Article by Bronwyn Walsh

I think I have always had an interest in computer science and technology, even if I never would have admitted it. Aside from the connotations with geekiness associated with the subject, and my middle school self still clinging to the hopes that I was at all “cool”, I also felt pressure to be interested in the humanities from both my family (most of whom have studied business or world issues), and society as a whole.

Being a womxn in STEM, specifically in computations, has only been discouraged in recent history. While womxn rarely, if ever, received credit for their contributions to the field, they played an instrumental role in the development of computing. In addition to notable figures such as Ada Lovelace who published the first algorithm designed to be executed by a computer (1840s), and Grace Hopper, inventor of the first compiler for a programming language, hundreds, if not thousands of womxn worked as computers beginning in the late 19th century. At this time, a “computer” or a “computor” was a clerk who sat at a desk and executed mathematical computations. The Harvard Computers, for instance, were a team of womxn who worked for the Harvard Observatory in the 1880s. Because womxn worked for less pay or even as volunteers, a team was hired to catalogue stars. They catalogued about 10,000 stars in total, with many individuals such as Annie Jump Cannon being able to catalogue stars at a rate of three stars per minute. This set a precedent for womxn as computers, and computing/calculating even became known as “women’s work” through the 1940s. The term “kilogirl” was coined as "equivalent to roughly a thousand hours of computing labor.".

Despite their enormous impact in computer science, womxn were still paid considerably less than men until the Equal Pay Act of 1963, and because the field was dominated by womxn, the difficulty of the work was minimized. On top of this, additional obstacles were presented to black womxn, who were often required to re-do previously completed college courses, and who rarely received promotions. Through all of this, womxn still dominated the field until the late 1960s.

Since the 1980s, however, the number of womxn in computer science has declined. Unfortunately, this has resulted in a vicious cycle, where young womxn are less likely to pursue computer science because they see fewer womxn in the field to begin with. Personally, the combination of the lack of representation in this field I saw growing up and the at best lukewarm reception to my passion for math and technology resulted in me worrying about seeming too interested in the topic. I remember when, in grade nine, an older friend told my friend group to join the robotics club she had started, I told my parents that I only joined the club to spend time with friends. Two years later, I stayed for hours after school with the programming team to ensure that our robot was ready for its first ever competition. In grade eleven, I took my first programming course, and this past summer I have been developing my own programming course with my friend, Vasundhara Bagchi. Now that I have been immersed in the computer science world, I can see that issues such as a lack of representation are not just topical. It still surprises people when I say that I plan to pursue computer science in university, and I constantly feel a need to prove myself as capable of contributing to the domain.

For years, womxn were computers, however we never received the respect we deserved. Then, womxn became a minority in this very field, and our interest in the subject was discouraged. Hopefully, now, we can once again inspire young womxn to take part in one of the most fascinating and quickly progressing subjects in this world, and finally give them the respect they deserve as computer scientists.

You can find Bronwyn and Vasundhara’s programming course on Instagram at @detechtheory , where you can sign up for free. DeTech Theory’s Introduction to Computer Science course teaches all topics covered in AP Computer Science A and the ICSE examination.