Communities of Computing: Computer Science and Society in the ACM

Dynamics of gender bias in computing

“…The "making programming masculine" thesis has unwittingly obscured the very years when women found computing to be an exciting field where their technical talents could be actively exercised and professionally rewarded. 1,10,28,40,57 Recent retirements of top women executives at IBM, HP, and Xerox underscore the peak years of the 1980s when these women launched computing careers and when the field was nearly 40% women. ix More detailed gender-analysis of membership lists and conference attendees of ACM's numerous SIGs could shed light on which branches of computer science evinced greater or lesser openness to women's participation.…”

“…For example, pioneering intrusion-detection research was led by Dorothy Denning, Teresa Lunt, Debra Anderson, Rebecca Bace, and others. 40,58 HCI has focused research attention on gender. 6,11,54 Recent findings suggest gender bias may be endemic in the content of machine learning, as expressed in the meme "Man is to Computer Programmer as Woman is to Homemaker."…”