Source: NPR
That’s right: throughout the 1970s and into the early parts of the ‘80s, women were increasingly graduating with computer science degrees, similar to the increase in medical, legal, and scientific degrees.
But in 1984, something changed, and while the other fields neared relatively even graduation rates between genders, computer science’s female representation plummeted, and to this day has never recovered.
So, what happened in 1984? To put it simply—the home computer, and subsequent cultural and marketing shifts that viewed computing as a male discipline. Or, as NPR puts it:
“The share of women in computer science started falling at roughly the same moment when personal computers started showing up in U.S. homes in significant numbers.
These early personal computers weren’t much more than toys. You could play pong or simple shooting games, maybe do some word processing. And these toys were marketed almost entirely to men and boys.
This idea that computers are for boys became a narrative. It became the story we told ourselves about the computing revolution. It helped define who geeks were, and it created techie culture.”
This narrative was pushed across the board, ranging from modest Apple commercials to a movie where two nerdy boys literally create a supermodel with the power of a computer (1985’s Weird Science). The result of all this was that many women didn’t have access or exposure to computers nearly as much as their male counterparts. By the time they got to college, they were significantly behind.
Computing, unfortunately, wasn’t the only area where this marketing strategy was used. If anything, it was even more prevalent in computer gaming. Taking even a casual look at how video games were marketed throughout the ‘80s paints a damning, sexist portrayal of women.
Unfortunately, this trend has continued well past the ‘80s, and is even used today. It’s no wonder that some young women, then and now, feel like gaming just isn’t a world they can get into.
And now
Today, there’s definitely still signs of sexism in video gaming, though blatantly offensive marketing has mostly been relegated out of the mainstream. Still, the GamerGate controversy proved, if anything, that there’s still a long way to go in even talking about sexism in the gaming industry.
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For many, this is the 1984 of esports.
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