CULTURE NOT NUMBERS: DILEMMAS AND DISCOURSES OF THE UNDERREPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN COMPUTING A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Sandra D. Payette August 2018 © 2018 Sandra D. Payette CULTURE NOT NUMBERS: DILEMMAS AND DISCOURSES OF THE UNDERREPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN COMPUTING Sandra D. Payette, Ph. D. Cornell University 2018 Where are the women in computing? This dissertation explores the underrepresentation of women in computing as a cultural issue. After considering the role of women in the history of computing, it examines contemporary interventions to address gender bias and promote gender diversity in the tech sector and Silicon Valley. Not for profit organizations operate as intermediaries that work to raise awareness of gender bias and facilitate institutional alignment on diversity policy and practice across corporate, academic, and the public sectors. This research used a multi- method approach that included critical discourse analysis, participant observation, and qualitative method. Moments of discourse were analyzed to reveal and illuminate dilemmas such as the phenomenon of unconscious bias and the prospect and dilemma of male allies for culture change. Also explored was the tension between focusing on diversity metrics vs. mounting intervention to produce durable culture change the face of deeply entrenched attitudes and practices that push back overt and subtle ways. Gendered occupational identities and biased institutional practices reverberate through the tech sector and more broadly in the structures of society. The conclusion raises uncomfortable questions, such as whether the work on gender diversity is ever “done,” and who will continue to put pressure on companies to reconcile tensions between business performance and social justice. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH I remember a time when women received computer science degrees and worked as programmers and software developers at historic peak levels of women’s participation in computing. Having entered computing in 1986 as a programmer and systems analyst at Corning Incorporated, I note my experience as a woman in computing of the 1980s working in a corporate IT group. As seen in Appendix L, I was a member of software development group in 1989 at Corning Inc. that was approximately 50 percent female programmers1. This was a time when members of my team collaborated without wondering why so few women in computing. During the same time period, I was required to complete a corporate diversity training program as part of the company’s “valuing diversity” initiative that was framed around the theme of “women and men as colleagues.” While this training was not particularly targeted at computing, Corning was acknowledged as a notable company for diversity initiatives during this period. After almost a decade in corporate, I pursued a new path in academia. It was 1994 at the dawn of the Word Wide Web when I became a senior software engineer at Cornell University. I became the only female developer in my new group at Mann Library and I didn’t question this as unusual or significant. After two years I moved to my next position in the “digital library research group” in the Cornell computer science department, still not reflecting on what had happened to women’s participation in computing since the 1980s. In 1997 I was a member of the Digital Library Research Group where I became the lead system architect and the developer of the software known as Fedora, the Flexible Extensible Digital Object Repository Architecture (Payette & Lagoze, 1998; Payette & Lagoze, 2000; Payette & Staples, 2002). After a series of 1 I’m the one with the pink suit and the fake cigar with my feet on the desk, a notable moment of gender parody (parity) for the programming team. v conference papers and successful grants, I led Fedora into becoming a successful open source project and became the founding CEO of a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization that is the home base for a suite of open source software offerings for libraries, archives, and other knowledge institutions that are providing access to and preserving digital content (see DuraSpace at https://duraspace.org/). It was during my time as CEO of DuraSpace that I developed an interest in pursuing academic research on key questions of the social impact of Web-era software development cultures. Having been the only female developer on my own open source software project (Fedora), and one of very few female developers in the broader “digital library” community, I realized that I first must ask the question - “where are the women?” At this point I applied to the PhD program at Cornell University to pursue interdisciplinary study across the fields of Communication, Science and Technology Studies, and Information Science. After being accepted into the Department of Communication, I transitioned the leadership of DuraSpace to the next generation and began my quest to study the historical and contemporary issues that affect the underrepresentation of women in in computing. I spent the first two years of my PhD (2011- 1013) in full-time study to develop the rich scholarly grounding that was essential to pursue the research of this dissertation. This included the history of women in computing as a special area of interest in my STS minor. For the next five years in the Department of Communication, I continued research for my PhD while also returning to technical career positions, first at the University of Michigan (2014-2015), then at the Cornell University Library as the Director of Information Technology for Research and Scholarship (2016-2018). vi In memory of Dr. Dennis Luke Payette vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There are so many people who encouraged me to pursue this project known as my later-in-life PhD. Many of them know that I was originally hoping to pursue a PhD in the early 1990s but the vision of the “digital library” that was emerging on the Web took me down a different path. Since then, I have worked with so many wonderful colleagues at the intersections of computer science, information science, and research libraries. Finally, in 2011 the time had come for me to finally take on doctoral study with an open field of research questions about the implications of the systems that we are building and deploying in the Web era. For all those who supported and encouraged me to take this intellectual journey, I am eternally grateful and I will continue to use this knowledge in practice for positive social change. To begin, I would like thank my husband Carl Lagoze for his love, support, and positive spirit in our life together and in our intellectual partnership. What a joy to explore new pathways and inspire each other along the way. As for our life in research, it began with our early work on digital libraries that ultimately led to both of us making the academic turn into PhDs programs and new research paths that integrate the technical with the social. I also wish to anoint Carl as “Dr. Chef” since he embraced cooking as a hobby and made great meals for me during key stages of my PhD! I am very fortunate to have an amazing PhD Committee, with each member bringing a unique scholarly perspective when advising me in the interdisciplinary approach of my research. First, I would like to thank Lee Humphreys, the Chair of my Committee, for her leadership, wisdom, and devotion to rigorous qualitative research. viii Lee’s wonderful combination of intellect, kindness, and feminist perspective made the period of writing my dissertation an experience that was intellectually challenging and personally meaningful. I would also like to recognize Ron Kline as both mentor and kindred spirit who, like me, first began his career in technology before pursuing his scholarly path in the history and ethics of technology. Ron is one of the most generous scholars I have known who enthusiastically devoted his time throughout my years as an STS minor2. Steve Jackson invited me into the circle of scholars who were deliberating on issues of “Knowledge Infrastructure.” This influenced me as both a technologist and a scholar to frame my work in the area of digital preservation from the standpoint of an “ethic of care” and technological renewal. Steve also influenced my thinking on technology and policy which became an important theme for my dissertation. I save my thanks to Tarleton Gillespie for last, since he was the first faculty member with whom I began my PhD journey. Tarleton encouraged me to apply to the PhD program in the Department of Communication and he advised me in the early stages of my PhD. Tarleton’s deep thinking always inspired me and he introduced me to theories of discourse, which ultimately became a key theoretical pillar for my analysis of socio- technical systems and my dissertation research. To all my Committee members, I express my deepest gratitude and admiration. Also, I would like to thank all of the amazing faculty, graduate students, and researchers I worked with at Cornell University and University of Michigan during my PhD years. 2 Ron advised and encouraged me during the process of writing and publishing my first history paper. See: Payette, Sandy. "Hopper and Dijkstra: Crisis, Revolution, and the Future of Programming." IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 36 no. 4, 2014, pp. 64-73. Project MUSE, muse.jhu.edu/article/564925. ix I would not have achieved this PhD without the support of my family and my “family of friends.” Thank you to my family members who were “on the ground” with me through the key stages of my PhD, especially Lucy Lagoze, Stacey Payette, Pam and Su Rubinoff, and Howard Lagoze.