March is National Women’s History month and more women than ever are making their way onto the pages of history books.
On the political front, Nancy Pelosi became the first female Speaker of the House, the U.S. Senate swore-in it’s largest-ever contingent of female Senators and Hillary Clinton launched a serious bid for the White House. In academia, Drew Gilpin Faust was named president of Harvard, becoming the first female in the University’s 371-year history. Two women - Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo and Angela Braly of Wellpoint, the nation’s largest health insurer, were named first-time female CEOs of their Fortune 500 companies.
Even in the computer industry, one of the toughest fields for women to crack, we are writing women into history.
Recently, retired IBM Corp. computer scientist Francis Allen broke a 40-year tradition, becoming the first woman to win the coveted ACM Turing Award, the industry’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize. Fran Allen’s achievements include seminal work in data analysis for weather forecasting, Cold War-era code cracking and parallel computer processors. She has also worked tirelessly on behalf of women in technology.
At The Anita Borg Institute, we have just named three extraordinary women as our next Women of Vision recipients. Receiving awards respectively in the categories of Innovation, Social Impact and Leadership at our May 3rd banquet in San Jose will be Deborah Estrin, Professor of Computer Science at UCLA, Leah Jamieson, Professor and Dean of Engineering at Purdue, and Duy-Loan Le, Senior Fellow at Texas Instruments.
What all these bright, brave women have in common is that they are making history by breaking gender barriers in professions still dominated by men - and it’s about time! But happy though we are to see women at the top of their game earning well-deserved recognition, we worry about being lulled into a belief that these individual breakthroughs signal the end of problems of gender bias. They don’t.
Undeniably, women are climbing fast in some professions and making slow but steady gains in others. But it is still fair to say that in too many instances, women remain seriously underrepresented in positions with the greatest status, recognition, influence and economic reward.
Among Fortune 500 CEOs, a meager two percent are women. Although women comprise more than half our population, they represent only 16.4 percent of corporate officer positions and just 16 percent of the members of the U.S. Congress. In computer science and IT - which most now agree is vital to nearly every industry, government and scientific endeavor - fewer than 20 percent of workers are women and the numbers are declining. This is particularly troubling in light of the shortage of trained technologists of either sex to meet growing demand, a shortage that threatens to hobble U.S. competitiveness in a global economy.
Despite increased education and laws banning discrimination, women still have more to prove than men while climbing their career ladders, especially in the technology sector. There, women are frequently marginalized by the dominant all-male culture, leaving them scratching their heads and wondering, “Does anyone really notice what I do?” It doesn’t help matters when history ignores their accomplishments and we neglect conscious efforts to support, recognize and applaud the work of women.
Frustrated by subtle bias that makes advancement difficult or stuck in inflexible business environments that leave no room for personal pursuits, a growing number of women are taking matters into their own hands. By stepping off the fast track and into their own businesses they can write themselves into history, leading and managing cultural issues on their own terms.
But the overwhelming majority of working women, those who are building their careers within the infrastructure of a government, academic or industry organization, are still counting on us to clear the way for the next great female-led breakthrough. There are incredibly capable women doing amazing things today to make our world a better place, be it through legislation, education, research, technology or myriad other endeavors. Among them are the history makers of tomorrow. Let’s be sure we don’t overlook them.