Change the Cowboy Culture in Computer Science

Zeynep Tufekci is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Updated March 9, 2012, 2:04 PM

It remains to be seen if a few Hollywood movies about programmer billionaires will spur a Sputnik moment.

However, computer science classes remain almost as gender segregated as the original Apollo program. Only 19 percent of those who took the computer science A.P. exam in 2010 were women. This is not because women think “math class is tough,” as a Barbie once famously, and unfortunately, lamented; girls actually sat for 49 percent of A.P. calculus tests.

How to attract more women, and men, to a field where an individualistic, hazing-oriented mentality has ruled for too long.

Many well-meaning approaches to this problem are inflicted with the “deficit model” which asks what’s wrong with girls instead of what’s wrong with the way computer science is taught, practiced and perceived. Addressing why bright young woman gravitate toward other majors will not just diversify the field and increase the supply of students, but also improve the way programming is taught and practiced. Ultimately, this is more consequential than just the problem of gender inequality. Software developers are architects of our digital worlds. Would a Marsha Zuckerberg be more careful about privacy protections on Facebook? It would be good to be able to find out.

Encouragingly, top computer science programs around the country have been overhauling their programs to incorporate more cooperative learning and battling the competitive, hazing-oriented mentality of the major. As a former programmer, I have firsthand experience in the individualistic, “let’s see who can code the shortest, most obscure-program to do x” cowboy culture of programming. That culture is unappealing to many women -- as well as many men. I can only wonder how much of the repeated, massive failure of large software development systems is related to such bad practices and the weeding out of the very kind of people who could help counterbalance them.

Finally, women tend to be attracted to professions that they perceive as doing something positive for the world. I can only hope that computer science programs rise to the occasion and restructure their courses to attract the kind of women -- and men -- who want to change the world for the better, work collaboratively, and succeed by doing it well.