How Computing Stereotypes, Even In Online Environments, Can Discourage Female Participation

The mystery of why more females don’t embrace computing professions rolls on and on. Many feel it’s due to the boys club in places such as Silicon Valley, but research from The University Of Washington suggests there may be something else going on.

An article in The Journal was published recently : Research: Broaden Stereotypes To Draw Women into CS and Engineering by Dian Schaffhauser. The article itself is based on the following research : Cultural stereotypes as gatekeepers: increasing girls’ interest in computer science and engineering by diversifying stereotypes by Sapna Cheryan, Allison Master and Andrew N. Meltzoff.

The Journal makes the following claim :

The stereotype of the typical computer scientist or engineer as somebody who’s white or Asian, socially inept, obsessed with technology and almost always male is keeping girls out of those fields, according to a new study from the University of Washington.

That’s really not something that I’d considered as a barrier to females entering computer science and engineering professions. The research comes from an American perspective but I’d imagine a lot of the findings would apply to many western countries. The research also extends to looking at how females react in online scenarios and even cites past research involving Second Life.

So what is a stereotypical computing geek like? Well the research paper cites media representations :

Popular movies and television shows like Real Genius, The Big Bang Theory, and Silicon Valley depict computer scientists and engineers as mostly White (and more recently Asian) males, socially unskilled, and singularly obsessed with technology.

Ok so right away I’ve got a frowny face over this research, but ok those portrayals may be considered sterotypical but people look beyond stereotypes right … no really, they do? Well the research carried out some tests regarding this, one was quite straight forward :

To examine the extent to which exposure to stereotypical and non-stereotypical media representations influence women’s interest in computer science, women undergraduates read one of two fabricated newspaper articles. One article stated that computer scientists fit the current stereotypes, while the other stated that computer scientists were diversifying and no longer fit the stereotypes. Women who read the stereotypical article expressed less interest in majoring in computer science than women who read the non-stereotypical article. Furthermore, women who read the non-stereotypical article were significantly more interested in computer science than women who read no article.

However moving away from media stereotypes, what happens when females encounter real people? The researchers carried out a test, they invited females to take part in short conversation with actors, three male actors and three female actors. The purpose of this was to test how stereotypical geekiness might influence a female :

half of the participants were randomly assigned to interact with an actor who fit current stereotypes in appearance and preferences (e.g., glasses, t-shirt that said “I code therefore I am,” hobbies that included playing videogames) or one who did not fit these stereotypes (e.g., solid colored t-shirt, hobbies that included hanging out with friends). After the interaction was complete, participants were asked about their interest in their partner’s major and then asked the same questions again 2 weeks later.

Results revealed that women who interacted with the stereotypical student were significantly less interested in majoring in computer science than those who interacted with the non-stereotypical student, and this effect was equally strong regardless of whether the actor was male or female. Moreover, negative effects of stereotypes endured for 2 weeks after the interaction. The computer science major’s gender mattered less in influencing women’s interest in computer science than the extent to which he or she fit current computer science stereotypes.

That’s rather fascinating. So the non-selling point wasn’t just about the gender of the person whom females interacted with, it was how stereotypically geeky they were too.

So how does environment influence the concepts of computing science and engineering in a female? Well the researchers cite an example from the use of Second Life (hurrah!) :

To test whether the design of virtual classrooms influences educational outcomes, undergraduates virtually entered two classrooms in Second Life, an online 3D interactive virtual environment. Both were introductory computer science classrooms, but one contained stereotypical objects while the other contained non-stereotypical objects. Whereas only 18% of women chose to take the course in the stereotypical classroom, more than half of men (60%) chose that classroom. Furthermore, women expected to perform worse in the class with the stereotypical objects than men, but in the non-stereotypical classroom, women’s expectations rose, so that women and men expected to do equally well.

Why did the stereotypical environment deter women more than men? Women reported a lower sense of ambient belonging in the stereotypical environment, or sense of fit with the material components and with the people assumed to inhabit the environment. In contrast, men reported an equal, and sometimes greater, sense of ambient belonging in the stereotypical environment than the non-stereotypical environment. Women were less likely than men to associate themselves with the stereotypical objects, and the more that women perceived the stereotypical environment as masculine, the less interest they expressed in being in that environment.

What I find fascinating about this is that we know females feel comfortable in Second Life as a large percentage of the Second Life user base are female. However when put inside an environment within Second Life, stereotypical values can be felt by participants to such an extent that they influence their thought process.

So what’s the answer here? I have no idea but the researchers suggest :

In all studies investigating effects of stereotypes, there is a sizable portion of students who may be drawn to these fields because of these stereotypes. In the studies on environments, some women (typically 20–25% of women) preferred the stereotypical environment over the non-stereotypical environment. Rather than attempting to overhaul current stereotypes, which may deter some men and women, a more effective strategy may be to diversify the image of these fields so that students interested in these fields do not think that they must fit a specific mold to be a successful computer scientist or engineer.

There’s more, much more in both the linked article and the research paper, it’s a fascinating read and the paper does acknowledge that if a female happily embraces computer science, they will still face the challenges of entering a male dominated world, which can and does lead to many females seeking a career elsewhere.

However I firmly believe that the first step to introducing more females to computing industries is to encourage females to study computer science, and if changing stereotypical outlooks can achieve that goal, then it’s definitely worth doing.


2 Replies to “How Computing Stereotypes, Even In Online Environments, Can Discourage Female Participation”

  1. I’m glad they acknowledged the 20-25% of women who preferred the stereotypical environment; that’s my demographic, the girls who grew up among the “geek guys”, playing video games and reading scifi, then went into tech with relative ease. If the Engineering division looked like Marketing, it would be very uncomfortable for many men AND women who thrive there.

    Years ago I worked with a group that provided a free tech camp for middle school girls. My insight from that was that we can interest more girls in technology jobs if we broaden our definition of the field beyond programming, too. Graphic design and animation, software project management, and quality assurance, for example, all require technical skills and might attract young women whose eyes glaze over at the thought of writing code. When we presented the girls with “a day in the life” examples of jobs that combined tech with visual creativity or management, some of them lit up at the possibilities. Maybe that reflected the desire to work with tech despite resistance to the stereotypes that the study examined.

    1. Yep I think that’s very important, 20-25% is not a small number and shows that there isn’t a one size fits all solution to engaging more females in these industries and classes.

      There’s also interesting discussion on something I’ve long suspected, careers advisors and teachers are tempted to steer girls in other directions. There are plenty of females who tread an artistic path, so graphic design and joining the dots to a career in a computing field shouldn’t be that difficult.

      I do think females would respond better if they saw more females in positions in the industry and as you point out, the fields go beyond programming and coding.

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