Barbara Liskov wins ACM Turing Award
The MIT professor, Barbara Liskov has won the 2008 Association for Computing Machinery's A.M Turing Award, one of the highest honors in computer science. It is often referred as the "Nobel prize in computing". She was awarded the Turing award for her work in design of programming languages and software methodology that led to object-oriented programming. Barbara Liskov was the first woman in the United States to be awarded a Ph.D from a computer science department (in Stanford). However, she is the second woman to get the prestigious ACM Turing award. The first one was Frances Elizabeth Allen who won the 2006 Turing award for her work in high performance computing.
I really hope that women like Barbara Liskov and Frances Elizabeth inspire young girls in schools and colleges to take up Science and Engineering.
It is sad but true that today women are in minority in the computing world. This trend is getting worse; young girls are less and less motivated to take up computer science as their subject of choice. Studies show that vast number of girls loose interest in math and technology right in middle school and their interest totally die off by the time they reach high school. As a result women are vastly underrepresented in one of the most economically significant profession of the 21st century.
The open question is that "why are so few women in computing" and "why are women not interested in computer science and technology". Depending on whom you ask, you will get answers varying from "women are not smart enough to understand computers" to "women are not just interested in computers". A simple google search will reveal that numerous women have made countless contributions in science and technology like Madam Curie for discovering the phenomenon of radioactivity; Mary Anderson for inventing a car-window cleaning device commonly called as windshield wipers etc. The big question is that if women are smart and intelligent, then why are they so few in numbers in science and technology? Why are women shying away from technology? This is not a common observation but has become a hot topic of research in academia.
The American society is consumed by stereotyping of kids right from the time they are born. Boys like blue, girls like pink. Boys like to play with cars and guns and girls like to play with barbie dolls and beads. The society is responsible for molding boys and girls in specific ways; making choices for them and promoting stereotyping. This stereotyping spreads in all aspect of their life as they grow older. Math and science are for boys; arts and social science are for girls. Techno gizmo is for boys and fashion dressing-up is for girls.
Girls have less and less motivation to fight the system. Fewer and fewer girls stand against these social norms and make their own choices. Women face more hurdles when they choose a field dominated by men. A woman is not easily accepted for her intellectual or analytical abilities until she proves it; and proves it again; and yet again. Women shy away from situations that require open display of aggressive language or behavior. If she is not aggressive enough, she is considered under-confident. Her aggressiveness depends on her confidence level. Woman's confidence needs strong backing of knowledge and information. Even if a man is 80 percent confident about a subject, he will market it and express it in a way that gives an impression that he is 100 percent confident about what he is saying. On the contrary, even if a women is 110 percent confident about the subject, she will sound 80 percent confident. In total, she displays less confidence in more situations. Apart from personality issues, social and psychological factors also affect in making the woman's life difficult. She mixes her personal and professional life and confuses her priorities. Her first grader kid's math test is as important to her as her project deadline; the parent-teacher conference at school is as important to her as her company meeting. This definitely has an effect in her professional advancement!
I am not trying to justify woman's lack of interest in fields dominated by men; I am just trying to state few reasons that are causing this lack of interest. If we want more women in the field of science and technology, we need to analyze and address the reasons that are causing the women to move away from it. We definitely need to address the stereotyping problem; need to motivate young girls in science and math; need to provide healthy environment to women currently pursuing technology to grow and advance their career.
We definitely need to recognize more women like Barbara Liskov and Frances Elizebeth who are source of inspiration and are role models to the younger generation.
