'What Really Keeps Women Out Of Tech'

What if there was a way to make prescription medicine cheaper and more accessible to people who need it? Technological innovations have been decreasing the costs of once-expensive products for over a century. Factory machines have replaced blacksmiths and calculators have reduced the labor of the human mind, thus lowering the cost to produce various products ranging from the average pair of shoes to a Tesla. Likewise, scientific researchers have resorted to using computer systems that reduce the amount of time that it takes to collect and analyze data that could prove beneficial to medical research. The field of research that is known to develop and control these computer programs is called computational biology. This under-occupied field of

In “What Really Keeps Women Out of Tech”, the author, Eileen Pollack, described her experience as a female coder and explained her reasons for departing from the field. She wrote that one aspect of her daily experience at her workplace was that “The men who controlled access to the computer made [her] listen to a barrage of sexist teasing if [she] wanted to be given the day’s code to run [her] program” (Pollack). This particular situation could actually be considered harassment as the men were denying her access to a resource that she needed, and it was in order to tease her. If companies and institutions ensured that these situations were prevented, then perhaps women would be more persistent in pursuing careers that tend to be dominated by men. There should be regulations in science labs and in any professional environment that make it clear that sexist teasing is considered a misconduct. Women cannot concentrate on developing and progressing in their careers if they are uncomfortable in their work environment. The importance of women in the field of computational biology correlates to the growing importance of the field itself in the overall branch of biology. According to the article "Big Data", "[Many scientists believe] that someday the “computation” label will disappear, subsumed into the larger label of “biology” as

This is being done in order to fix the issue of female STEM workers gradually falling off the wagon before they reach the top of the institutional hierarchies. The schools and institutions are trying to improve policies that should be helping women feel more comfortable at work or school. They are meant to educate students, workers, and faculty on the appropriate way to treat women in professional settings and the appropriate way to deal with a situation that has gotten out of hand. “How should young women faculty deal with unwelcome social or sexual advances? How should institutions and individuals interview and hire?..All too often, newly minted scientists begin their faculty positions with little or no training in effective strategies for running a laboratory” (“Fulfilling the Potential”). Faculties need to focus on making women comfortable and reassuring them that they do belong in careers that focus on science and technology in order to get women to be persistent in pursuing STEM careers. Mentorship and sufficient relationships may be a positive factor in the advancement of women in STEM majors. As one specialist, Linda Sax, examined introductory CS college classes at UCLA, she found that, “if someone stays in the major, it’s usually because they have strong peer connections. When they leave, it’s not because they’re