Websites for Girls and Young Women Interest in IT

How to help Girls get into technology.

Real women engineers and other role models for girls.

Changing Girls' Attitudes About Computers

"Don't worry your pretty little head over it."

Special Edition

Computer Wonder Women

National Women's History Month

GIRLS WHO CODE: GIRLS CAN DO ANYTHING - GIRLS CAN CHANGE THE WORLD

1.4 million jobs in computer fields that will be created by 2020 . Enter GIRLS WHO CODE, a non-profit agency with the goal of closing the gender gap in technology by inspiring, educating and equipping young women for futures in the computing-related fields.

2019 -- 40 Online Resources All Women in Tech Careers Should Know About Women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers can often feel isolated at work if they don't have a lot of other female colleagues. Fortunately, the internet has more ways for women in tech to connect than ever before. https://www.pcmag.com/article/368920/40-online-resources-all-women-in-tech-careers-should-know-ab

Boston coding bootcamp Launch Academy just opened up shop in Philly
Launch Academy's 10-week program promises to take someone with no previous coding background and get them ready for an entry-level job in the field. At a $15,000 tuition (pricier than New York Code & Design Academy's $10,000 full-time program here in Philly), the company pledges post-graduation support and guidance as part of the package.

"15 under 15” rising stars in digital security .
To keep her alter-ego a mystery, CyFi refuses to reveal her real name when discussing her security research. She wears sunglasses to make it harder for people (or facial recognition algorithms) to recognize her features when she's photographed. “You know how superheroes go by their superhero names, like Superman and stuff? It's good to have a hacker name,” CyFi says, “so the villains don't know how to get you.”
CyFi's mom, who works in the cybersecurity industry, walked in on her teaching a group of slack-jawed tweens how to break into their favorite games. Turns out, CyFi had unearthed a new class of previously undisclosed security weaknesses, otherwise known as zero days, spanning across all mobile devices. Criminals, CyFi's mom explained, could take advantage of the app's automatic trust of the device's clock - a mistake most experienced developers wouldn't make - to replace the time code with a malicious program to run on the app's servers.

99 Terms You Need To Know When You're New To Tech

Gonna Be An Engineer by Peggy Seeger

Here are all kinds of resources, mentoring programs, projects, and links for helping girls using science, math, technology, to cross that digital divide.

• Best Online Resources For Women and Minorities in Science and Technology
• Educating Girls in the New Computer Age (2000)
• HERSTORIES Classroom Project

She found her first bug in 1946, when will you find yours?
Grace Hopper's finding of the "bug" on code

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Nothing to Prove - Geek Girls & The Doubleclicks

2014 12 year old Ethan learned to code for free "in about two to three months on Codecademy during summer vacation between fifth and sixth grade, getting schooled in HTML, CSS, Javascript, and more. Then he put his skills to use with PhoneGap , a framework for building cross-platform mobile apps for iPhone, Android, and Windows Phone with web technologies. Find more Free Education Programming tools

DON'T BE INTIMIDATED BY THE "GEEKY BROGRAMMERS"

GAMERS

Top 10 highest earning female eSports gamers in the world 2018 Unfortunately, there's a noticeable disparity between the earnings of males and females in the gaming arena as much as there is elsewhere. While the top male eSports players are making millions, even the top female earners are only getting a maximum of $200,000.

Scarlett has since been called "the most accomplished woman in e-sports" and appeared on a list of 50 admirable gaming people in 2014. With over 141 tournaments under her belt, Scarlett is the highest earning female eSports player in the world with $200,693.82 earnt so far.

ESPORTS EARNINGS TOP FEMALE PLAYERS
Sasha "Scarlett" Hostyn - Female StarCraft II Player
Total Prize Money Earned: $302,845.03 From 170 Tournaments
Sasha "Scarlett" Hostyn is a Canadian StarCraft II player who plays Zerg. She started to play StarCraft II in April 2011. She made her first steps in the competitive scene by participating in an online female-only league - the NESL Iron Lady - and winning the tournaments twice in a row in Autumn 2011.

Katherine Gunn Total Prize Money Earned: $122,000.00 From 3 Tournaments
https://www.esportsearnings.com/players/female-players

"Girls are Not Allowed"
Girls are often turned off of computers for a host of social, psychological, attitudinal, and environmental reasons. They are socialized to view technology and technically literate people as belonging to a particular culture_the hacker culture. Sherry Turkle , author of The Second Self, states, "There are few women hackers. This is a male world." Women may also see the world of technology as precise and unforgiving, often lacking in creativity and having little connection to people. Lorri Neilsen, director of teacher development at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, has discovered that girls often feel that if something goes wrong while they are using high-tech equipment, it is their fault, whereas boys are more likely to blame the machine. Her research also shows that girls and women are less confident than boys and men about their computer abilities. Melissa Koch

OMG Girlz Don't Exist on teh Intarweb!!!???@?!!
I am a girl on the internet. Yes, I said it. A girl on the internet. There really are quite a few of us. I can type. I can play games with the best of you. And you, my friend, are about to get owned by a girl. [Girls as gamers article]

Many Girl Games are free to try.

Girls in STEM, featuring young women scientists and engineers who wowed President Obama and the nation at the White House Science Fair in February 2012, shines a spotlight on these extraordinary young role models and their exciting projects -- ranging from a machine that detects buried landmines, to a prosthetic hand device, to a lunchbox that uses UV light to kill bacteria on food.

SYSTERS

How Internet Trolls Improved My Self Esteem

Here's a refreshing take by Rebecca Watson on how she realized that the internet trolls actually improved her self-esteem. What a positive spin she puts on it. The comments are positive too.

Most of the Systers stories for the 25 Anniversary community and working to share your stories. http://anitasquilt.org/

Community Self Care

Sexual Harassment
[1] UN Women: Creating Safe Public Spaces http://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/ending-violence-against-women/creating-safe-public-spaces
[2] United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: Harassment https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/harassment.cfm
[3] Stop Street Harassment (This page has a lot of resources) http://www.stopstreetharassment.org/resources/online/

Mental Health
[1] Movement for Global Mental Health http://www.globalmentalhealth.org/resources
[2] World Health Organization Mental Health Gap Action Programme http://www.who.int/mental_health/en/
[3] Centre for Global Mental Health http://www.centreforglobalmentalhealth.org/global-mental-health-websites

Legal and Advocacy
[1] National Women's Law Center https://nwlc.org/
[2] AAUW: Know Your Rights, Workplace Sexual Harassment http://www.aauw.org/what-we-do/legal-resources/know-your-rights-at-work/workplace-sexual-harassment/
[3] Workplace Fairness: It's Everyone's Job http://www.workplacefairness.org/sexual-harassment-legal-rights

Scholarships for summer camps for high-school students,and interesting programs that are either free or offer financial aid:

• Best Online Resources For Science and Technology Jobs and Careers for Women and Minorities
• Girls on Ice They try to make sure that everyone accepted is able to participate (i.e. they provide financial aid).
• Techgirlz Training Resources for Middle School Students
• The programs Mites from MIT and SAMS from Carnegie Mellon are both free and focused on minorities in engineering. In both cases you must be at
  least a high-school junior.
• BFOIT Summer Institute for Future Computer Scientists at UC Berkeley supports historically underrepresented ethnic minorities and women in their desire to become leaders in the fields of computer science, engineering and information technology.

2017 Google's global program to support women in tech, Women Techmakers just launched the Women Techmakers Udacity Scholarship , a new program to provide *100 women fully funded Udacity Nanodegrees* (technical certifications you receive online) .
Apply here <https://www.womentechmakers.com/udacity> by June 9th, 2017. This new scholarship provides the opportunity for women to earn online certification in

• Android Basics
  https://www.udacity.com/course/android-basics-nanodegree-by-google--nd803
• Android Developer
  https://www.udacity.com/course/android-developer- nanodegree-by-google--nd801
  
• Front-End Web Developer
  https://www.udacity.com/course/front-end-web-developer-nanodegree--nd001
• Full-Stack Developer
  https://www.udacity.com/course/full-stack-web-developer-nanodegree--nd004

All courses co-designed by Google experts, and includes opportunities for women at multiple skill levels. Benefits include special access to a community of Googlers and a cross-cohort global online community. * Note: At this time we aren't able to offer additional Udacity Nanodegrees via this scholarship.

MIT App Inventor 2 makes simple apps.
There's no coding involved, you just build apps out of puzzle pieces or blocks. They have a tutorial with videos that we followed to start with.

Pixar in a Box - Khan Academy http://pixarinabox.org Overview of Pixar in a Box for students & teachers learn animation, character modeling, environment modeling + and find comments from Brit Cruise lead content developer and Alan Pierce developer at Khan Academy (currently working on the upcoming Android app) both work at Khan Academy

2013 First-grader creates mobile app video game
Emmanuel Schanzer: Bootstrap was designed to teach algebra by having students familiarize themselves with algebraic concepts in the context of programming their own video games.
Bootstrap after school program is for students ages 12-16 - grades 6-8 that teaches them to program their own videogames using purely algebraic and geometric concepts. Rosanna Sobota Volunteer Teacher helps students understand. All of our materials can be found online , and the software lives on the Web , so you don't need to download and install anything! For teachers who would like more support, they can contact us directly and set up opportunities to get trained, sign up for weekly conference calls and more.

The National Girls Collaborative Project ™ (NGCP) is designed to reach girl-serving STEM organizations across the United States. An intense recruitment and selection process began in fall 2005 to identify sponsoring organizations to lead local Collaboratives. In April 2011, the National Girls Collaborative Project received additional funding from the National Science Foundation to reach additional states identified as high need priority areas.

Lego for girls , this time hardware-hacker style

All-girls First robotics team scored a second place finish in the regional championships, and is advancing to the world championships in St Louis. This will be their second year at the world championships. Student programmer wins national award March 07, 2012 Read about their journey.

"This project, called Roominate , aims to change the way girls think about electricity.""You can wire up your dollhouse however you like, adding lamps and switches."

I Learned to Program
Fantastic opportunity to share how you got started in programming. This isn't just another moment to say how your dad was and engineer but shows how non programmers and pre programmers got their start. Every time someone visits the site, a random story is loaded, along with a link to learn more about the person answering.

Alice in Mathland by Sara Smollett who also wrote HCSSiM , an excellent summer program for high schoolers interested in mathematics.

Books about Science: Suggestions for Little Sisters:

• Danica McKellar , who has appeared on such shows as “The Wonder Years,” “The West Wing,” “NYPD Blue” and “Young Justice,” graduated summa cum laude in mathematics from the University of California, Los Angeles, where she helped devise a mathematical proof for certain properties of magnetic fields — a theorem that bears her name along with those of her collaborators. She also writes popular books about math with clever PG-13 titles like “Math Doesn't Suck” and “ Kiss My Math .”
• John Markoff's "What the Doormouse Said: How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer," though it discribes a misogynistic culture (there are essentially no women in this history).
• Getting really young girls into math
• Steven Levy's "Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government Saving Privacy in the Digital Age."
• Katie Hafner's "Where Wizards Stay Up Late: the Origins of the Internet."
• Lessig's "Code 2.0," which is more about digital copyright issues, but it discusses how architecture (code) makes policy. It conveys something really important about programming and might be of interest as well. So while none of these are strictly about programming, they are about computers, how they are designed, and societal effects of these choices.
• Tracy Kidder's The Soul of a New Machine. The 1981 best-seller and Pulitzer Prize winner chronicles the dramatic efforts of West and his team of engineers at Massachusetts-based Data General to build a minicomputer known to its creators as "the Eagle." Soul lays bare the life of the modern engineer - the egghead toiling and tinkering in the basement, forsaking a social life for a technical one. It's a glimpse into the mysterious motivations, the quiet revelations, and the spectacular devotions of engineers - and, in particular, of West.
• Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher, _Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing_, April 2003, ISBN-10: 0262632691
• Sybil E. Hatch, _Changing Our World: True Stories of Women Engineers_, February 2006, ISBN-10: 0784408416
• Annalee Newitz and Charlie Anders, _Shes Such a Geek: Women Write About Science, Technology, and Other Nerdy Stuff_, October 2006, ISBN-10: 1580051901
• " 20 ways to get promoted in the tech industry "
  By Dan Tynan, October 16, 2006
• Dice Salary Survey (shows Gender Gap) , 24 January 2007

Book Reviews include suggested reading level.
list of books with strong female protagonists .

• Terry Pratchett Tiffany Aching books
• Ptolemy's Gate (The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Book 3)
  
• Charlotte's Web.
• An American Childhood
• The Dawn Palace
• Dealing With Dragons
  
• Dragonsong
  
• So You Want To Be A Wizard
  
• Galileo's Daughter
  
• A Girl Named Disaster
  
• Stargirl
  
• Harriet the Spy
• Mareilon the Magician
• Molly Moon's Hypnotic Time Travel Adventure (Book 3)
• Pippi Longstocking
• Princess Academy
• Millicent Min, Girl Genius

Adventures in Alice Programming Free Alice materials for Use in K-12
This website describes a National Science Foundation project for integrating the programming language Alice into middle schools and high schools in the Durham, NC region. The target schools are the Durham public schools, Vance County, Person County and Chatham County. Other schools in or near Durham are also welcome to participate.

Computer Engineer Barbie
When it arrives, you'll get a "Special code inside each package unlocks career-themed content online" The site where you can "help Barbie program a robot puppy to do cute tricks" (no special code needed) learn more about The "program" moving blocks of zeros and ones around.

Girls in Tech founder Adriana Gascoigne and executive managing director Robyn Cohen Adriana describes Girls in Tech as an organization geared toward the empowerment, education and engagement of women in technology. They launched the Girls in Tech University, offering a curriculum to college students and others who want to ramp up their involvement in the tech sector. They are also offering a mentoring program by partnering with GirlSource , a nonprofit organization that helps low-income minority girls in high school learn about technology.

Engineer Your Life is a web-based campaign that encourages high school girls to explore the exciting engineering career path. EYL features ten great reasons to become an engineer, streaming video of inspiring women engineers, descriptions of dream engineering jobs, and advice for counselors, teachers, parents and engineers on how to talk to girls about engineering.

Connecting School & Work

" I am a woman, musician, novelist, and I absolutely agree with your assessment that girls today are being fed a whole lot of "look at me" shlock and are acting it out. It does seem many girls strive to look like they're ready to go down on the whole football in the locker room just for a pat on the back from the guys.
I have spent 5 years learning to sing and writing songs. I am the only woman I know who can proficiently edit in FIVE music and audio programs, I write my own lyrics, am a happy tech geek, have never sampled a song in my life, and strive everyday to write something original. I have written 2 novels.
I drive a crappy car and spend my money on new microphones, soundcards and computer equipment.
I support myself by freelancing as a video FX editor, I work for many major record labels ----
THIS IS THE SCARY PART: the work I am most often asked to do is called "beauty work." Meaning, I retouch the faces and bodies of very famous celebrities, mostly in music videos. While editing out eye wrinkles and zits, I hear the roomful of guys I work with ragging on Fergie, "What, is she like 40 now?" Or chubby Mariah for having a belly roll. I'm not condoning Fergie or Mariah or what they wear or drink or do on stage ---- however, it's hard to hear it. Women are still judged on their looks. Male musicians are starting to get that criticism too, and boy, they love the beauty retouching too!
My novel is actually themed around hoping young women WILL stop focusing only on their looks, and stop listening to media who encourage it, and get an education to better themselves, creatively or for whatever their chosen pursuit in life will be. The world is still giving women a lot of mixed messages. They have to learn to listen to themselves, not media. I was a dumb 20 year old who cared too much what a few boys thought of my looks, but there was hope for me, so maybe there's hope for Paris Hilton. (By the way, I was voted best looking in my high school class and as much attention as I have gotten in life for my looks, I am absolutely hardcore determined to be an educated, learned songwriter.)
I suppose I just wanted to caution against you making stereotypes. Sadly, I see them too, all day long in LA. I pretty much stopped watching television because advertising and MTV depress me these days.
I hope to (sic) be the poster child for a woman who CHOSE to educate herself and develop a craft. Yeah, I'm a f'ing saint. No, I guess I just don't really know any other way I'd be proud of myself unless I did all the work myself. ~ anon

2008 Wisconsin to Test Inclusive Science and Technology Project
Wisconsin will be one of the first states in a national project to attract more girls, students of color, and students with disabilities to the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), reports the Daily Kenoshan. Directors of the National STEM Equity Pipeline Project say that many American girls are reluctant to seek STEM careers because of stereotypes that boys are more suited to those fields, and that disparities in STEM participation echo general achievement gaps among students of color and economically disadvantaged students, compared with performance by their peers. Elizabeth Burmaster, Wisconsin's state superintendent of public instruction, says "many strategies for encouraging reluctant students in STEMtechniques like mentoring or having students work in pairsin fact serve to better engage all students, leading to increased achievement across the board." The national project has been developed by the National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity Education Foundation, with a grant from the National Science Foundation.

Activities

NIH Office of Science Education Girls Using Real Life Science

• National Institutes of Health Office of Science Education - Cool Links
• K-12 Science Teachers Curriculum Supplements and it's Free
  

Activities for Middle School (Grades 6-8 / Ages 11-13)

SmartGirl.org Providing a safe space for girls to share their opinions, creativity, and experiences. We try to provide ways for girls to talk about topics that don't always come up in day-to-day conversation, including experiences with technology. G irls can submit their science discoveries and other do-it-yourself projects, HTML tutorial

Readergirlz is a web site moderated by a group of Seattle area women who write novels for young adults. Their manifesto is all about having serious fun while talking about books. The site delivers all kinds of fun for teen girls. Music, art, videos, and books!

Packet Riders Games and Activities ages 8 - 11

Career Capture
An interactive, online activity where users learn about female IT role models and create a scrapbook of their journey.

Hacker Busters ages 12 - 14

Girl Genius comic - Adventure, Romance, Mad Science

How to Think Like a Computer Scientist Learning with Python

" DOM Scripting " by Jeremy Keith for learning JavaScript/DOM scripting, plus it would introduce her to semantic, valid HTML and CSS-driven layouts -- modern Web development techniques that are in high demand!)

HTML tutorial learn how to use HTML to create your own Web site.

PEOPLE

Mr. Wizard - Don Herbert - the one and only "Mr. Wizard" of Mr. Wizard Studios

Girlstart is a non-profit organization created to empower girls to excel in math, science, and technology. Founded in 1997 in Austin, Texas, Girlstart has quickly established itself as a best-case practices leader in empowering, educating, and motivating girls to enjoy and become more proficient in math, science and technology. Girlstart offers a variety of educational formats designed for middle school girls through after-school programs, Saturday camps, and summer camps . All Girlstart programs share a common theme of hands-on exploration of science, math, and technology in a fun and girl-friendly environment. These programs are held at the Girlstart Tech Center and in Austin-area schools.

Women of the Web 2.0
for all who are using the tools of the internet whether it be in a classroom setting, leading seminars, authoring books, maintaining blogs or wikis, or just enjoying the tools of the internet in an educational and exciting way.

" Engineer Girl ," a Web site developed by the National Academy of Engineering in collaboration with an advisory board of girls from across the United States and Canada, highlights opportunities in engineering -- especially for women and girls. Students can read profiles of real women engineers, ask them questions, get help with homework, and even take a trivia quiz.

Opening Opportunities for Girls in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM)

Mentoring Programs National Program- Girl Power
Parental Resources for Connectivity Other Educational and Mentoring Resources

Mentorgirls.org
We put the spotlight on programs currently seeking mentors and volunteers - including the San Francisco Bay Area & Silicon Valley, California, as well as many online initiatives in regional USA and abroad. Our resources primarily center on supporting K-12 girls on up through career and personal development for young women.

Action Without Borders
350 Fifth Ave., Ste
6614 New York, NY 10118
Phone: (212) 843-3973 Fax: (212) 564-3377
Links people with organizations nationally and internationally. Search by organization name or mission keyword to find local organizations, volunteer opportunities, programs and services, and more!

America's Promise -- The Alliance For Youth New!!
909 North Washington St.
Ste 400 Alexandria, VA 22314-1556
Connects those that can, like corporations, with those that do, like volunteers and grass roots efforts, to assist our nations 15 million at-risk youth to have better access to five fundamental resources: mentors, safe places, healthy start, marketable skills, and returning service to the community.

Girls Get IT
Create a network in Florida that offers girls and young women exciting opportunities to connect and explore the worlds of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math that lead to rewarding careers and better their lives.

National Coalition of Girls' Schools NCGS
228 Main Street Concord,
MA 01742
(978) 287-4485 Fax: (978) 287-6014
Sponsors the Math & Science for Girls, Girls & the Physical Sciences, and Girls & Technology symposia. Check out their series of publications for girls, their parents, and educators!

GirlTECH
A program for teachers to raise the awareness of girls underuse of computers. GirlTECH has online lesson plans. GirlTECH, the highly acclaimed computational science summer workshops for teachers hosted by Rice University'sCenter for Research on Parallel Computation (CRPC), makes available a large and diverse collection of online lesson plans generated by participants over several years. Lesson and project plans suitable for early elementary through high school levels can be found that span the physical, mathematical, biological and natural sciences, often emphasizing scientific observation and computer/Internet usage. Includes search engine.
The teachers in this workshop : Are provided with Rice University Internet accounts and software for Internet access.
Receive intensive computer technology training from master teachers, especially in the use of the Internet. Explore diversity issues in the computational sciences through presentations and group discussions.
Utilize online resources as a research, teaching, and collaboration tool. Create their own home pages, design and publish Web-based math and science lessons, and create home pages for their schools.
Gain an awareness of the latest research in the computational sciences and hear from business and industry leaders' expectations of students for the 21st century; Explore representation issues and teacher practices that impact girls' interest in computers. Become members of an ongoing teachers' technology electronic support group that communicates throughout the year. Establish a student technology project on their campuses to ensure a transfer of knowledge from teacher to students. Make a one-year commitment to advanced training and to an integration of technology into their teaching practices.

Girl Scouts of America - The Girl Difference
Short-Circuiting the Myth of the Technophobic Girl
By Judy Schoenberg (New York, N.Y.: Girl Scouts of the USA, 2001). 36 pp. (Executive Summary, 6 pp.)
The Girl Difference: Short-Circuiting the Myth of the Technophobic Girl summarizes current research on how girls interact with computer technology and how they perceive themselves in the overall technology culture. It explores the issue of girls and technology as well as the way girls have acquired specific strengths, interests and experiences as computer users and as potential creators and shapers of technology. This report discusses differences in girls' technology usage patterns, considering many factors.

Math Sites

WOMEN OF NASA

Check out Asronaut Susan Helms

NSA/CSS Kids' Page
The Puzzle Solvers at Cryptic Manor was developed to share the fun and excitement of solving challenging problems--and hopefully get you thinking about careers in math, computer science, and technology.
Dear Parents, Teachers, and Mentors,
We established the NSA kid's homepage, Puzzle Solvers at Cryptic Manor, in compliance with the President's April 18, 1997 Memorandum for Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies, Subject: Expanding Access to Internet-based Educational Resources for Children, Teachers, and Parents. The site also supports the recent report by the Commission on the Advancement of Women and Minorities in Science, Engineering, and Technology Development established by Congress in 1998 (Public Law 105-255).

The Women of NASA
This resource was developed to encourage more young women to pursue careers in math, science, and technology. Throughout history, women have made valuable contributions to these fields. Although these disciplines are still dominated by men, and these women are seen as exceptions, there is a growing appreciation of cultural and gender diversity in the workplace. The Women of NASA interactive project showcases outstanding women who are enjoying successful careers and demonstrates how these women balance personal and professional responsibilities. The main components of the project are the interactive events which include weekly Live Questchats and Forums, and offer participants the opportunity to dialogue with the featured mentor. You will also find the profiles and archived chats a rich source of information on the NASA women and their work.

Women of NASA
April Jackson, email mentor
Women of NASA chat calendar page
In the Information Age, information technology (IT) has become an integral part of our everyday lives. We use it at the grocery store to scan products, in the workplace to communicate via email, and at home to set the thermostat. Yet as we enter the new millennium, IT workers are traditionally male and women continue to be underrepresented. This poses several problems including a shortage of IT workers in the U.S., the benefits of higher pay and demand being conferred to males only, and inherent biases of technology developed by only one portion of the population. Young women are choosing, either consciously or subconsciously, to not engage in courses and activities that will provide them with the necessary background to pursue an IT career. Environmental factors such as family, peers, schools, media, toys and role models play a significant role in this decision.
Research shows that boys and girls begin with a level playing field in information technology interests by showing equal enthusiasm and competence in computer-related activities and school classes. Yet in the upper-elementary years, a shift takes place as girls gradually lose interest in these activities. This trend seems to accelerate as girls transition into high school, college, and careers. The goal of this online discussion is to investigate and provide a set of research issues on the under-representation of women in the information technology (IT) workplace that generate from the childhood to pre-college years. Each week's discussions will lead to a set of research areas for that specific topic.
Young girls' understandings of what it means to be female begin to be formed at a very early age and are shaped by the culture in which that child grows up based on previously defined female characteristics. For instance, toys developed for girls often involve dolls, teacups, and the like while toys developed for boys involve trucks, hammers, and small electronic devices. While some progress has been made in this area, toys marketed to boys and girls are still distinctly different. Other socialization factors to be discussed include sex stereotyping of boys and girls, lower expectations for girls and females in general, stereotypes of women in IT fields as being unfeminine, and extracurricular activities that girls engage in such as sports, clubs, and other recreational past-times.
Ways to consider to make computer use "cool" for girls so that peer pressure can be used in a favorable manner to encourage girls to engage in information technology activities.
It is generally accepted that the media (television, magazines, films, etc.) portray women in a very stereotypical manner and some progress is being made in this area. Discussions will deliberate ways to encourage the media to portray women more favorably and ways to alert children to media biases. For instance, the Girls Inc. website , has a feature that allows girls to provide input and rate movies based on their portrayal of females.

Environmental Factors? Academic Environment for Students
A 1982 report coined the term "chilly climate" to describe a variety of subtle classroom interactions which, taken together, make the educational experiences of female students less supportive, less instructive, and less satisfactory than those of male students [1]. That report resulted in an increase in research on gender-related differences in classroom experiences as well as the creation of programs and strategies to warm the climate at a number of universities and colleges.
Are there climate problems specific to IT-related disciplines? Female enrollments in Computer Science and Engineering are much lower than in many of the other sciences; Computer Science is alone in having a significant drop in the participation of women during the last decade. To what extent is this the result of discipline-specific climate issues? A multi-institutional survey [2], for example, found female students in Engineering were less confident of their abilities than male students. This disparity did not exist across all sciences. Are there additional hurdles in IT-related classrooms and labs? Do women in IT graduate programs face the same obstacles? Do they participate in research projects and receive mentoring in numbers comparable to those for men? What further research is needed to identify problems?
A closely related problem is the representation of women on faculties. According to the 1997-1998 Taulbee Survey
[3], women in Computer Science and Computer Engineering departments held just 16% of assistant, 12% of associate, and 9% of full faculty positions. This is troubling. As teachers, advisors, and role models, senior women are needed to convince the next generation of female students of the viability of IT careers and to provide the next generation of male students with fair and balanced views of women as colleagues. A recent Study on Women Faculty in Science at MIT found "subtle differences" in the treatment of women including lower salaries, less office space, and fewer opportunities for campus leadership [4]. The goal of discussion in this thread is to assess the current situation for faculty: To what extent are gender-related environment issues in Computer Science, Mathematics, and Engineering departments contributing to the underrepresentation of women on those faculties?

NCWIT National Center for Women & Information Technology
"The mission of the National Center for Women & Information Technology is to ensure that women are fully represented in theinfluential world of information technology and computing."

[1] The Classroom Climate: A Chilly One for Women. Roberta M. Hall, and Bernice Resnick Sandler, Association of American Colleges, 1982.

[2] WEPAN Pilot Climate Survey: Exploring the Environment for Undergraduate Engineering Students . Suzanne G. Brainard, Susan Staffin Metz, and Gerald M. Gillmore, WEPAN

[3] 1997-1998 Taulbee Survey , Computing Research Association

[4] Study on the Women Faculty in Science at MIT.
http://web.mit.edu/fnl/women/Fnlwomen.htm

International Gender Equity Resources on Line