The Role Gender Plays in Different Fields in the 80’s and Now

2019-03-20

Jake Jordan

b) My mother and I did this interview when I was at school and she was at home on March 20th, 2019. I didn’t really have to edit it too much besides clearing up some typos. We used a program called discord to talk to each other which she was using on her phone and I used on my PC. After she had joined the server I had set up for the interview, i recorded the audio on a program called OBS which can record video and audio. For the quiet space, she used the study at our house, but unfortunately we have some very loud birds which can be heard anywhere from the house, and I used my dorm room. I made sure there wouldn’t be any interruptions from the people in my hall and the other people in the house with my mom knew the situation and to be as quiet as possible.

c)My mother was born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1964. Her full name is Stephanie Brooks Jordan and she is the youngest of four children. She spent her entire early life in Norfolk before moving to Blacksburg after an acceptance to Virginia Tech, she was the first person in my family to attend University. She graduated with a computer science degree from Virginia Tech. After this, she went on to earn a Master of Education from VCU and became a math teacher which was her childhood dream.

“Women in Computer Science.” ComputerScience.org, www.computerscience.org/resources/women-in-computer-science/.

When I was doing my research, I really liked this article because a lot of the things that are talked about in the article are things that my mom also discussed when I asked about her time in the computer science field. I decided that this article is credible because of where it was posted. The official website for computer science is very credible in my opinion and I myself used it when I was applying to schools for their computer science field.

“The Nation’s Teaching Force Is Still Mostly White and Female.” Education Week, mobile.edweek.org/c.jsp?cid=25919901&bcid=25919901&rssid=25919891&item=http://api.edweek.org/v1/ew/?uuid=BACA151A-8131-11E7-8291-8B98B3743667.

I thought this was a good article because of all the statistics it listed when I read through it. Considering my mom talked about women’s role in each field that she has been in, i thought this was pretty relevant to the topic of how women are treated much differently in education then how they are in the computer science field. I think this is credible because of how Education Week is a popular website among teachers. I asked my mom if she had heard of this site and she said she did and also double checked with some other teachers at her school and it was widely used and respected there as well.

I liked this article even though it didn’t 100% line up with my mom’s time in the computer science field but i think it is because of how far the computer science field has come since the 90s. Looking past that, it does address the nature of how more women should be involved in the STEM field and my mom is working to do that on a smaller scale at her school. For the same reasons as the last source, I believe this article is credible because of the respect people in the education field have for it.

Jake: [00:00:01] Can you describe what it was like being a first generation college student.

Stephanie: [00:00:12] For my parents my father in particular. It was a huge huge deal. He had always wanted to go to college and didn’t really have the opportunity to do that. So. He had encouraged each of us as we were growing up to do well in school and go to college and so I was the only one that did that. I should let you were the youngest. Yes. I didn’t really get how big of a deal it was until I was older.

Jake: [00:01:00] Older as in graduated?

Stephanie: [00:01:02] Older as in graduated.

Stephanie: [00:01:07] Back then in the early 80s not many kids went to college. Out of my class of 400 probably twenty five kids Went to college.

Jake: [00:01:24] So when you were a child after the Vietnam War ended what was it like in Norfolk. Considering that was one of the biggest navy bases on the East Coast.

Stephanie: [00:01:37] All I remember from that period was. My parents were older and were very conservative. My sisters. Were very liberal and hippy ish. I remember. The president the election for President Nixon. Can I say this is a little off topic to you. President Nixon. My parents of course were conservative and were voting for Nixon. And Sandra was working on. The. Campaign for the other candidate. McGovern. That was they were always arguing. About that. I get dinner time. I was probably. Eight. So I didn’t get their really significance on the arguing. I just knew that they were at total opposite. Ends. Politically. And I know that like Sandra did some little bit of protesting of the war. I do know since we were in a Navy town. And this is horrible. I hate to bring this up. But even as I got older in the early 80s we treated Navy men horribly.

Jake: [00:03:10] As liberals?

Stephanie: [00:03:12] We as in like me and my friends just people in general younger people. We lived in a Navy town so they were all over the place and we treated them terrible. Called them squids. And I mean these like “ew, there’s a squid.” That type of thing. We egged them. Like we go down to where they were like toward the naval base and they were walking around in a street we’d egg them and stuff like that. So it was pretty much no respect for Navy and for the four armed forces by the young people. So that’s the bottom line. We did not respect the armed forces. We treated them like dirt. Just like you see in the movies other vets were treated terribly. We did. And you know what. I didn’t even really know why I was doing it just because everybody else.

Jake: [00:04:18] So I guess the next subject. What was it like being computer science majors a woman. In the 80’s.

Stephanie: [00:04:28] I had. There were not many. I’ll tell you that there are many women in that field. I had one woman professor. And she actually called upon me to go and work part time at the help desk because there were so. What she said but didn’t say was there was only nerds working there and she needed like a normal person working there. There were very few girls. I mean almost all the classes were were boys. And I mean the whole school is the school in general was mostly. Was mostly guys as well. Back then.

Jake: [00:05:19] This was for Virginia Tech.

Stephanie: [00:05:20] . Did I what.

Jake: [00:05:22] This is Virginia Tech.

Stephanie: [00:05:24] Yes.

Jake: [00:05:25] OK.

Stephanie: [00:05:26] Yes.

[00:05:27] So before you went back to school to receive your masters. What was it like being in the workplace as a woman with your computer science degree.

Stephanie: [00:05:37] When I first started. There weren’t very many women but as we got toward The late 80s or early 90s there was definitely more and more women coming. However there was a discrepancy in pay. And it was known it was just a known thing that women do not get paid as much as the men and all the managers and such. They were all men. But we did. We were starting to get some more women programmers but certainly the men outnumbered the women.

Jake: [00:06:19] Is there any, like besides the pay was there any discrimination or were you like looked down upon.

Stephanie: [00:06:28] No there was some kind of some kind of. A. What’s it called. I’m having a mental block. When like guys pressure you sexually in the workplace. What’s that called again?

Jake: [00:06:53] Sexual harassment?

Stephanie: [00:06:54] Yes there was sexual harassment. I was part of some sexual harassment in the workplace but it was not reported. I just handled it.

Jake: [00:07:11] OK so how different were the jobs that you’ve had. Being at the computer science field and then being a teacher later on after you graduate with a masters degree. And like all aspects comparatively.

Stephanie: [00:07:30] Computer Science. Programming aspect of it. At some places was very stressful. We were under deadlines. And. We had to finish projects. For certain dates. Putting in only certain a number of hours. If you went over your other budget you got kind of scolded. So you were very pressured time. Which was very very stressful. Course we did not really have the internet could not work at home. So when you worked extra. It had to be at the office. So when I was single I would work very long hours like 8:00 in the morning till 8:00 or 9:00 at night sometimes to complete projects because we we didn’t have computers at home. So that of course was very stressful. I enjoyed the work. But I didn’t find that it was rewarding because in the end. I didn’t feel like I was. Helping the world in any way. I was helping companies make more money. But I wasn’t making an impact on people in the world. So when I switched to teaching that was a big. Positive I was making an impact. Hopefully on students. In the world. But of course teaching is also very stressful. But not in the same way as computers. Teaching is stressful from working. With students. And trying to get students motivated. Working. And talking to parents who sometimes are very. Unappreciative and blame teachers for them. Failings of their students. So. It’s good in one way because you impact. But it is very stressful and. At least with computers. You’re making a lot of money. So I guess I’m working on long hours. But I’m making some bank. And. Teaching. You ain’t making no bank.

Jake: [00:10:03] OK so we’ve already kind of gone over this a little bit. But if like you had to put in one sentence how are women treated in the fields that you have been in and please compare the start. So like the start of a new came into the computer science field and then when you left and then the start of when you started teaching until now.

Stephanie: [00:10:35] Put it in one sentence.

Jake: [00:10:37] Not not necessarily one sentence but just short.

Stephanie: [00:10:41] So all right. I’m thinking. Women Have been undervalued In the workplace For as long as I’ve been working. However. It is improving. But it still has a long way to go.

Jake: [00:11:12] Is this just in general for life all the time you’ve been working. Or is this one like period.

Stephanie: [00:11:18] This is all the time I have been working.

Jake: [00:11:19] OK. So if you can think back to when you were a kid what was your mother’s job and how was she true to the workplace and how far we’ve come since you know like the 60s and 70s.

Stephanie: [00:11:33] For a long time my mother did didn’t work. It was not. i don’t know, it wasn’t Typical for women to work. Most women stayed home and took care of the kids. My brothers and sisters are quite a bit older so they had already graduated. And I was in elementary school. When my mother started working. And. It was a very slack, Low stress job. So that her primary focus could still be that the family. And not work. I don’t think she was treated poorly. She worked in the school system. It just wasn’t an important job and she knew it was an important job and she. And that she was OK with that because she just wanted something to do during the day. When we were at school. Just kind of counting the time job.

Jake: [00:12:39] Okay. So if you can make any changes to Women’s role in the workforce today and in society in general what do you think it would be.

Stephanie: [00:12:57] Well I’ll say two things. My improvement would be to increase the amount of women in the stem. Science technology engineering math. And. I’m actually working on that goal next year. I’m starting an AP Computer Science class At my school. This year, For several months I’ve been recruiting students and doing a bunch of different things trying to get AP Computer Science in the school. Particularly girls signed up. Still reading bunch of articles that say that the amount of women in STEM fields is still significantly lower than men. So I’m hoping to do my little part to grow that a little bit. One of the things I’m going to do next year also is besides having the AP Computer Science lab. to have a Women in stem club. Have a woman in STEM club stock. Garden at the school. And. Tried to do some activities like maybe go over to the elementary school and do some science and math activities with the kids. Girls in particular and tried to do my own little part to grow. The women in the STEM subjects.

Jake: [00:14:37] Are just one more question for you. So if I missed anything that you want to talk about for these subjects i’ve brought up.

Stephanie: [00:14:45] It’s the only thing I wanted to make sure that I talked about was the AP Computer Science.

Jake: [00:14:51] OK.

Stephanie: [00:14:53] I was actually reading something that said that in elementary school, the amount of girls. Interested in science and math is almost equal with boys. But then as women get into or girls get into middle school and high school it drops significantly. And I don’t really know why. Gonna try to do my own little part improve that

Jake: [00:15:21] All right. Well thanks for doing the interview. I appreciate it

I really do think this interview went well. I surprisingly learned some stuff about my mom’s childhood and early adult life that I didn’t know. Besides the birds being loud in the background, which I think was the only problem, the audio turned out quite well. I think when we went off script it was still interesting and mostly relevant to the topic. I believe my mom enjoyed talking about this kind of thing and that she is glad more people are going to hear some of the stuff she said.