Frustrations Steering Women
away from Software
Engineering
L. Happe
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany
6. Buhnova
Czechitas, Czech Republic
Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
Abstract—Why do women choose particular interests, study programs and careers as alternative
to software engineering? What are the triggers and benefits of these alternatives that software
engineering is lacking? In this article, we share findings from a questionnaire study of 139 adult
women, revealing the frustrations that women feel along their way to software engineering,
whether they have stayed in, or have dropped out and are trying to re-establish the connection
later. After identifying the frustrations, which all seem to be preventable, this article pinpoints the
most promising solutions, such as the interdisciplinary approach to education, which could be
of enormous help t o girls' retention in computing education.
• THE DEMOCRATISATION of digital innovation
is a remarkable sociological shift driven by new
technologies and lower costs, enabling individuals
to design and share their creations as never
before. The direction towards a sustainable and
more balanced society asks for higher engagement
of diverse people in innovation, shedding
light on critically low number of women choosing
software engineering (SE) education and career.
Enabling a broad diversity of talent, particularly
women (who represent half of the world's population),
to fully participate in innovation, not
only guaranties more products fitting for usage
by broader audience, but increases their earning
potential and this way ultimately strengthening
the global economy.
Although progress in higher involvement of
women in SE is barely visible, we are starting
to understand the reasons and myths behind the
trend. Harvey Mudd's president, Maria Klawe,
has summarized their experience as: "Number
one is they think it's not interesting. Number two,
they think they wouldn't be good at it. Number
three, they think they will be working with a
number of people that they just wouldn't feel
comfortable or happy working alongside." [1]
Stereotypes about the work environment and
nature of the work (e.g., lacking social interaction,
being boring and repetitive) are indeed
responsible for discouraging many girls from
engaging with SE already before their very first
contact. A Google study conducted in 2014 [2]
has shown that when such a contact is not part of
the curriculum, the girls tend to spontaneously
develop negative connotations with computing
even when having no experience with it (using
words like boring, difficult, nerd), in contrast to
connotations used by girls who had computing
in their curriculum (using words like future, fun,
interesting).
IEEE Software Published by the IEEE Computer Society © 2020 IEEE
IEEE Software
Although the negative view of computing together
with the confidence gap, as described by
Maria Klawe, play their role in narrowing the
number of girls interested in SE, we see that
there is still a substantial number of girls and
women enthusiasts who would like to pursue SE
careers [3] but get discouraged by unnecessary
frustrations they experience along the way.
In [4], we have elaborated one of these frustrations
and introduced initial actionable recommendations
for practitioners, which stems from
the fact that girls' first contact with SE typically
happens in the presence of more experienced
learners, with the absence of success experiences,
while often struggling on their own (as the experienced
learners tend to monopolize instructor's
time) and gradually moving in an outsider
role within the classroom, feeling uncomfortable,
missing sense of belonging, and eventually dropping
the class once possible. Next to the deliberate
effort in building an environment that is supportive
of novice learners, other effective interventions
to recruit and retain girls in SE education
include strategies that combat wrong stereotypes,
strategies that spark initial interest by actively
engaging their strengths, strategies managing suitable
first contact, strategies for building selfconfidence,
and strategies for sustaining longterm
commitment, as we have summarized in [5]
accumulating joined knowledge from over 800
publications via a cumulative review of literature
reviews on the topic. Despite these interventions,
used for over 20 years by the research community,
governmental, and educational institutions and
aimed at increasing gender diversity in SE, we
achieved little progress [6].
In this article, we go further and intend to
identify and examine the causes that underlie
females' attrition in SE and understand the perceived
frustrations that women themselves report
as the reasons why they dropped out of SE
education despite being keen about it in general.
To this end, we have designed a retrospective
questionnaire study, which has revealed numerous
interesting insights about frustrations that women
interested in computing1
experience along different
phases of their education and career.
'In our study, general terms like "computing" and "IT" were
preferred by the respondents when referring to software engineering
(traceable from the examples of activities they mentioned).
DESIGN OF THE STUDY
The goal of the study, as different from other
related studies [7], [8], was to reach the women
who would like to re-establish their connection to
SE, and compare their responses with the women
who stayed in —focusing on their view of the
moments that formed the direction they decided
to take (stay in or disengage, although overall
interested in it), while asking about the biggest
obstacles and drivers on girls' way to SE together
with envisioned recommendations to improve the
situation.
The study was realized via a questionnaire
(in English), designed to understand how and
why women engage with SE, as well as what
are the challenges girls and women face when
participating in SE activities at school or at home,
and factors that enable their entry and ongoing
participation in the further education.
The questionnaire consisted of a number of
questions, including six open questions asking
the respondents to retrospect and analyse their
previous studies and ambitions. These questions
asked about participant's understanding of who
computer scientists are, what were the drivers
and obstacles on their way to SE, what makes
them enthusiastic about it and what they would
recommend to improve SE education for girls.
The results presented in this paper are based on
the responses to these open questions (quoted
as written), in combination to basic classification
questions about participants' age, gender and major
interests.
We distributed the questionnaire among
groups with the affinity towards SE, especially
educational institutions providing late-education
offers (for adult women), such as Czechitas
(www.czechitas.cz). The questionnaire was distributed
world-wide, mostly through Facebookgroups
targeting late education for women. We
specifically looked for respondents who have
likely had high potential to study SE in their
earlier years, which makes our study different
from other similar studies, e.g. [7], [9], [8].
We successfully collected 139 responses from
women2
in three age groups (18% between 18
and 26, 41% between 27 and 34, 33% over
2
Filtered from 151 responses after removing incomplete responses
and responses representing gender groups not targeted
by this study.
IEEE Software
34 years old, and 8% without age indication).
This study's population was represented by neareven
distribution of respondents (and personas)
over three regions: the Czech Republic, Germany,
and other. The questionnaire resonated with the
audience, 90% of respondents filled out all the
open questions, and many did it very thoughtfully
and expressively. The responses were distributed
among three personas:
1) Persona 1 (PI) who studied and stayed in
computing, 39% of respondents,
2) Persona 2 (P2) who transitions to computing
later in life, after studying another
discipline, 32% of respondents,
3) Persona 3 (P3) who never considered entering
computing, 29% of respondents.
Persona 2 respondents had potential to stay
in SE, but in many cases reported on the early
dilemma whether to follow their interest. The
insights on their struggle are very valuable part of
this study. Thus this article reflects on the comparison
of responses by Persona 1 and Persona 2
to identify the frustrations that steered Persona 2
away from computing, despite their interest in it
that is so strong that they are trying to re-establish
the connection later in life. We will analyse what
formed the experiences of the Persona 1 and
Persona 2 when entering computing world and
what made them to decide differently later.
RESULTS
The three factors hindering girls' entrance
in SE brought in the quote by Maria Klawe
(see the introduction and [1]), i.e. stereotypes,
confidence, and sense of belonging, are being
confirmed also by other existing studies, which
further add early access as a factor [10]. These
factors were the first items added to our list of
codes in the first cycle of our exploratory analysis.
The qualitative responses were coded based on
these four factors. Within our code structure,
besides the four key codes that we used initially
to structure the discussion of the responses, a
fifth factor emerged from analysing the responses,
being feeling valued as women in the computing
careers. The code structure and results of the
study are outlined in Table 1.
1. Access
Studies summarized in [10] show that differences
in leisure-time preferences of young girls and
boys result in girls getting less exposure to computers,
and hence experiencing lower psychological,
material and usage access to computing. The
access to computing could be understood not only
as access to the computer itself, but as well as
access to engaging education, supportive teachers,
supportive family environment or guidance.
Among the participants who indicated limited
access (see Table 1, 32% of PI and 40% of P2),
some talk about limited access to a computer
in young age, either because computers were
expensive back then, or because their dad did not
allow them to use it. A female computer scientist
(P2) from Germany summarized her experience
as: "My father did not allow me to have a
computer, so since I grew up I totally fell in love
with everything. I sometimes feel not allowed to
be interested into computers because my uncle is
a coder and he always says that woman only can
do healthcare work. So I started to study very
late (32) and without any knowledge of friends
and family. And I love it."
41% of the PI within CI (PI-CI) and 22%
of the P2 within C I (P2-C1) respondents refer
to psychological access, emphasizing the lack
of support and encouragement from their family
and school, which is typically paired with the
frustrations of stereotypical view of girls and
boys.
Another major aspect (30% of the PI-CI and
67% of of the P2-C1 ) was the topic of limited
access to suitable education, which would not be
understood as the "bonus subject for nerds" (P2)
but provide applicable skills to solve real issues.
2. Stereotypes
Although existing discussions focus on the stereotypes
that the girls have about SE professionals,
type of work and purpose of SE, our study has
revealed a very different picture.
Out of the participants, who mentioned stereotypes
in a negative or limiting way (35% of PI
and 46% of P2, see Table 1), 79% of the P1-C2
and 38% of the P2-C2 referred to the stereotypes
that the society, their family, teachers or peers
have about women not being a good fit for tech.
Often, the women reported being discouraged by
January 2020
IEEE Software
Respondents
Persona 1 (PI)
39% (54)
Persona 2 (P2)
32% (45)
Code 1 (CI): Access
Cl.l: to suitable education
CI.2: to support and encouragement
CI.3: to a computer
32% (17)
30% (10% of PI)
41% (13% of PI)
29% (9% of PI)
40% (18)
67% (27% of P2)
22% (9% of P2)
11% (4% of P2)
Code 2 (C2): Stereotype
C2.1: carried by others
C2.2: about the purpose of SE
C2.3: about themselves
35% (19)
79% (27% of PI)
5% (2% of PI)
16% (6% of PI)
46% (21)
38% (17% of P2)
19% (9% of P2)
43% (20% of P2)
Code 3 (C3): Confidence
C3.1: self-efficacy
C3.2: imposter syndrom
C3.3: missing success experiences
26% (14)
43% (11% of PI)
50% (13% of PI)
7% (2% of PI)
42% (19)
21% (9% of P2)
58% (24% of P2)
21% (9% of P2)
Code 4 (C4): Sense of Belonging
C4.1: not comfortable to express themselves
C4.2: sexism and unwanted attention
C4.3: missing relatable peers
32% (17)
82% (26% of PI)
18% (6% of PI)
n/a
27% (12)
58% (16% of P2)
25% (7% of P2)
17% (4% of P2)
Code 5 (C5): Feeling Valued
C5.1: defensive culture
C5.2: women not valued
C5.3: non-stereotypical skills/interests not valued
17% (9)
22% (4% of PI)
56% (9% of PI)
22% (4% of PI)
34% (15)
n/a
33% (11% of P2)
67% (23% of P2)
Table 1. Factors hindering participation of women in SE education: Coded Presults
their own family or teachers who meant it for
the participant's best interests and often believed
they are protecting them or advising them towards
their future happiness in a more suitable job,
e.g. in care-giving. A young woman studying a
Bachelor degree in computer science (P2) said:
"My family is still not supportive cause they do
not like seeing their daughter doing manly stuff,
I should get married and get kids instead of
doing research." Others listed major obstacles as:
"Society, women don't do this, women are not
interested in this, why don't you do something
that is more a women's thing ? It is hard to swim
against the stream every day" (PI). And: "It is a
man-dominated field stereotyped by our societies
worldwide. As a woman you have to prove them
wrong." (PI)
Next to this major reason, 16% of the P l C2
and 43% of the P2-C2 respondents mentioned
their past belief that only extremely smart people
can do computer science (see the confidence
discussion below), where some participants were
not aware that computing would be an option: "I
did not think it was accessible to me. I just did
not think of it as an option. I can't even say if I
would have wanted to go there because it was so
far off at the time." (P2)
Lastly, 5% of the P1-C2 and 19% of the
P2-C2 respondents mentioned that they did not
understand the purpose of computing and thus
found it boring: "Boring computer programming
in school, put me off for decades. Why would I
want to write a game I wouldn't want to play?
Waste of time." (P2)
3. Confidence
Confidence gap is a gender difference observed
across various fields [11], which is in SE further
strengthened by the limited access to resources,
equipment, education and support (as discussed
above). In effect, girls often find themselves in a
classroom with more experienced learners, which
makes the gap hard to close [4].
26% of PI and 42% of P2 respondents (see
Table 1) listed confidence as a major factor on
girls' way to SE. Some, 43% of the P1-C3 and
21% of the P2-C3, referred confidence as a tool
to engage more girls in SE (via encouragement),
while others, 50% of the P1-C3 and 58% of the
P2-C3, referred to its lack as a major obstacle,
talking about the imposter syndrome and fear of
not being good enough: "Many girls think that if
they try they will fail, and people will laugh at
them" (PI). And: "Encouragement. That's what
girls need. And community where they don't feel
embarrassed that they are not experts in computIEEE
Software
ing but they want to learn anyway. Community
where they are not afraid to admit that they
don't know how to change from English to Czech
keyboard! But even though they want to learn
programming and they will be amazing at it in
the future, it's not the obstacle!" (P2). As a
specific suggestion, some participants proposed
that girls should be pushed early to engage in
difficult assignments and experience success, with
mandatory coding classes being part of that push.
4. Sense of belonging
A number of respondents (32% of PI and 27%
of P2, see Table 1) listed sense of belonging as a
major concern. This is surprising in case of PI
participants, who are in computing since their
early education, and yet many are not feeling
comfortable in the prevalently male environment,
"bro culture" as they call it: "Sometimes it's hard
to work in field dominated by men. Right now I
would be really glad if more women worked in IT
because I work in IT and I don't like that feeling
that I'm something extra or abnormal." (P2)
What women (82% of the P1-C4 and 58%
of the P2-C4 participants) dislike about being
underrepresented in the environment is not feel
comfortable to express themselves and feel that
"other people watching and/or judging me" (PI).
Additionally, some refer to the mindset of people
in computing as "narrow-minded" and using a
strange language, which makes it hard to feel they
belong, but emphasizing that: "There is a large
divide I think between the CS people and communities
that are healthy, productive and wholesome
- and those that are very toxic places." (P2)
An 18% of the P1-C4 and 25% of the P2C4
participants report on sexism: "Had my share
of 'hey you're not bad at programming for a
girl' and programmers keeping posters of girls in
bikini in their offices / on their computer." (PI)
5. Feeling valued
Besides the four key factors, also confirmed by
existing studies [10], we add the fifth factor that
has emerged from the collected responses (17%
of PI and 34% P2, see Table 1). This observation
matches the research on the underrepresentation
of women in leadership [12] showing that women
in these environments feel being valued based
on their ability to mimic the strengths typical
for the majority group, while being expected to
have other "feminine strengths" that are given
less credit. In effect, the women with strengths
matching the majority group in SE (e.g. logical
thinking, technical knowledge) feel annoyed by
the need to keep proving that (so-called "defensive
climate" [10]), while the women having
another set of strengths (e.g. in user-centred design,
multidisciplinary interests) feel uncomfortable
bringing these strengths to the table, as these
are seen as second-class. Whether the former
or the latter, this causes uncomfortable feelings,
hindering women's career growth, which might
result in them leaving the field.
Among PI participants, 56% of the P1-C5
explicitly expressed their concern about women
in computing not being valued, experiencing discrimination,
or not feeling encouraged to use their
full potential (e.g. multidisciplinary knowledge).
Although rare, there are views of computing as
"being dominated by men that look down on
women in computing" (PI), saying that "the work
offemale developers is rather not acknowledged"
(PI), or even being advised that they "should
not go into computer science because women are
not being taken seriously in that area" (PI). The
33% of the P2-C5 who express their concern
about women not being valued in SE, do so in a
more implicit way, e.g., some of them believe that
they have to do something (e.g. invest more time,
spend less time with children, study more, leave
their other interests behind) to be more valued.
Furthermore, tendency towards multidisciplinarity
was connected for P2-C5 with fearing
not feeling valued in computing (67% of them),
as they do not want to focus all their attention
on computing: "/ am not a person that enjoys
computing on its own, I need some higher goal.
I like to think of it as means of fulfilling my
other goals in different fields. That's what I'd
like to see more of - showing that IT is not
just IT, more commonly it is connected to some
other field and you can work with anything being
in IT." (P2) and "IT should be part of every
study we do today... I think we shall connect
pure science with IT somehow, e.g. during my
history studies we used computers only to make
presentations in MS Powerpoint. We could learn
how to model data and make predictions based
on some historical events. We could make graphic
designs of archaeological sites, whatever...but we
January 2020
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didn't" (P2).
DISCUSSION
What is SE lacking that makes women seek
other interests, study programs and professions as
an alternative to SE? To answer this question, we
were especially interested in understanding what
made the P2 participants to select away from
SE and computing in the first place. Thanks to
the admirable ability of participants to retrospect
about their previous experience, we could follow
a pattern in the responses. The funnel into SE
education is leaky. When following the major
leaks, there is a likelihood of 0.27 (Cl.l) that girls
will not find an engaging educational offer in the
area of their interest, a likelihood of 0.2 (C2.3)
that they will be convinced that they and their
interests do not fit and are not connected to SE, a
likelihood of 0.24 (C3.2) that they falsely believe
that because of having other interests and not investing
all their time into computing they cannot
be as successful as others in SE, or a likelihood
of 0.23 (C5.3) that they experience their nonstereotypical
skills and interests being considered
as second-class and the advantage of having them
will not be understood and appreciated in SE.
Overall, there is a silver lining connected
to these pipeline leaks—multidisciplinarity. The
women in the study showed to have many other
interests, on average 5.5 other major interests
besides computing (true for both PI and P2).
Thus, the possible time slot where computing
could be practiced was immediately filled with
something other, without further conscious notice
by the girls. This was nicely expressed in this
response: "In retrospect, I'd like there to be
someone who noticed that I had my head on
computers and kept me there. I had a lot of other
interests, guitar twice a week, volleyball twice a
week. I took computers like "yeah, I'd probably
like that," but I had a lot of other things" (P2).
There is thus a potential in creating alternative
pathways [13] into the field by merely
building on individual interests. As many women
find it hard to identify themselves with computing
as such (also indicated by the confidence
gap and missing sense of belonging), we might
want to leverage their personal interests to create
identities that do resonate. We suggest that a
different learning approach, i.e. interdisciplinary
approach [14], could have a particularly strong
potential for strengthening women's engagement
in computing. These different interdisciplinary
subcultures can provide an environment where all
the students who currently feel left behind can
learn SE without feeling trapped by the dominant
culture associated with the field nowadays.
To this end, different means and strategies can
be utilized, from the integration of computingpowered
solutions in non-computing courses, to
the integration of non-computing knowledge in
computing courses via realistic applications and
real-world projects. This would further expand
different entryways in computing, help students
be more comfortable exploring and experimenting
with computing, have the stability of a familiar
knowledge base, and the ability to self-identify
with relevant problems. While mixing the "unfamiliar
with the familiar", they might be more
intrigued when unexpected things happen, and
feel more competent because of the possibility
to explain the new findings using their strengths
in a familiar context. Interdisciplinary approaches
could further enrich formal education by integrating
other sciences and humanities, promoting
versatility for the future workplaces and real
innovation, which can hardly be achieved without
computing crossing its own boundaries.
Before concluding, it is important to keep the
possible limitations of this study in mind. First,
the accuracy of responses depends on the respondent's
ability to recall their previous experiences.
Second, we used open questions to capture a full
range of expression from the respondents, which
had to be answered in English. That required
writing skills and an ability to express feelings
and experiences verbally, which can be difficult
for non-native English speakers. Nevertheless, the
findings align with the assumptions and evidence
reported in literature [1], [10], although not yet
confirmed by a study like ours. Further studies
attempting to replicate these findings with larger
samples for different gender groups separately
would be welcome.
CONCLUSION
Computing-driven innovation and creativity
cannot be cherished to its full potential if formed
only by a fraction of the population. The potential
talent pool is significantly reduced without girls
IEEE Software
and their non-stereotypical strengths. However,
the measures to diversify the computing workforce
should be motivated not only by shallow
attempts to merely balance the gender books, but
rather out of understanding that such balance is
of enormous advantage for our digitalised future.
Our study shows that there is lack of understanding
of the benefits of this SE diversity and also
lack of genuine appreciation of these benefits.
On top of this, there is a danger peeking
through the SE lining that manifests itself in the
responses of PI participants. Surprisingly, they reported
highest on experiencing hostile stereotypes
(C2.1) and not feeling comfortable to express
their true nature around SE folks (C4.1). Noticing
and counteracting this tendencies should be a
norm by today and to the words of one participant
(P2), who stated that she did not enter SE because
of the "necessity to change herself, to change
her field, to get into the 'men's world'", we can
hopefully respond that soon enough, (1) each
person can keep their own identity (as sporty,
artsy, feminine) and learn computing anyway;
(2) nobody has to change their field, as the
field is not compartmentalized anymore and we
do computing across boundaries of disciplines;
and (3) it is not "men's world" anymore, it is
anyone's, it is ours.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work has been partially supported by the
COST Action CA19122 - European Network for
Gender Balance in Informatics (EUGAIN).
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Lucia Happe is a Senior Researcher at the Karlsruhe
Institute of Technology (KIT), Faculty of Informatics
and Center for Teacher Education, Germany.
In her career, she led research teams at KIT to develop
complex software systems using model-driven
techniques (Helmholtz Portfolio Research: Securityand
Safety-Critical Infrastructure). She was a chair
10.
11
12.
January 2020
IEEE Software
(MB4CP and FESCA) and serves as a reviewer
for numerous conferences, e.g. ICSE, journals ACM
TTC, Springer SoSym and others. She received
ICSA 2020: Most Influential Paper Award in the last
10-Years, and ICMT 2013 TTC Award. She holds
'Vector Stiftung' Research Grant "Mädchen für Informatik
begeistern", EXIST Business Start-Up Grant,
and she founded RockStartIT, a non-profit initiative
aiming to provide more appealing computing education
for broader audiences. Contact her at lu-
cia.happe@kit.edu.
Barbora Buhnova is an Associate Professor and
vice-dean at Masaryk University, Faculty of Informatics
in Brno, Czech Republic. Following her research
career in Germany and Australia, she now leads
multiple research teams at Masaryk University (software
architecture) and Czech CyberCrime Centre of
Excellence C4e (critical infrastructures). She is the
Steering Committee chair of the ICSA conference,
has been involved in organization of numerous other
leading conferences (e.g. ICSE, ESEC-FSE), and
serves as an editor of Springer EMSE journal and
on IEEE TSE Review Board. Next to her academic
activities, she is a Co-Founding and Governing Board
member of Czechitas, a non-profit organisation aiming
at making IT skills more accessible to girls and
women (with 25,000+ graduates). She is a member
of multiple initiatives engaging more women in
tech (e.g. Informatics Europe working group Women
in Informatics Research and Education (WIRE), EU
COST Action: European Network for Gender Balance
in Informatics), lecturer of diversity programs for tech
companies, and author of multiple research papers on
the topic. Contact her at buhnova@fi.muni.cz.
8 IEEE Software