Brianna White

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Jul 30, 2019
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Girls Who Code – While enrolment in computing science and engineering degrees has largely evened out among men and women, the professional participation of women in the technology sphere continues to lag behind
It’s a conundrum. While enrolment in computing science and engineering degrees has, in many jurisdictions, evened out among men and women, the professional participation of women in the technology sphere continues to lag behind.
Though women may enter the STEM workforce with great anticipation, they often encounter what has been termed the “chilly climate” and eventually drop out (the “leaky pipeline”). The “deficit model” attributes this problem of underrepresentation to the lack of education, experience, interest or skill of women (and other marginalized communities), suggesting that the issue will disappear, and STEM workplaces will become more welcoming, if we can fix women’s “lack” of skills, while the opposing view considers fixing STEM from a masculinist culture to one that is welcoming of diversity.
In one area in particular, software development, women’s participation continues to decline. Increasingly, and alarmingly, the information to which we have access is determined by software algorithms, based on our digital identities across platforms. As Mangan (2019) points out, we should be concerned about the under-representation of women in this field not only because of the economic impact, but also because of the social, cultural and political implications of a world “running on software” (p. 64) developed primarily with a male perspective (c.f. European Commission, 2019).
Continue reading: https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/article/girls-who-code-encouraging-girls-towards-stem-careers/145706/
 

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