Dynamics of Gender Bias within Computer Science

Abstract

A new dataset (N = 7,456) analyzes women's research authorship in the Association for Computing Machinery's founding 13 Special Interest Groups or SIGs, a proxy for computer science. ACM SIGs expanded during 1970-2000; each experienced increasing women's authorship. But diversity abounds. Several SIGs had fewer than 10% women authors while SIGUCCS (university computing centers) exceeded 40%. Three SIGs experienced accelerating growth in women's authorship; most, including a composite ACM, had decelerating growth. This research may encourage reform efforts, often focusing on general education or workforce factors (across the entity of "computer science"), to examine under-studied dynamics within computer science that shaped changes in women's participation.