































      
 
      
 
 
 
      
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

      
 

The Underrepresentation of Female Students in Computer Science Programs 
Debunking Structural Gender Inequalities in Academia 

Yixuan Ma, Concordia University ’23 
 
Abstract: Despite the shared recognition that ensuring equitable educational opportunities for 
learners of all genders is a fundamental social justice issue, computer science programs still 
encounter equity and inclusivity challenges. Aside from the unbalanced gender composition, 
female CS students also suffer from quotidian gender essentialism and a sense of isolation 
under a male-dominated paradigm. The disproportionate female underrepresentation in 
academia restricts women from pursuing high-paying computing careers and exacerbates 
alarming gender inequalities in society. In essence, it is of paramount importance to question 
who leaves women behind. This study reveals that the androcentric institutional culture, as well 
as its corresponding educational practices and resource allocation in North American 
universities, resulted in the massive underrepresentation of female students in undergraduate CS 
programs from 2000 to 2022. This can be explored through the normalized yet dubious 
masculine culture, gender-inequitable pedagogical methods, and the scarcity of female support 
mechanisms. These aspects constantly interfere with female students’ enrollment, retention, and 
achievement in this subject area. 

 
  



 
 

Despite the shared recognition that ensuring equitable educational opportunities for 
learners of all genders is a fundamental social justice issue, computer science programs still 
encounter equity and inclusivity challenges (North & Longlands, 2019). Computer sciences 
(CS) refer to the development and programming of computer hardware and software (Page & 
Smart, 2014). It is one of the fastest-growing industries with substantial labor demand and 
lucrative career prospects. Although some female pioneers, such as Grace Hopper and 
Katherine Johnson, achieved notable success in computing from the 1950s to the 1970s, women 
have been largely absent in this field in recent decades (Dryburgh, 2000). In Canada, women 
accounted for 15.8 percent of first-year undergraduates in CS programs in 2010, and only half 
of them graduated with a degree in computing (Statistics Canada, 2019, Table 1). Similarly, in 
the United States, only 18.7 percent of CS bachelor’s degrees were awarded to female students, 
while women represented 57.3 percent of degree recipients in other disciplines (National Center 
for Science and Engineering Statistics, 2019, Table 2-5). Aside from the unbalanced gender 
composition, female CS students also suffer from quotidian gender essentialism and a sense of 
isolation under a male-dominated paradigm (Charles & Bradley, 2006). The disproportionate 
female representation in academia restricts women from pursuing high-paying computing 
careers and exacerbates alarming gender inequalities in society.  

Whereas some scholars attribute this underrepresentation to women’s academic 
unfitness and preference for relational work, they may omit the institutional context of this 
issue, thereby risking oversimplifying the topic with a victim-blaming tendency (Varma, 2002; 
Varma et al., 2008). In essence, it is of paramount importance to question who leaves women 
behind. I argue the androcentric institutional culture, as well as its corresponding educational 
practices and resource allocation in North American universities, result in the massive 
underrepresentation of female students in undergraduate CS programs from 2000 to 2022. This 
can be explored through the normalized yet dubious masculine culture, gender-inequitable 
pedagogical methods, and the scarcity of female support mechanisms. These aspects constantly 
interfere with female students’ enrollment, retention, and achievement in this subject area. 
 
The Institutional Culture: Masculine as the Default 

The CS faculty establishes masculinity as the default narrative, normalizing the 
underrepresentation of femininity and diverting female students away from enrolling in CS 
programs. This is evident through the analysis of two dimensions. First, there is an enduring 
masculine culture in computing faculties. In North America, through a seemingly neutral 
approach, the educational environment portrays computers as preferably for men, who are 
perceived as capable of controlling powerful machinery—a subject field “culturally overlaid 
with the aura of masculinity” (Clegg, 2001, p. 320; Varma, 2002). The widespread 
dissemination of this ideology corresponds to the mass media theory, representing an invisible, 
amorphous mass communication with a “sit notum omnibus presentibus” strategy—be it known 
to all present (Peters, 2010, p. 269). It conveys the masculine association to all individuals in 
the CS academic community, including the administrators, the instructors, and the students. 
Particularly, faculty members share a normative belief that computing is a male domain (Barker 
& Aspray, 2006). With the hierarchical relationship between educators and learners, many 
faculty members, who have the power to transmit knowledge, implicitly reproduce negative 
gender messages and consolidate the gender-essentialist epistemology through day-to-day 
student-faculty interactions (Barker & Aspray, 2006). Femininity is thus positioned as the 
inferior, insignificant opposite to the male-dominated narrative in the CS world, entrenching 
biases in the minds of the masses. In response to the overarching male-dominated culture, many 
female students either express outright rejection before entering the program or experience a 
sense of unbelonging upon entry (Cohoon, 2008), leading to dismal female enrollment in the 
CS subject. Secondly, this male-normed culture breeds gender-based disciplinary stereotypes 



 
 
that underestimate female students’ competencies. During student recruitment, program 
counselors tend to underrate female students’ technological abilities, such as data information 
literacy, compared to their male counterparts (Barker & Aspray, 2006). Accordingly, they 
usually steer women away from science programs and towards other fields traditionally 
associated with femininity, such as arts and social science (Barker & Aspray, 2006). Under the 
gatekeeping efforts of educational authorities, female students go through bitter social-
psychological enculturation and internalize negative judgments about their abilities. For 
example, even though male and female students perform similarly in pre-university 
mathematics courses, female students demonstrate increased self-doubt in calculus and 
information technology and are more likely to believe they are unqualified to study computing 
(Wasburn & Miller, 2008). Likewise, during a research interview regarding the presence of 
female “pathbreakers” in CS, a male student asserts: 

To be a woman in computer science? It is better if you change your major [to] something 
else … Just [like] the stories I’ve heard and the inside scenes from different professors, I 
don’t think that they expect a woman to be in the computer science field. Nope. (Varma 
et al., 2008, p. 308) 

The lack of sympathy does not simply denote an individual bias. Instead, approximately 20 
percent of the respondents in the study, predominantly male CS students, echoed this statement. 
This uncovers the faculties’ deeply embedded structural discrimination, framing the 
comprehensive computing culture in a narrow, monolithic masculine profile. The pervasive 
stereotypes elicit confidence crises for female students conceptually and hinder their enrollment 
in CS programs in a concrete way. This coincides with Joanna Cohoon’s study (2008), which 
points out that the departments where most faculty report some female disadvantages are the 
ones with low enrollment rates of female students. As feminine voices have been overlooked by 
the faculty and repressed by female students themselves, gender-essentialist visions of 
masculinity and femininity, along with gender-typed preferences and prejudices, persist in the 
higher education system (Charles & Bradley, 2006). These problematic barriers generate a 
circular phenomenon—the more masculine and stereotypical the culture is, the more reluctant 
the female students are to enroll. This, in turn, intensifies the underrepresentation of femininity 
and renders the hegemonic androcentric regime possibly irreversible. Given these points, the 
male-oriented culture in CS faculties and the gender-based disciplinary prejudices combine to 
construct a solid foundation for the underrepresentation of female students in CS programs. 
      
Pedagogical Methods: Gender-inequitable in Essence 

In addition to the epistemological biases, the pedagogical methods in CS programs are 
also penetrated by gender injustices, undermining female students’ retention in this discipline. 
In the first place, instructors tend to exhibit an imbalanced distribution of attention and 
encouragement among students of different genders. According to Lecia Barker and William 
Aspray (2006), instructors make less eye contact and provide fewer interaction opportunities for 
female students than male students in the higher education context. Instructors are also prone to 
share answers with them directly without adequate explanations, acquiescing female students to 
give up. Conversely, they encourage male students to figure out the answers themselves 
(Sadker & Sadker, 1995). The biased teacher-student communications not only lead to fewer 
opportunities for female students to improve and master computing skills, but also fall short of 
cultivating women’s self-efficacy in pursuing CS pathways. This feeds female inferiority 
stereotyping and the pessimistic self-fulfilling prophecy, trapping women in almost endless 
vicious loops and de-equalizing their retention (Stanford University, 2015). Secondly, CS 
curriculums rarely consider the interest from a female perspective or in a gender-neutral 
manner. Notably, CS courses usually privilege agentic goals with a focus on self-directed 
learning and competitiveness. This disproportionately appeals to male students, who are likely 



 
 
to be motivated by agentic goals; nevertheless, this overrides the interests of female students, 
who are more likely to be motivated by communal goals and collaborative learning 
environments (Yates & Plagnol, 2022). The disassociation of the curriculum from women’s 
preferred academic development model provokes a loss of interest and increased uncertainty 
about their identity fitness, therefore discouraging females from continuing their studies. 
Equally important, current curricula feature positive associations with male portrayals in 
educational materials but fail to acknowledge female representation with equal efforts. In CS 
textbooks and teaching examples, portrayals of women appear less frequently in text and 
imagery compared to men (Giannakos et al., 2017). Even in the presence of female 
associations, they are usually depicted in a cynical and stigmatized light. For instance, most 
textbooks on cryptographic protocols involve a female character, Sybil. The name originates 
from Flora Schreiber’s 1973 book Sybil, which tells the story of a woman diagnosed with 
dissociative identity disorder due to physical and sexual assault. This name is contextualized in 
teaching terminology as “Sybil Attack”—an attack in which forged identities disrupt a 
reputation system in peer-to-peer networks (Medel & Pournaghshband, 2017, p. 412). In like 
manner, David Munson (1996) illustrates that “the Lena image,” a photograph from Playboy 
Magazine featuring a partially nude female, has been the standard stock image for image 
processing courses since 1973 (p. 3). The normative male gaze and insulting connotations in 
these course materials serve as a socio-political tool. It perpetuates the stereotyped 
preconceptions of women as the irrational, objectified “other” rather than intelligent individuals 
with the capacity to succeed in CS. Although many female students strive to resist stereotypical 
notions, it is difficult to counterbalance negative gender schemas that recurrently manifest in 
daily experiences. Everyday routine engagement with the materials exerts imperceptible yet 
incessant influence over them, deteriorating their self-perceptions, participation, and academic 
performances (Medel & Pournaghshband, 2017). As a result of long-term sexist socialization, 
the CS learning journey becomes an accumulation and internalization of female inferiority, 
hardship, and dismay, leading many female students to discontinue their undergraduate studies 
or transfer to other programs. Overall, the gender-inequitable teaching practices and the 
curriculum’s unfair consideration of women’s interests discourage female students during their 
studies and hamper their retention, hence consolidating the imbalanced gender representation in 
this discipline. 

 
Resource Allocation: Female Support Mechanisms in Scarcity 

The scarcity of female support mechanisms in CS programs further taints female 
students’ university experiences with insecurities and fear, impeding their achievement of 
degrees in this subject area. First, most North American universities do not provide access to 
positive female role models for students in CS. Research by Stanford University (2015) 
illuminates that women constitute only 10 percent of most computer science faculties across the 
United States (para. 1). Female instructors, even senior female educators, experience different 
levels of marginalization and exclusion from advanced positions. This not only signals a 
shrinkage of feminine voices but also implies a deficiency in interactive same-sex mentorship 
availability and academic role models. Concurrently, universities feature minimal networking 
opportunities with female scientists and guest speakers from the industry. In fact, over 50 
percent of students agree that having access to female role models is vital, as these role models 
can exemplify the accomplishments, salaries, and lifestyles associated with future job positions 
(Kim et al., 2011, p. 7). The exemplars can encourage women to envision themselves in similar 
occupations upon graduation and fortify the motivation to dedicate long-term effort throughout 
their studies. However, most students note that they have never met female technology 
professionals in university contexts (Wasburn & Miller, 2008). In this case, universities’ limited 
acknowledgment of female professionals thriving in CS industries and academia provides 
inadequate incentive and anticipation of highly rewarded career prospects and life aspirations. 



 
 
Female students thus tend to remain suspicious of the “return on investment” of their studies, 
questioning the chance of obtaining well-paid, stable employment opportunities in a male-
dominated industry. Consequently, they feel less secure and motivated to complete the four-
year intensive CS studies to achieve a degree that seems less promising for females. Second, 
coupled with the paucity of same-sex role modeling, universities’ lack of female peer networks 
represents another persistent deterrent that erodes female students’ achievement. In 2020, 
women made up only 19 percent of CS graduates with a declining tendency (United Nations, 
2020, para. 2). This means that they sometimes have two to three like-minded technical women 
in computing classes whom they can ask for help with ease; though most of the time, they have 
none (Cohoon, 2008, p. 217). In the absence of same-sex classmates, women have to approach 
male peers for assistance. Many of them have been viewed as an anomaly by male classmates 
and encountered teasing infused with gender-essentialist contempt in the absence of 
institutional intervention (Varma et al., 2008). They are often perceived as girls with 
presumedly overemphasized feminine appearances rather than high intellectual and mental 
values. The consciousness of being female and the stereotype threat make them fearful of 
deepening their comprehension of course content through discussions. In particular, female 
students generally resonate with the statement: “Just that sometimes, I’m scared to speak or ask 
questions because guys might think … because I’m a woman, cause I’m a lady” (Varma, 2008,      
304). This reveals that, with a severely imbalanced gender composition, communication among 
peers is no longer a chance for exchanging thoughts, discovering commonalities, and 
conjoining into a harmonious whole (Laywine, 2022). It is rather distorted into a socio-
communicative struggle in which male and female students are situated at two opposite poles, 
triggering further gendering and misconceptions. In this androcentric environment, the 
unwelcoming climate for women is likely to provoke constant feelings of isolation and 
vulnerability. This also entails a reluctance to ask clarifying questions and participate in critical 
debates. The derived inactive, passive learning mode results in insufficient engagement and 
understanding of the courses, rendering many female students unable to make it through 
advanced CS courses to attain their degrees. This aligns with Cohoon’s research (2008), which 
highlights that given the shortage of female-empowering networks, female students’ attrition 
rate is six points higher than men’s (p. 214). In general, because of universities’ scarcity of 
female support mechanisms, including the paucity of positive role models and female student 
communities, women students’ university experiences are permeated with career-related 
anxiety and interpersonal distress, besides a heavy academic workload. This undermines 
females’ ambition and the pleasure of learning, limiting their attainment of degrees and 
personal development in the long run. 

 
Concluding Remarks 

Through analyzing the masculine paradigm in CS faculties, the biases in their 
pedagogical style, and the dearth of female support mechanisms that impede female students’ 
enrollment, retention, and achievement, the drastic lack of female presentation in CS and the 
underlying rationales become evident. The androcentric institutional culture as well as its 
corresponding educational practices and resource allocation in North American universities 
give rise to the radical underrepresentation of female undergraduate students in CS programs 
from 2000 to 2022. These three dimensions form a nearly infinite cycle that worsens the 
structural underrepresentation of women, perpetuating gender disparities in education and, 
through educational socialization, in broader society. While this research primarily addresses 
the underrepresentation of women, it is crucial to interpret the ensuing conclusions within the 
framework of inherent limitations, encompassing considerations of representativeness and 
contextual specificity. Future studies may benefit from incorporating a closer examination of 
the obstacles encountered by women of color, trans women, and queer women in CS programs. 
This endeavor will facilitate a more comprehensive comprehension of this multi-faceted focal 



 
 
point, where the interplay of gender, sexuality, race, and social norms converges to form an 
ultra-intricate amalgamation.    

Today, some universities claim that there has been a proliferation of empowering 
campaigns for women in technology, which provide ample support for females to pursue CS 
pathways (Gallagher, 2017). Nevertheless, I criticize this notion, as the prosperous androcentric 
culture and stagnating gender composition in CS academics unravel that the educational gender 
gap is far from being eradicated. Gender-equitable education should not just be a rhetorical 
slogan. Universities should translate it into institutional improvements with socio-
communicative empowerment and the provision of resources for females, equipping them with 
technological competencies and self-efficacy to fluidly navigate through the computing terrain. 
Ultimately, this will equalize gender representation among younger generations, advancing the 
integration of femininity into academic, technological, and sociocultural landscapes—a genuine 
liberating path toward a fair and inclusive future.  

 
 

  



 
 

References 
 

Barker L., & Aspray, W. (2008). The state of research on girls and IT. In J. M. Cohoon, & W. 
Aspray (Eds.), Women and information technology: Research on underrepresentation 
(pp. 3–54). MIT Press. https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.lib-
ezproxy.concordia.ca/book/6267239  

 
Charles, M., & Bradley, K. (2008). A matter of degrees: Female underrepresentation in 

computer science programs cross-nationally. In J. M. Cohoon, & W. Aspray (Eds.), 
Women and information technology: Research on underrepresentation (pp. 183–203). 
MIT Press. https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.lib-ezproxy.concordia.ca/book/6267239 

 
Clegg, S. (2001). Theorising the machine: Gender, education, and computing. Gender and 

Education 13(3), 307–324. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540250120063580  
 
Cohoon, J. M. (2008). Just get over it or just get on with it: Retaining women in undergraduate 

computing. In J. M. Cohoon, & W. Aspray (Eds.), Women and information technology: 
Research on underrepresentation (pp. 205–237). MIT Press. https://ieeexplore-ieee-
org.lib-ezproxy.concordia.ca/book/6267239 

 
Dryburgh, H. (2000). Underrepresentation of girls and women in computer science: 

Classification of 1990s research. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 23(2), 
181–202. https://doi.org/10.2190/8RYV-9JWH-XQMB-QF41  

 
Gallagher, B. (2017, June 16). More women are studying computer science at Waterloo. 

Waterloo University. https://uwaterloo.ca/math-alumni-newsletter/math-
eties/feature/more-women-are-studying-computer-science-waterloo  

 
Giannakos, M. N., Pappas, I. O., Jaccheri, L., & Sampson, D. G. (2017). Understanding student 

retention in computer science education: The role of environment, gains, barriers and 
usefulness. Education and Information Technologies: The Official Journal of the IFIP 
Technical Committee on Education, 22(5), 2365–2382. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-
016-9538-1  

 
Kim, K. A., Fann, A. J., & Misa-Escalante, K. O. (2011). Engaging women in computer science 

and engineering: Promising practices for promoting gender equity in undergraduate 
research experiences. ACM Transactions on Computing Education, 11(2), 2–19. 
http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1993069.1993072  

 
Laywine, N. (2022). What is the communication? [PowerPoint slides]. Moodle. 

https://moodle.concordia.ca/moodle/pluginfile.php/5653270/mod_resource/content/1/C
OMS%20205%20%20F22%20-%20Week%202%20-%20What%20is%20Communicati
on_.pdf  

 
Medel, P., & Pournaghshband, V. (2017). Eliminating gender bias in computer science 

education materials. Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on 
Computer Science Education, 17(3), 411–416. 
https://doi.org/10.1145/3017680.3017794  

 
Munson, D. C. (1996). A note on Lena. IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, 5(1), 3–4. 

https://doi.org/10.1109/TIP.1996.8100841  

https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.lib-ezproxy.concordia.ca/book/6267239
https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.lib-ezproxy.concordia.ca/book/6267239
https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.lib-ezproxy.concordia.ca/book/6267239
https://doi.org/10.1080/09540250120063580
https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.lib-ezproxy.concordia.ca/book/6267239
https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.lib-ezproxy.concordia.ca/book/6267239
https://doi.org/10.2190/8RYV-9JWH-XQMB-QF41
https://uwaterloo.ca/math-alumni-newsletter/math-eties/feature/more-women-are-studying-computer-science-waterloo
https://uwaterloo.ca/math-alumni-newsletter/math-eties/feature/more-women-are-studying-computer-science-waterloo
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-016-9538-1
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-016-9538-1
http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1993069.1993072
https://doi.org/10.1145/3017680.3017794
https://doi.org/10.1109/TIP.1996.8100841


 
 
 
National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. (2019). Women, minorities, and persons 

with disabilities in science and engineering. Retrieved October 28, 2022 from 
https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf19304/data 

 
North, A., & Longlands, H. (2019). Gender, poverty and educational equality. In M. J. 

Schuelka, C. J. Johnstone, G. Thomas, & A. J. Artiles (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of 
inclusion and diversity in education (pp. 103–115). SAGE Publications. 

 
Page, D., & Smart, N. (2014). What is computer science?: An information security perspective. 

Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04042-4 
 
Peters, J. D. (2010). Mass media. In W. J. T., Mitchell, & M. B. N. Hansen (Eds.), Critical 

terms for media studies (pp. 266–278). The University of Chicago Press. 
 
Sadker, M., & Sadker, D. (1995). Failing at fairness: How our schools cheat girls. Touchstone. 
 
Stanford University. (2015). The shortage of female computer science faculty at Stanford 

University. Retrieved October 28, 2022 from 
https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/2000-01/women-
faculty/intro.html  

 
Statistics Canada. (2019). Persistence and representation of women in STEM programs (No. 

75-006-X). Retrieved October 28, 2022 from https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-
006-x/2019001/article/00006-eng.htm 

 
United Nations. (2020). Closing the gender gap in science and technology. Retrieved 

November 21, 2022 from https://www.un.org/en/un-chronicle/closing-gender-gap-
science-and-technology-0 

 
Varma, R. (2002). Women in information technology: A case study of undergraduate students 

in a minority-serving institution. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 22(4), 274–
282. https://doi.org/10.1177/0270467602022004003  

 
Varma, R., Prasad, A., & Kapur, D. (2008). Confronting the “socialization” barrier: Cross-

ethnic differences in undergraduate women’s preference for IT education. In J. M. 
Cohoon, & W. Aspray (Eds.), Women and information technology: Research on 
underrepresentation (pp. 301–322). MIT Press. https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.lib-
ezproxy.concordia.ca/book/6267239  

 
Wasburn, M. H., & Miller, S. G. (2008). Keeping women students in technology: Preliminary 

evaluation of an intervention. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory 
& Practice, 9(2), 205–219. https://doi.org/10.2190/CS.9.2.e  

 
Yates, J., & Plagnol, A. C. (2022). Female computer science students: A qualitative exploration 

of women’s experiences studying computer science at university in the UK. Education 
and Information Technologies, 27(3), 3079–3105. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-021-
10743-5  

https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf19304/data
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04042-4
https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/2000-01/women-faculty/intro.html
https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/2000-01/women-faculty/intro.html
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2019001/article/00006-eng.htm
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2019001/article/00006-eng.htm
https://www.un.org/en/un-chronicle/closing-gender-gap-science-and-technology-0
https://www.un.org/en/un-chronicle/closing-gender-gap-science-and-technology-0
https://doi.org/10.1177/0270467602022004003
https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.lib-ezproxy.concordia.ca/book/6267239
https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.lib-ezproxy.concordia.ca/book/6267239
https://doi.org/10.2190/CS.9.2.e
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-021-10743-5
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-021-10743-5

