Women in the HiTech Society

"Girls have innate artistic inclinations and excel at humanities, boys are naturally skilled in science
and sport" - these are just some of the gender stereotypes perpetuated still and promoted by the formal and
informal education system of 2018.
In fact, gender roles for women and men have traditionally removed women from technical
professions, activities in the public sphere other than arts or caregiving. However, these tight patterns have
always been contradicted and obsolete in both directions - female engineers, researchers, mathematicians
and, more recently, programmers, as well as the reverse - remarkable men in arts
The world of technology and communications has been and apparently still is dominated by men.
There are no schoolbooks depictions or representations of girls or women interacting with modern
technology but of boys / men. Voices of authority cited by the media when it comes to IT - all male. IT&
products and gadgets ads feature male actors exclusively and male target audience.
Following this pattern, not many people are aware that the history of computer science began with
a woman: Ada Lovelace, considered the world's first programmer. She is the first person to write code for
a computer, and the programming language Ada that bears his name is the Pentagon's mandatory software.
Grace Hopper (aka Amazing Grace), an US Navy admiral and, a pioneer in engineering developed the
first compiler for a programming language while having a PhD in mathematics from Yale in 1934.
Moreover, the first electronic digital computer. ENIAC, Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer
was programmed by a team of six women: Frances "Betty" Holberton, Kathleen "Kay" McNulty, Marlyn
Wescoff, Ruth Lichterman, Frances Spence, and Jean Jennings, later included in " Technology Hall of
Fame "(1977).
Today, some of the world's largest IT & C companies have women in top management. Just a few
examples: Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer at Facebook; Marissa Mayer, Yahoo's lead executive;
Jade Raymond, managing director of Ubisoft, author of one of the most popular global video games
(Assassin's Creed); Tracy Chou, among the best women in the programming, known for Pinterest.
The Romanians who excel in IT & C careers or in science related fields are not promoted in schools
or the media: Daniela Rus, the first female director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence (CSAIL) Laboratory; Ioana Cozmuţa, NASA researcher,
international specialist in microgravity; Doina Precup, associate professor at the School of Computer
Science, runs a research lab in Google's Artificial Intelligence Division; Raluca Ada Popa, a computer
scientist at MIT, who designs unbreakable computer codes. Romanian women who made history in
science and technology are not mentioned in schoolbooks or elsewhere: Ştefania Maracineanu, inventor
of the artificial rain, who launched the hypothesis of artificial radioactivity before the Curie spouses; Sofia
Ionescu-Ogrezeanu - the world's first woman neurosurgeon; Aurora Gruescu, the first female forest
engineer in the world, Eliza Leonida Zamfirescu, the world's first woman engineer; Maria Virginia
Andreescu Haret, the first woman in the world to become a general inspector architect and so on.

A good statistic: Bulgaria and Romania hold the top two positions in the European Union
according to the share of women IT & C specialists, according to Eurostat - 27.2% in Romania in 2015.
The European Union average is 16.1% women of a total of 8 million specialists IT & C.
By the share of female students in associated specializations Bulgaria leads the EU, with 34.4%,
followed by Belgium, Greece and then Romania, having 5% less (29.3%).
In 2015, 75% of Romanian Cybernetics students were girls, 42% of all students in Informatics.
At the University of Bucharest, girls represent half of the 1st year students in Mathematics, 31% in
Computers and 25% in Computer Science. At the Politechnics, half of the students in Computers and
Information Technology are girls; a 26% girls ratio in Computer Science too
Nevertheless, the share of women who runc ode teams or are part of middle and top IT & C
management in Romania is well below that of men, as is their payroll. Most likely, the financial reason is
the main one for girls choosing this line of work, given the fact that the IT & C sector is the best paid (on
average) in Romania. Also, IT&C is the sector where one is more likely to succesfully emigrate, has an
increased rate of freelenacers and entrepreneurs, enjoying multiple tax deduction. However, the high share
of women in this field is not reflected in any other area holding an educational and cultural-social role:
schools, media, advertising.
Gender discrimination in IT & C persists both locally and internationally. According to a recent
study by California Polytechnic State University and North Carolina State University, women written
programmer codes are far more likely to be accepted by a client than those male written - that is, they are
better made, more reliable, etc. but ONLY if the code author's sex is unknown. If women reveal their
identity, then the code acceptance ratio decreases alarmingly.
Studies show that 83% of women programmers today have not learnt it in school, compared to
only 67% of men with no specific studies in this field.
 Finally, let’s exercise our imagination: say the word "programmer" in the back of your mind. You
will find that you involuntarily associate the image of a programmer with that of a man. Just like in the
famous anecdote: Father and son have a car accident. The father dies, his son is seriously injured and taken
to the hospital. In the surgery room, the surgeon says, "I can not do it, he's my son." How is this possible?
Anecdot has such an effect only because in the collective mind the surgeon's profession (like any other
technical profession or authority) is associated with men, not women - in this case, the mother of the
injured child.