Computer science — a job for men?
As part of a course, I created a website about NASA’s human computers. Looking at their history raises a question that feels just as relevant now: how did work that depended on so many women become associated so strongly with men?
The course project: NASA’s human computers →
Before a computer was something you put on a desk, it could be someone sitting at one. Human computers performed the calculations that researchers needed, working through data long before electronic machines took over.
At Langley, then part of NASA’s predecessor NACA, the first computing pool began in 1935 with five women. Hundreds more followed. These women helped turn research data into usable results, contributing to aeronautics and, later, the space programme.
But saying that computer science used to be an exclusively female profession would simplify the story too much. Men also worked as human computers, and those computing pools were not the whole field. What their history makes clear is that women were doing essential technical work from early on.
Their presence did not mean equality, either. The women at Langley initially held lower professional classifications and faced limited promotion opportunities. Being needed was not the same as receiving equal recognition.
NASA: When the Computer Wore a Skirt — Langley’s Computers, 1935–1970
Women do not need to be written into the history of computing. They need to be recognised in the history they already helped create.
Today, the imbalance looks different. According to Eurostat, women made up 19.5% of ICT specialists in the European Union in 2025. Roughly one in five. ICT covers a broad group of information and communication technology occupations; this is not a statistic about computer science students alone.
Eurostat: Towards Digital Decade targets for Europe — June 2026, page 5
That does not make technology a men-only profession. Women develop software, analyse data and build systems. A smaller share of the workforce tells us about representation. It does not tell us who is capable of doing the work.
Still, it would be too easy to look at those numbers and say that everyone simply chooses what interests them, without asking what shapes those choices or what happens after someone enters the field.
The European Commission identifies gender stereotypes, a lack of female role models and male-dominated working environments as barriers to women’s participation in digital careers. The question of belonging can begin long before the first job application.
European Commission: Women in digital
And there is evidence of discrimination once women are there. In a US survey conducted in 2017 and published by Pew Research Center in 2018, 74% of women in computer occupations reported experiencing at least one of the forms of gender discrimination the survey asked about. These included unequal pay and being treated as less competent because of their gender.
That is an older US finding, not a current rate for Austria or for every technology workplace. It cannot tell us how every woman is treated today. But it documents something that should not be dismissed: being allowed into a profession does not automatically mean being treated as an equal within it.
Pew Research Center: Gender disparities at work in STEM and computer jobs
So I would not say that women are unwelcome everywhere in computer science. That would erase supportive colleagues, good workplaces and women who have built fulfilling careers. But I also do not think that the existence of those experiences makes the barriers disappear.
Being the only woman in the room should not mean having to prove you belong there.
Technical ability should not be assumed in one person and questioned in another because of gender.
Recognition should follow the work.
For me, the history of the human computers is a reason to question the picture we carry of a technical person. It is also a reason to make women’s work visible in classrooms, use clear criteria for hiring and promotion, and take dismissive behaviour seriously.
We can remember the women who helped make computing possible while asking more of the present. Not simply whether women can enter the room, but whether their ideas are heard, their work is valued and their opportunities are equal.
Women were already here. The future of computing should make that belonging ordinary.