Women attracted to IT in Malaysia - Building Gender Balanced Business

• A new study interviewed students in Malaysia about why they chose to study computer science
• Many of them were early IT enthusiasts
• IT was not seen as “masculine”. Instead, it was seen as a source of potential jobs
• Government support for IT infrastructure projects probably encouraged the trend
• A career in IT was also attractive because it offered supposedly safer office environments
• Much of the faculty and senior people at the University were women – creating immediate role models for the women students
• Many of the women wanted to teach in computer science

By Dr. Vivian A. Lagesen

Malaysia seems to have bucked the global trend in terms of gender and IT. Women constitute about half of the student population in computer science at most universities, and a substantial part of the faculty are women. Also within the industry, the numbers of women are substantially higher than in the Western world – where people are likely to see the sector as “masculine”.

Research I conducted for my PhD, “Extreme make-over? The making of gender and computer science” (2001-2005), based on interviews with women computer science students and faculty at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur showed that they saw computer science as providing excellent job prospects for women as well as men.

Interestingly, about half of the student body and the faculty at the University of Malaya’s Computer Science department is female. Furthermore, all of the heads of department in the faculty are women and so is the Dean.

“Most of the female students I interviewed for the study did not consider their choice of computer science to be unusual. On the contrary; they saw it as consistent with being a woman.”

Computers for women?
Most of the female students I interviewed for the study, A Cyberfeminist Utopia did not consider their choice of computer science to be unusual. On the contrary; they saw it as consistent with being a woman. They were also computer enthusiasts – not something generally associated with women.

Many of them had developed a profound fascination for computers at an early age and some had even made the decision to study computer science when they were at primary school. This interest was often fuelled by the view that the sector held out good job prospects.

Encouragement from parents – who were also motivated by the belief that there would be good job prospects in the sector – was another important factor in encouraging women in this direction.

So, for many of the women this was a win-win situation. They wanted to specialise in computers, it was a sensible option in terms of job prospects and their parents were often behind it.

Governmental influence
What had made parents so enthusiastic about computer science? One obvious answer is that the Malaysian government had been urging people to study IT, particularly during the 1990s. Also, the government’s drive behind ambitious national IT projects, notably the Multi-Media Super Corridor (MSC) project (a government initiative which aimed to leapfrog the country into the technological age) naturally reinforced the perception of IT as a dynamic, growth area.

Safe jobs?
A career in IT was also attractive because it offered supposedly safer office environments being mainly in-door work and involving work with a ‘light’ technology. Also, the existence of discrimination against women in more male-dominated sectors was a potential barrier.

“Encouragement from parents – who were also motivated by the belief that there would be good job prospects in the sector – was another important factor in encouraging women in this direction.”

Role models
Clearly the fact that all heads of departments as well as the Dean were women in the Computer Science department at the University of Malaya meant that there was a variety of role models for the women students. This may explain why almost all of the women interviewed in my study wanted to become lecturers in computer science.

However, they gave other reasons. They were attracted to the job flexibility at university and teaching was a traditional career for women in Malaysia. At the same time, some were deterred from entering the IT industry because they had concerns about the security aspects of travelling alone and having to visit remote places. There were also issues about the impact on their reputation in society if they travelled and worked in this way.

A significant number of women in the study did not have any previous experience of computers before they had entered the programme. Among the younger students, there was a notion that men students were more interested in programming than women students. However, hard (and smart) work was their preferred strategy to cope with any lack of knowledge and experience. Moreover, there was a widespread belief that women worked harder than men.

Lagesen, V. A. 2008. A Cyberfeminist Utopia? Perceptions of Gender and Computer Science among Malaysian Computer Science Students. Science, Technology and Human Values, 33 (1): 5-27.

Lagesen, V. A. 2005. Extreme make-over? The making of gender and computer science. PhD Dissertation, STS-report 71/2005. Trondheim: Centre for Technology and Society, NTNU

Dr. Vivian A. Lagesen is a professor at the department of interdisciplinary studies of culture at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Her main field of research is gender, science and technology.