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By Maya Dusenbery • @mayadusenbery • 9 years ago

Chart of the Day: Why did computer science become dominated by men?

When you hear the phrase “male-dominated field,” computer science has got to be among the top few that immediately comes to mind. These days, only 18 percent of computer science majors are women.

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But once upon a time–a time not so long ago since computers are still relatively young themselves–that wasn’t the case. Not only were many computing pioneers women (as this helpful timeline on the Community site shows), but for decades the number of women studying computer science was growing faster than the number of men. But that rather abruptly changed in 1984–right about when personal computers came on the scene. Planet Money explores what happened.

Related:
The Feministing Five: Dr. Telle Whitney
Feministing Follow Friday: Women in STEM, Vol. I
Feministing Follow Friday: Women in STEM, Vol. II
A timeline of women in world computing

Maya DusenberyMaya Dusenbery is an Executive Director of Feministing.

St. Paul, MN

Maya Dusenbery is executive director in charge of editorial at Feministing. She is the author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick (HarperOne, March 2018). She has been a fellow at Mother Jones magazine and a columnist at Pacific Standard magazine. Her work has appeared in publications like Cosmopolitan.com, TheAtlantic.com, Bitch Magazine, as well as the anthology The Feminist Utopia Project. Before become a full-time journalist, she worked at the National Institute for Reproductive Health. A Minnesota native, she received her B.A. from Carleton College in 2008. After living in Brooklyn, Oakland, and Atlanta, she is currently based in the Twin Cities.

Maya Dusenbery is an executive director of Feministing and author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm on sexism in medicine.

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