Silicon Valley’s gender gap is the result of computer-game marketing 20 years ago

Marketing games

Elizabeth Ames from the Anita Borg Institute for Women in Technology believes that one of the primary reasons can be traced back to the close relationship between computing and gaming in the 1980s. “A lot of early computers were used for game playing,” Ames says. “Those games tended to be more aimed more at boys and men, so it was easy for boys to get a leg up in that area through gaming.”

The experience gap widens

This led to what researcher Jane Margolis calls the “experience gap.” In a study she conducted in 1995, she found that among first-year computer-science students at Carnegie Mellon University, 40% of male respondents passed the advanced-placement computer-science exam, meaning they could skip the introductory-level programming class. None of the first year women achieved the same result. Men were also more familiar with programming languages than women and were more likely to report having an “expert” level of programming proficiency before enrolling at Carnegie Mellon. Unsurprisingly, many women opted out of the computer-related courses early.

An American Association of University Women review of more than 380 studies from academic journals, corporations, and government sources found that more early exposure to engineering and computing among boys in school creates “more positive attitudes toward and interest in STEM subjects.” By the time students now reach university, 20% of men plan to take on a career in engineering or computing. Among women, that number is just 5.8%. Women start out so far behind that they often can’t catch up.

Even when women do have considerable experience with coding and mathematics, the male-dominated environment that has arisen becomes an obstacle to entry for many. Professor Linda Sax, a researcher at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, recalls, “I was someone who grew up very confident in my math abilities, but it wasn’t until I went to college that I began to doubt myself.”

Sax says she felt intimidated by the male-dominated culture she encountered at university. She remembers one incident in which she asked the professor a question that he curtly dismissed. A male student asked the same question moments later and got a positive response. “It just felt very isolating,” she says. Sax ended up not completing her degree in programming, choosing a career in quantitative research in education instead.

The few women who do make it into the field are far less likely to stay than their male counterparts. The Center for Talent Innovation, a research think tank, found that US women are 45% more likely than men to leave careers in technology. The research revealed that women often feel isolated due to a lack of female role models and the sense of being excluded from “buddy networks” among men. Once you add in the fact that only 38% of US women get their ideas endorsed by leadership (compared to 44% of men), you soon end up with the scenario in which almost a third of women say they want to quit within the first year.

Though there are isolated examples of both vintage and contemporary computer advertising aimed at women, it is clear that the advertising narrative around women and technology needs to be more inclusive if the gender gap is going to close. Until that happens, as Ames argues, advertising will continue to drive “a subtle message to girls and women that it’s not a place where they belong.”