Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing Hardcover – December 1, 2001

A great book on why women don't remain in the CS field. I read this out of my ow curiosity and it answered a lot of my questions. Saddens me that society treats women this way and forces them out of great careers. Parents need to own up to their mistakes when they raise their kids to assume a gender role in society.

I read this book as a precursor to undergraduate research on women in computing. In short, Unlocking the Clubhouse (UTC) was extremely well written and organized (though what else would you expect from research coming out of a top US university?). Technical jargon was almost non-existent, making it a highly accessible read to those outside of the computing industry. Further, I personally found the interview excerpts to be encouraging as a woman currently enrolled in a undergraduate computer science program.

Who is this book for? Women in high school or college that are thinking about or are currently pursuing computing. Parents of children interested in computers. Educators in the K-12 environment and university environment. Any person interested in gender inequity and/or computing.

I like this study and I think it's a very important topic. That said... I don't know who this book would really appeal to outside myself as I otherwise study this topic.

I think if you're looking for a recreational read this isn't really your cup of tea, but if you're looking for an academic source I highly recommend it.

This book is a bit out of date now, but the issues it addresses remain important to the field of computer science. The approach and writing are understandable to a general audience and suggestions for action are included. Of course, the focus is on Carnegie Mellon and that needs to be taken into account (as acknowledged by the authors). However, the experiences described ring true for me as a woman who is a professor of computer science (and who was a student before that). I love to program, and so do many other women, but I am generally more focused on writing a program for something "real" than just programming for "fun". There is room for a wide diversity of interests in cs and this book makes a pretty good case for working hard to ensure that we draw people from all walks of life into cs.

This is an incredible book with a huge amount of material that should be read by anyone who wants to have an informed opinion on the topic of women in STEM, more specifically Computer Science. While the writing isn't always the most engaging (it sometimes feels a bit like a collection of research papers stapled together) the volume and depth of insight provided is well worth persevering through. Similarly, while it's also true that "the plural of anecdote is not data", the personal stories of the women they talk to are echoed again and again by women throughout the field (unfortunately) so there is almost certainly something to take to heart for all of us in the conclusions and recommendations they present in this book even if there is more that could be done to investigate and improve the field.

A really fantastic read, even all these years later. A must-read for educators and CS practitioners.

Still relevant after all this time. I thought this book was fantastic.
I'm a female programmer, was one of the few in a competitive CS program, and wish I'd read this a decade ago.

This is an important book for everyone concerned about the causes and consequences of the nation's failure to attract undergraduate women into computer science. Margolis and Fishers' well-structured, longitudinal study is the first to explore multiple dimensions of this issue in careful detail, and their findings counter causal myths (e.g., about the "natural" distribution of interest and aptitude) that can inhibit or
misdirect remedial efforts. Some roots of the recruitment problem lie in the inequities of pre-college access to computer experience; some (as other research has shown) reflect the gendered character of IT industry products that target children and young people. As a result, few of those female students who possess strong mathematical, linguistic, or logical thinking skills enter college with sufficient disciplinary knowledge and experience to entertain computer science as a major. They may also have limited information about the range of careers open to CS graduates.

As the study also documents, women who do enter CS majors (approximately 15% of this student population) are apt to be discouraged by the misogyny of the peer culture (which varies from, but is related to, that documented in other science majors). They are often strongly distanced from the geek persona that they (wrongly) perceive to be a requirement for success. The emergence of CS as a discipline that defines itself in conceptual, theoretical, and technical terms, and somewhat avoids functional application or customer-programmer negotiation, also reduces the appeal of the major to those women who are primarily interested in what they can do with computers. This group looks elsewhere (e.g., cognitive psychology, human-computer interaction institutes) in order to pursue their interest in computing with a more human focus.

As Margolis and Fishers' evidence also shows, elements in the traditional socialization of girls leave US women students at greater risk--either than their male peers or than international women students--of quitting CS classes, or the major, despite adequate or good academic performances. Experiencing insufficient personal encouragement from faculty and active discouragement from some male peers, perfectly competent women begin to doubt that they belong in the major, lose confidence, and leave. Foreign women were found to be less deterred either by these elements in the CS culture, or by their low entering levels of CS experience.

The authors discuss the relative importance of these causal factors and describe the interventions developed at their study site (Carnegie Mellon University) to address each of them. They also discuss the serious global consequences of failure to address gender disparity in IT as a discipline and as an industry, namely, a constant bias in product
development that both misses and mistakes customer needs, and perpetuation of a cycle in which half of the world's talent is diverted from this central field of human endeavor.

If you want to make a difference in this field, first read this book.