Articlia.com

What do you think of when I say a ‘computer scientist’? A plain white room, a computer, a few geeky gadgets, nerdy science posters, junk food and a thin lanky guy sitting there using those gadgets, right? Yes, well typically this is us stereotyping a computer scientist and this very phenomenon is the reason why girls don’t like computers. The image that the mere word brings is enough for women to not join this profession.

Sapna Cheryan, University of Washington assistant professor of psychology led a research on this and says, “That stereotype doesn’t appeal to many women who don’t like the portrait of masculinity that it evokes.” Cheryan believes that such objects create what she calls ambient belonging (the feeling of whether you fit in that environment or not). Why girls don’t turn out to be geeks, typically because they don’t want to be associated with the environment attached to ‘geeks’

“It is the sense you get right away when you walk into a room. You look at the objects and make an instant appraisal of how you would fit with the objects and the people who are typically found in that environment. You also make a judgment of ‘I like it here’ or ‘I don’t belong here,’” she said

Four experiments were carried out to find out the reason why the proportion of women in the field of computer science is decreasing while the proportion of women in such disciplines as biology, mathematics and chemistry is increasing and involved more than 250 female and male students.

The first experiment was done by decorating a classroom with science related geeky stuff (star trek posters, video games, coke can) or by carefully placing non stereotypical objects like a coffee mug and nature related poster in it. The male and female students were asked to spend several moments in the classroom, after that they were asked to fill a questionnaire.

Women showed an inclination toward non stereo typical class rooms and showed mild interest in a stereo typical computer science environment, while men didn’t show disinterest in computer science with its typical environment as their counterparts. This according to Cheryan also shows that students often take into account the kind of environment they’ll get when they select a particular major( like the kind of classrooms and halls they’ll be using)

Three further experiments showed that 82 percent women choose a certain team because of the workroom environment they have, which was not typical of workplaces. Also when it came to choosing jobs in an office with equal number of both the sexes, both the male and female students showed a preference for the workplace with the uncommon settings, the female students though showed a bit more strong interest. When tested by showing them a job for a web design company, women chose the non stereo typical environment offering jobs but the men preferred the commonplace environment. Overall the experiment showed a great gender gap in computing and fields associate with it

“Instead of trying to change the women who do not relate to the stereotype, our research suggests that changing the image of computer science so that more women feel they fit in the field will go a long way to recruiting them into computer science,” said Cheryan. In short for women it’s the look that you have to change to change their mind.

Basically what Cheryan wanted to achieve with this research was ways to attract more women towards computer science. By broadening the image of certain field you can attract more female and males alike to that profession. And this starts from school and colleges, they need to change the look of their classrooms and hallways so that the image of computer science can be changed from root level. Media should also start showing computer scientist as normal people, not only just the typical geek. By this way we can make the profession more acceptable to the masses and not only a particular class of people.