Who runs the world?

It is no secret that men occupy the majority of positions within the tech industry. Women hold only 25% of IT jobs in the world, and just 11% of executive positions at technology related Fortune 500 companies.  Many people say societal pressures force young girls to be interested in topics unrelated to math or the sciences, like fashion or communications.  STEM is painted as a male field, and this depiction serves to further dissuade women from attempting studying or working in STEM.  One reason societal pressures is blamed as the culprit for female disinterest in tech is the fact that 66% of girls age 6-12 express interest/are currently enrolled in computing classes, yet just 4% of female college freshmen share these sentiments.   One could say that as women in our society grow up and are further exposed to perceived societal norms, they are led away from their previously held interest in STEM. 

As a response to this disparity, Reshma Saujanithe formed Girls Who Code, an organization dedicated to closing the gender gap in the tech industry.  According to their website, in 1984, 37% of all computer science graduates were women; yet, today, that number is just 18%.  These numbers sure aren’t due to women lacking the computing chops to get work done.  In fact, just a week ago, President Obama awarded former MIT programmer Margaret Hamilton a Presidential Medal of Freedom for her crucial work on programming the ships for the Apollo mission, which took humans to the surface of the moon.  Hamilton was also a part of developing the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment Air Defense System (SAGE) project that, according to an MIT news article, “cost more than the Manhattan Project and catapulted advances in early digital computing during the 1950s and 60s.”  Hamilton’s prowess and success has been recognized and touted as an inspiration for young women to forgo societal stereotypes and pursue a career in STEM.

For their part, Girls Who Code currently runs immersive summer programs for 10^th and 11^th grade girls, which exposes participants to software engineering work at top companies like Facebook, Google, and AT&T.  Participation in Girls Who Code has grown from 1,000 in 2013 to over 10,000 as of 2015.  Obviously, their mission to close the gender gap in software engineering has seen great success.  Given the incredible power of computing, the world stands to benefit from any person, girl or boy, who is led to pursue a computing career that otherwise may have chosen a different path.

References and Pictures: 

https://girlswhocode.com/about-us/

http://news.mit.edu/2016/apollo-code-developer-margaret-hamilton-receives-presidential-medal-of-freedom-1117

https://www.themuse.com/advice/the-latest-stats-on-women-in-tech