Why are female programmers increasingly absent?

Few people know that before becoming a typical male job, women are pioneers in programming.

One of the world software industry monuments is Jean Jennings Bartik (1924 - 2011). She had great merit in launching ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Intervention and Computer) - supercomputer during World War II.

Similar to the majority of women in the 1930-1940 years, Jean Jennings Bartik had a deep passion for mathematics. During the fiercest war, she and other female colleagues worked as true "computers" when calculating cannon flight trajectories and military missiles based on shooting altitude. Full manual.

Each different weapon requires a separate trajectory spreadsheet. To complete such a spreadsheet, Bartik and his colleagues had to work continuously for more than 30 hours.

Bartik first learned about the ENIAC project in 1945. Although she did not understand the work she was doing, she did not hesitate to take part in the hope of ending the persistent war with modern technology.

Female programmers operate ENIAC by plugging and unplugging cables, adjusting switches.(Photo: Getty Images).

As the first 'electronic super computer' at the time, ENIAC could perform trajectory calculations and produce results much faster than manual calculations. Although men design the ENIAC, they argue that writing programs on this machine is tedious and only for women - just like clerical work.

Talking to radio NPR, historian Walter Isaacson said: 'Men possess the ingenuity to manufacture hardware. However, women are good mathematicians to create software - the soul of the devices - though this work is overlooked and not paid well. '

The night before the ENIAC had its first public performance, it had some serious failures. It was Bartik and his colleague Betty Snyder that overcame and made ENIAC work again.

The result was unexpectedly successful: ENIAC calculated the missile's trajectory in just 20 seconds, less than 10 seconds compared to reality. This makes the public extremely pleased and excited. Unfortunately, after the event, Bartik and Snyder were not named or included in the photographs of the press. They were not even invited to dinner the next day.

Jean Jennings Bartik (left) while using ENIAC's main control panel.(Photo: Wikimedia).

As the war passed, Bartik and the 'ENIAC Girls' team of six other women worked together with UNIVAC (UNIVersal Automatic Computer) - one of the world's first commercial computers. Here they met the female reserve naval soldier, who later became the brilliant computer scientist - Grace Hopper.

While poring over ways to work more effectively with computers, Hopper created a new method of computer programming with words instead of numbers. In 1959, she launched COBOL - a programming language that allowed scientists to write computer commands in English.

To this day, COBOL is still widely used, especially banks and governments. It is capable of operating on almost any platform and is extremely suitable when using the same numbers. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand when COBOL is used in most business transactions. COBOL each time a user swipes a credit card or secured investment transaction, has the presence of COBOL.

In the 50s, 30–50% of women worked as programmers. This is said to be so natural, that Cosmopolitan magazine also published an article titled 'Computer Girls' in 1967.

Programming career is gradually respected and become one of the hardest intellectual work, of course, the salary has also increased significantly. According to historian Nathan Ensmenger, men began to care about this work and find ways to increase their reputation in the profession. They established professional organizations, seeking more stringent requirements when participating in this field.

Many newspapers have criticized the bad habits of women such as chatting, wasting time and making mistakes that make them unsuitable at work. Men now become "flashy" and considered the first choice for programming.

Women were once considered to hold the future of computer science.(Photo: Cosmopolitan).

At the time of the 80s, personal computers began to appear. The ideal model of the developer is framed in the image of Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. Moreover, the cult movies of the time like Weird Science, War Games, or Real Genius all contributed to this image. Even the makers of electronic games and personal computers default to the target customers who are male and male children.

It all makes the prejudice in the minds of people about technology culture with the main labor force who are men.

According to the Jane Margolis study at Carnegie Mellon University, families tend to buy computers for boys rather than girls. Enrollment in technology universities is similar when prioritizing male students instead of female students. Job opportunities therefore also have differences.

By 2011, the percentage of women participating in computer science programs has dropped to 17%. Today, only 6.7% of women have a degree in science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) compared with 17% in men.

The topic of gender equality has never been hot in the comments. Although there are still many difficulties, modern women are still proving to be irreplaceable day by day through their abilities and abilities in all fields.