Gender Codes - by Thomas J Misa (Paperback)

About the Book

The computing profession is facing a serious gender crisis. Women are abandoning the computing field. This book explains the complex social and cultural processes at work in gender and computing today. Through engaging historical accounts, this book tells the stories of women programmers, systems analysts, managers, and IT executives who flooded this field. It then examines why the computing field has declined in female participants.--[book cover]

Book Synopsis

The computing profession faces a serious gender crisis. Today, fewer women enter computing than anytime in the past 25 years. This book provides an unprecedented look at the history of women and men in computing, detailing how the computing profession emerged and matured, and how the field became male coded. Women's experiences working in offices, education, libraries, programming, and government are examined for clues on how and where women succeeded--and where they struggled. It also provides a unique international dimension with studies examining the U.S., Great Britain, Germany, Norway, and Greece. Scholars in history, gender/women's studies, and science and technology studies, as well as department chairs and hiring directors will find this volume illuminating.

From the Back Cover

A fresh, constructive examination of the gender imbalance in computer education and technology

The computing profession is facing a serious gender crisis. Women are abandoning the computing field at an alarming rate. Fewer are entering the profession than anytime in the past twenty-five years, while too many are leaving the field in mid-career. With a maximum of insight and a minimum of jargon, Gender Codes explains the complex social and cultural processes at work in gender and computing today. Edited by Thomas Misa and featuring a Foreword by Linda Shafer, Chair of the IEEE Computer Society Press, this insightful collection of essays explores the persisting gender imbalance in computing and presents a clear course of action for turning things around.

Through engaging historical accounts, Gender Codes tells the stories of women programmers, systems analysts, managers, and IT executives who flooded this initially attractive field in the 1960s and '70s. It celebrates their notable successes in all segments of the industry. The book then examines why, while most other science and technology fields have seen steady growth in the number of female participants, the computing field experienced just the opposite.

Providing a unique international perspective, the contributors to this unprecedented volume reveal how computing has become male-coded, highlighting the struggles women have faced in the office, the media, and in culture at large. The book assesses the existing intervention strategies and pinpoints why they are not working and what can--and must--be done to stall the exodus.

Gender Codes will resonate with female professionals in computing, engineering, and the sciences; with scholars and educators in history, gender/women's studies, and science and technology; with deans, department chairs, center directors, and those in industry and government with hiring responsibilities; and with staff and executives at foundations and funding agencies.

Review Quotes

"This is a very valuable book in dispelling many of the myths about women and computing . . . For anyone interested in understanding why women are not attracted to the computing profession, including teachers and IT managers, this book is highly recommended. It provides an in-depth understanding of how and why
we are where we are." (Sex Roles, 2011)

"Gender Codes is an important book . . . this is a task in which the IEEE History Center can play a role, and we think our readers can and should as well-they can begin with reading this seminal book" (Bibliography, 1 March 2011)

"This book is an excellent introduction to some of the main themes, and there are many more chapters waiting to be written." (IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, 1 April 2011)

"Summing up: Recommended [for] all levels/libraries." (CHOICE, January 2011)

About the Author

THOMAS J. MISA is at the University of Minnesota, where he directs the Charles Babbage Institute, teaches in the graduate program for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, and is a faculty member in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.