erector sets specifically to girls, with depictions of creations that look like something out of a Transformers movie. Toys that promote skills useful in the STEM field are marketed to boys and girls alike.

While those changes are a constructive step forward, girls and young women looking to build skills aligned with careers in technology also face hurdles in school. Historically, school advisers have steered girls away from science and technology. However, this is changing as more school professionals recognize the importance of giving young men and women the opportunity to explore all of the fields they are interested in, including science and technology. According to the US Census Bureau, in 2019, women represented 27 percent of all STEM workers, a big improvement over 1970 when women made up only 8 percent of STEM workers, but still more improvement is needed, especially in the fields of computing and engineering. In 2020, women still only constituted 28 percent of STEM workers and were still far more represented in scientific fields than in engineering (American Association of University Women, n.d.).

Further Insights

Ada Lovelace. Ada Lovelace was born Augusta Ada Byron in 1815, the time of the Industrial Revolution, and was the daughter of poet George Gordon, Lord Byron. She is often referred to as the first computer programmer because she formulated the first algorithm specifically intended to be processed by a machine, a mechanical computer called the analytical engine invented by Charles Babbage. Ada's mother, Anne Isabella Byron, cultivated Ada's interest in mathematics as a stabilizing influence. She felt that concrete analytical pursuits would help Ada to be psychologically stable. One of Ada's teachers was Mary Somerville, a noted science writer in an era when women were discouraged from pursuing science careers. The early training that Ada received in mathematics succeeded in helping to develop her natural intelligence and keen acuity for science. Her mathematics skills led to a working relationship and friendship with Babbage and the opportunity to work with his analytical engine mechanical computer.

In the 1840s, Lovelace translated an article about the engine by an Italian military engineer, Luigi Menabrea. While doing so, she supplied observations of her own in a collection she titled Notes. Among those writings was the algorithm that she originated and that is viewed by many to be the intellectual predecessor to modern computer programming. Her Notes are also valued as early insights into the capability of computers. Her visionary insights were communicated more than a century before personal computers became common in homes and offices. She was interested in the potential for collaboration and the effect on society that computers could have, an ideological exploration that extended far beyond the idea of computers being limited to crunching numbers. In the 1970s, when personal computers were beginning to become prevalent, the US Department of Defense named its object-oriented computer programming language Ada after her. That language, extended from Pascal, stands as a tribute to her contribution.

The Women of ENIAC. The electronic numerical integrator and computer (ENIAC) is viewed as the first electronic general purpose-computer. It was originally designed in the 1940s to make the calculations needed for artillery firing tables that would be used by the Ballistic Research Laboratory of the US Army. Ultimately, ENIAC's purpose was changed to doing computational problems for the development of the hydrogen bomb. The majority of the programming for that early supercomputer was done by six women: Betty Jennings, Kay McNulty, Marlyn Wescoff, Betty Snyder, Ruth Lichterman, and Fran Bilas. ENIAC, the supercomputer, would not have been successful without the talent and effort of these six dedicated women. The women of ENIAC are commemorated in the Women in Technology Hall of Fame as pioneers in the field of computer technology.

23andMe. In 2006, entrepreneurs Anne Wojcicki and Linda Avey, along with Paul Cusenza, teamed up to co-found 23andMe, taking its name from the fact that human cells have 23 pairs of chromosomes. The company is dedicated to making cutting-edge genetic technology accessible to customers on a budget. 23andMe developed a direct-to-consumer saliva-based personal genome test. The test can analyze genetic samples and provide detailed information about the heredity and health details of the sample. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in 2013, restricted 23andMe from providing health-related analysis of genome samples in the United States, limiting information to ancestry-related analysis. Avey, a biologist who spent twenty years working with biopharmaceuticals in business development and sales, also developed research programs for companies including Perlegen Sciences and Affymetrix. In 2009, she left 23andMe and started a foundation for research in Alzheimer's disease. Avey went on to co-found Curious, Inc., a company that creates products and software to analyze biometrics, and Precise.ly, a company that creates building automation tools (Shieber, 2020).

Marissa Mayer. In college, Mayer specialized in artificial intelligence and graduated with an MS in computer science. As an undergraduate, she built software that produced travel recommendations and communicated them in a very natural language. She also taught a popular class in symbolic systems. After graduating, she was granted several patents in interface design and artificial intelligence.

Mayer was the first woman engineer at Google; when she joined that organization in 1999, she was employee number twenty. While there, she oversaw teams of engineers and worked with the development of Google's search offerings. She was promoted first to product manager and then to director of consumer web products. During those years, she was influential in the look of Google's search homepage. Subsequently, she became vice president of search products and user experience. She also headed up Google's Local, Maps, and Location Services, securing Google's $125 million acquisition of survey site Zagat. As busy as she was, she still managed to find time to mentor high school students in technology and teach computer programming at Stanford University.

Mayer was appointed president and CEO of Yahoo! on July 16, 2012. After taking leadership of the company, she oversaw the $1.1 billion dollar acquisition of Tumblr by Yahoo! in 2013, one of the biggest acquisitions in the history of internet companies. That year, Mayer was ranked among the top ten most powerful businesswomen by Fortune magazine. While at Yahoo!, however, Mayer was criticized for ending the company’s remote work policy after taking advantage of remote work at the end of her pregnancy. Mayer was also criticized for using her special privileges to create a nursery for her son so she could bring him to work. In response, Mayer lengthened Yahoo!’s maternity leave policies. However, the scandal showed there was still more work to be done in figuring out how women could navigate both motherhood and the workforce (Shieber, 2020). After telecommunications company Verizon bought Yahoo! in 2017, Mayer co-founded Lumi Labs, a tech incubator that helps businesses in the artificial intelligence and consumer media fields.

STEM Programs for Girls. In 2015, President Barack Obama included in his fiscal year budget a priority for several investments to improve teaching and learning in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in US schools. Previously seen bias against women in technology is being addressed by directed efforts at developing girls' interests in science and technology at early ages. For example, the American Association of University Women (AAUW) in 2010 released a report describing the environmental and social barriers to women's participation and progress in STEM subjects. The report included statistics on girls' and women's participation and achievements in these areas and offered ideas on how to fully open STEM fields to all. In 2013, AAUW followed up with a report on women in community colleges, exploring how two-year schools can open doors to STEM careers for women, including recommendations on how schools could better encourage and support women in STEM. Further, the AAUW's 2015 report, Solving the Equation, focused on the fields of engineering and computing, where less progress has been made in women's representation.

Recognizing that not all STEM education takes place in the classroom. AAUW also set up more than 150 STEM community programs in 35 states designed to break down stereotypes about STEM and show girls that intellectual skills grow over time, regardless of gender. These programs sought to create an environment where girls were encouraged to expand their knowledge and ability in STEM through fun and educational activities, seeking to foster girls' excitement for STEM rather than dim it. Another organization, the National Girls Collaborative Project, was created to bring together organizations throughout the United States that are committed to informing and encouraging girls to pursue careers in STEM. Additionally, the Girl Scouts' national STEM program, Girls in STEM, made available curriculum resources to help girls in kindergarten through twelfth grade explore their interests in STEM fields, develop practical skills, and prepare for career possibilities.

Other potential solutions to the ongoing gender gap in STEM fields include scholarships, internships or formal recruiting, and mentorships specifically for women (Williams, 2015). Addressing the problem of the underrepresentation of minority girls in STEM fields, Kimberly Bryant founded Black Girls Code which focused on providing STEM opportunities to minorities and girls from low-income families (Stevens, 2023).

Viewpoints

It was not until 1925, about eight decades after Lovelace's algorithm, that the National Academy of Science elected its first woman member, Florence Sabin. Sabin was a successful medical scientist and researcher who had blazed trails for women in science as the first woman to be named a full professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. In modern times, women in technology are continuing that legacy of achievement. While there is a long way to go to achieve full integration of women in technology fields and positions, talented women continue to make an impact.

Historically, parenthood has been used as a basis for discriminating against women in the workplace and continues to raise barriers for women in demanding fields, such as technology. That history of discrimination, coupled with the very real issues of balancing family life and work life, are leading many companies to address the parenthood and work question. As previously mentioned, Marissa Mayer is an excellent case study in this problem. She was able to have a nursery built for her infant son next to her office at her own expense but was also criticized for banning employees from telecommuting (a popular though often problematic solution for working parents). This raised issues of how parenthood affects women in technology. Some technology companies, such as Facebook, took the position that in order for women who are parents to be treated as equals in the workplace, men who are parents must be treated as equals in the care of their own children, including getting the same amount of paid leave upon the birth of their children. Mayer raised paid parental leave for employees at Yahoo! to eight weeks after the birth of a child, with an additional eight weeks for mothers. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies continued to allow employees to work from home, which relieved some of the pressure on women raising families and participating in the workforce, though remote work still required childcare which often still falls on the mother.

Women in technology continue to face a number of barriers to remaining and rising within the field, aside from parenting challenges. Many women in STEM lack visibility, especially in areas that showcase valued skills and allow them to network informally with senior staff, which is a key factor needed for promotion (Correll & Mackenzie, 2016). This may even work against the growing number of women who have become a chief operating officer (COO) of a tech firm, a role that Gallagher, Abrams, and Chew (2018) note is internal-facing as compared to the highly visible, external-facing chief executive position still held by many, often male, founders. Further, stereotypes of confident, outspoken women being aggressive and unlikeable tend to hinder women's advancement as well (Correll & Mackenzie, 2016). Illegal company behaviors such as gender-based pay discrepancies and sexual harassment also remain a problem in some tech firms (Chang, 2018; Gallagher, Abrams, & Chew, 2018). In the 2020s, women continued to make strides in their inclusion in the tech industry, though issues such as unequal pay, discrimination, underrepresentation, and gender bias remained (Murati, 2023). Nonetheless, women can and have excelled in technology, rising to the executive level through patience, multitasking, focus, efficiency, and fact-based decision-making (Gallagher, Abrams, & Chew, 2018).

Terms & Concepts

Algorithm: A set of step-by-step operations to be performed. Algorithms are commonly used in computer science and mathematics. Purposes include automated reasoning, calculation, and data processing.

Discrimination: Any action that denies someone the benefit of full participation in society based upon unfounded stereotypes instead of making judgments based on each individual's character and capabilities.

Entrepreneur: A person who starts a new company or business enterprise, typically using innovative approaches. Entrepreneurs develop business plans, hire employees, and contract with others to make money from their service or product.

STEM: An acronym that refers to four general areas of academic study. The first letter of each forms the acronym: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Women have historically been underrepresented in STEM majors in college and in STEM careers.

Stereotype: A view attributing a set of characteristics, such as expected behavior and level of ability, to a group defined by some commonality that is not determinative of the stereotype applied to the group.

Technology: The tools and techniques used to augment and add to human capabilities. Examples include machines of all kinds, and in the 21st century includes electronic devices like personal computers, tablets, and smartphones, along with the internet and software.

Bibliography

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Benedikt, A. (2012, Oct. 2). Marissa Mayer gives birth to baby boy: Yahoo CEO's short maternity leave is a big mistake. Slate. Retrieved May 29, 2023, from https://slate.com/human-interest/2012/10/marissa-mayer-gives-birth-to-baby-boy-yahoo-ceo-s-short-maternity-leave-is-a-big-mistake.html

Corbett, C., & Hill, C. (2015). Solving the equation. Retrieved June 16, 2021, from AAUW. https://www.aauw.org/app/uploads/2020/03/Solving-the-Equation-report-nsa.pdf

Correll, S., & Mackenzie, L. (2016). To succeed in tech, women need more visibility. Harvard Business Review Digital Articles, 2–5. Retrieved October 23, 2018, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Ultimate. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsu&AN=118683851&site=bsi-live

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Women in Technology in the United States

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Subject Terms

Women in Technology in the United States

Abstract

Overview

Further Insights

Viewpoints

Terms & Concepts

Bibliography

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