'This doesn't just fall on women': computer scientists reflect on gender biases in STEM

Nick Petrić Howe

Hi listeners, Nick Petric Howe here coming to you a day early as today is Ada Lovelace Day a day to celebrate the contributions of women in STEM science, technology, engineering and maths. Now Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, known as Ada Lovelace, was a mathematician and writer who recognised the potential of computers to be used for far more than just calculation. And she did that way back in 1843. But here we are 180 years later, and women and gender-diverse people still face significant barriers to working in STEM fields. So Anne Pichon, Senior Opinion Editor here at Nature decided to ask a selection of female researchers in Ada Lovelace's own field, computer science, about their experiences as part of a special Comment feature. Today Anne has invited two of these researchers to discuss the topic further, including talking about the biases that exist in these fields.

Sana Odeh

A male will be able to work 24 hours or women will get pregnant and then they will leave. Like they have these stereotypes.

Nick Petrić Howe

The very different experiences of women around the world.

Shobhana Narasimhan

The only computer I had access to was the old Soviet computer which used punch cards.

Nick Petrić Howe

And potential solutions to the barriers women still face.

Shobhana Narasimhan

It's not enough just to ask the women to change or grow stronger.

Sana Odeh

This doesn't just fall on women, this is a society in general it falls on everybody.

Nick Petrić Howe

So presenting a special extra for the Nature Podcast, heres Anne Pichon.

Anne Pichon

Hi, I'm Anne Pichon, I'm a Senior Editor here at Nature. For Ada Lovelace day, I was interested to hear different perspectives of women in various areas of computer science and tech. And this is because after almost two centuries after Ada Lovelace, there is still a lot to be done in the field to improve gender diversity. I'll be speaking with two of the computer scientists today. Would you both be able to introduce yourselves?

Shobhana Narasimhan

Sure, hello, thanks for asking me to be part of this podcast. I'm Shobhana Narasimhan, I'm computational nanoscientist, and I work at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research in Bangalore, in India.

Sana Odeh

Hi, thank you so much for this amazing opportunity. My name is Sana Odeh, I'm a clinical professor of computer science at NYU, and I'm affiliated with NYU Abu Dhabi in the computer science department. I'm currently doing research on enrolment of computer science in the Arab world.

Anne Pichon

And Sana what got you initially interested in studying the issue of enrolment?

Sana Odeh

12 years ago, I went to set up the computer science department. And when they opened the university in Abu Dhabi, I noticed that there are deans that were women in engineering, computer science, and also that there were a large enrolment of women in these classes. And that made me curious about what's going on because in the US, we know that the enrolment is around 20%. And even a few years back, it was even less than that.

Anne Pichon

Also, actually, you teamed up with an anthropologist and an economist to study this.

Sana Odeh

Yeah, so the collaboration is focused on to see not only just the enrolment, and to see why that there is more enrolment in computer science than in other places. But we wanted to study like, for example, also the challenges because when they leave the university, even though many countries the percentages of women are 45% and higher, they actually — when they go to the market to work — they face very similar discrimination attitudes that we face globally. So it's this is not just predicament to the Arab world where it's a male will be able to work 24 hours or women will get pregnant, and then they will leave like they have these stereotypes. But there is also a hopeful attitude that we see among the new ecosystem and in Arab boards where it's just really great where you see many of the companies have founders that are female. And you see this amazing energy where women are really empowered and feel like they're successful. And a great percentage of the prizes goes to women entrepreneurs.

Anne Pichon

I was wondering Shobhana, how does that match with your experience with your perspective in India?

Shobhana Narasimhan

I think it's very interesting because when I was a student in the US, many of my female friends told me that they had been explicitly told that women weren't smart enough to do science or computer science, or physics. I almost never hear that in India. People accept that women are smart. However, they think this is not what they should be doing with their lives. So it's a difference in cultural perception, in my opinion. And in India, about a third of the people working in the software industry are women. But in academia, it's much less about 12% of professors in computer science departments are women. In my field of computational physics, and computational chemistry, I would say about 20% are women. So all of this is still higher than the percentage of women in the scientific workforce as a whole, which is about 14%.

Sana Odeh

I just want to add a little bit about, in terms of the statistics, and I do agree that culture plays a huge part of this, I think it's the same thing in the Arab world, when we talk to the women, why did they pursue this field? The top reason was that they want to have an impact on their community. And then another high point was that they're very passionate about this field. And then when I talk to them, the number one issue that they face is that they want to work on more challenging issues and more challenging research, which is fascinating for me. So it's not discrimination, it's just the lack of opportunity. This is basically what they were depressed about is that we want to work on exciting cutting edge, basically, AI and you know, some of these countries don't have that sort of sophisticated research institutions, or they do but it's very limited.

Anne Pichon

I just wanted to ask maybe about one aspect about the availability of resources in certain countries and not in other countries. And this is something that is central to Shobhana's piece in the Comment, the digital divide, you know, and this is a very interesting point in Shobhana's career is that she's experienced this divide from both sides.

Shobhana Narasimhan

So I studied at the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay, which is now called Mumbai. But I hadn't actually used a computer, the only computer I had access to was a old Soviet computer, which use punch cards. And it was a nightmare to use that. And so when I went to the US to do my PhD at Harvard, and decided to work in computational physics, my advisor actually had to show me everything about a computer, he had to tell me, "this is a cursor, and you move the cursor by pressing this." So from there to become a computational scientist was rather challenging journey, because I felt very intimidated because my American classmates knew all this stuff and they were very familiar with it. At that time, the phrase digital divide, it was not in common currency. But I've since become very aware of it, as I move around India, but also because I've been teaching a lot recently in Sub-Saharan Africa. And I see there that people do they have access to the internet through mobile phones, and many of the people I have interacted with have laptops, they don't have access to high performance computing, they don't have a stable internet connection. And these are real handicaps in today's scientific world, I think.

Sana Odeh

I mean, this is really a remarkable story, it's really great to hear how you were able to transcend. And I totally agree, the divide is everywhere. So we do this event where bring 200 girls from all over the schools in New York City. And we can see even just in New York City, the difference between the top schools, and the difference between the underserved school, and I just wanted to say actually, women enrollment in physics and mathematics, it's much better in the US than in computer science. Computer science was around close to 40% in 84, and then it went really down. So that's what we have to also remember that it's our attitude, it's our culture, it's what we're doing in education, where girls are getting these cues from the parents, the teachers, the people around them, the society, the films, and so on and so forth, that this is not a field for them. Look at biology and medicine, women are now the majority. And these are used to be men's fields. So it's important to pay attention that it is not women who don't really want to go to these fields. It's other factors, and especially cultural factors that are not allowing them to do that.

Shobhana Narasimhan

I want to ask one thing, what do you think about it? I've heard it said, you know, as an explanation for why the percentage of women in computer science has fallen in the US that computer science has become more prestigious, and that's why women are kind of shut out of it. Because initially, it was seen as a kind of almost clerical job. You know, you were data entry operators, that kind of thing. And as its prestige grew and as the money you could make in it grew, it became more and more a male domain. What do you think about that?

Sana Odeh

Yes. And I think that also lends itself to medicine. I mean, that's the reason why they say there is more women now, because medicine is becoming less prestige. And as less money goes into it, men leave, and then more women are going in. So that's one of the ideas. But it seems like there are other ideas. In the 80s, also, we had the personal computers and the computers were bought for men in the house to play with and play games, and so on, so they became more experienced. So that's also another factor. There are other factors as well.

Anne Pichon

I wanted to ask you one final thing to both of you. You clearly, you know, have talked a lot about women's experiences in the field and how to support women and perhaps others that are also facing similar barriers. So, do you have solutions in mind? Do you know to help the culture of the field change, whether in industry or in academia? Or in, you know, for students or in the workplace? Do you have solutions you think could help eliminate these barriers?

Shobhana Narasimhan

There are two things I mean, what do you do, it's targeted at women, and then also what is targeted at men, because it's not enough just to ask the women to change or grow stronger, or whatever. They're in a whole ecosystem. And of course, I'm talking in real generalities here, because some women behave differently or believe differently. And some men are very supportive, some are not. But I think the important thing is to really raise awareness. And I've given many talks about this at various places just to raise awareness. But it's quite a hard challenge I face because I will give, you know, statistic after statistic after statistic. And then at the end of it, people will say, Oh, it was all anecdotal, or oh, she exaggerated. And I don't know how they think I exaggerated when they're all statistics, you know, the other thing is, of course, for women themselves to realise, first of all, that they are not the problem that is very important, because sometimes women are in such a minority, that people tell them, you're just imagining it, or you're oversensitive, or you're not strong enough. And I think it's very important for women to realise that they're not at fault if they're feeling isolated, or inadequate, or left out or harassed or discriminated. So I think this is very important. And we have to raise awareness. And I think ultimately, things will only change when we have more women in the field. I think when you have such an imbalance in numbers, you're bound to have problems.

Sana Odeh

I mean, I totally agree. But I think also, this doesn't just fall on women, this is a society in general, it falls on the government, it falls on the education institutions, it falls on everybody. But we have to face it, this is like still patriarchy. I mean, it really has to transcend from law to educational institute, because of the discrimination, we have to become, you know, a superhuman, a heroes. I mean, I see it also in women, for example, in the UAE and Saudi, because their countries trying to promote them. So, for somebody to come back, and they have families, and then they have to work in academia — and we know how hard that is — and then they become a leader in their country, you know, they become a minister. So you can see that they're playing so many roles, you know, so it's like, then it becomes really hard also for their women to be themselves to be just a regular human being and to live for themselves. So it's either you're the hero, or you're just nobody. And we need to look at all of these issues and say that women just are human beings, and they don't have to be so successful, and work, you know, 50 hours a day in order to survive in a job.

Anne Pichon

This is unbelievable that in 2023, we still have this huge, huge divides, and people face these huge barriers. I'd love to chat further to both of you about this I think that's all we have time for today. Thanks a lot, both of you. It was really fascinating. Thank you so much for agreeing to talk to me.

Sana Odeh

Thank you so much.

Anne Pichon

Thank you—

Shobhana Narasimhan

—Okay—

Anne Pichon

so much.

Shobhana Narasimhan

Thanks everyone.

Anne Pichon

Thank you.

Shobhana Narasimhan

Bye bye.

Nick Petrić Howe

That was a conversation between Anne Pichon, Senior Opinion Editor here at Nature, Shobhana Narasimhan from the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research in India, and Sana Odeh from New York University in the US. For more on this story, check out the show notes for a link to the full Comment article and listen out tomorrow for the rest of the regular Nature Podcast.