Do Women Resist Computers?

Esther Lyson's office displays the |
kind of clutter, from the paper-littered |
desk to the swimsuit suspended from the
wall, that denotes an executive whose |
workplace is admittedly her home. "I'n
sitting in the YNCA waiting to go |
swimming, and there are two women
talking," recalls the 31-year-old |
vice-president of Rosen Research Inc. and
wanaging editor of the Kosen Electronics
Letter. One of them says, "Gee, In
looking for a better-paying job, something
more exciting,’ and the second one says,
"Well, how about computers--I have a
friend who took a computer course for six
months and suddenly she went from $16,000
a year to $24,000.' And the first one
says, ‘Oh, I couldn't do that--they're so
cold, and I'm just a warm person.' "

Just like a woman, wouldn't you say,
letting her emotions get in the way of a
rational career decision? After all,
women just aren't temperanentally suited
to working with computers, are they? They
don't think logically, and they're scared
to death of the things anyway, aren't
they? iiot to mention that successful
computer operation demands a firm command
of math, true? Which is exactly why women
stay away from careers in the computer
field and wouldn't dream of using one in
the hone, right?

Guess again. Althougn decades of
social conditioning have convinced many
men and women that women and high
technology don't mix, the realities of
today's marketplace and the wodern office
are such that women are entering every
branch of the computer industry in large
and ever-increasing numbers. According to
the most recent National Science
Foundation estimates, 90,200 women were
eliployed as computer specialists in
i960--a 44 percent increase from 1978,

 

Women comprised 26 percent of the total
number of people enploved in computer
specialties in 1980.

Mad Hatter Page 20

woman was the world's first prograiwer.
Augusta Ada fyron, born in 1815 and the
daughter of Romantic poet Lora Byron, was
a celebrated mathematical prodigy. As
young Lady Lovelace, she planned probliis
for Charles Eabbage's Analytical Fnqine, a
proposed wechanical device that, way ahead
of its time, laid out the fundamentals of
modern computers. She corrected an error
in Babbage's calculations, and her
annotation of an Italian engineer's 1&42
paper on the Analytical Engine dic much to
clarify Babbeqge's work. The U.S.
Department of Uefense has honoured Lady
Lovelace by naming a conmissioned computer
language after her; Ada may become the
dominant lancuage in the defense industry
during the next two decades.

Even before computers existed, 4

.e-lt's not difficult to see how
[feriales'] “cognitive style" applies to
computer use. ([Females'] ability to
master languages can certainly include
computer languages, which are expressed
more and wore frequently in words. And
females' tendency toward linear logic and
ability to work well under pressure stands
theri in good stead for programming and
many other computer operations.

"Certainly computer programming, from what
I've done of it," says de Lacoste-
Utaising, “is very imuch a serial process."

The tendency of any women to ignore
extraneous factors and concentrate on the
task at hand may also be a reason that
many experts in the field promote women's
ability with computers. "Women do a iuch
more organized job," says Genevieve Cerf,
who has taucht computer science anc is
currently an instructor in the Electrical
Engineering Lepartment at Columbia
University. “They write neat provratiis,
beautifully lai¢ out. Women are much more
verbal in their descriptions; variable
names are well chosen," she says, |
explaining that women are nore likely to
write programs with subsequent users in
mind. "They're terrifically logical,"
Cerf continues. "They don't do crazy