FemTech.dk Research Initiative

Abstract

AbstractFemTech.dk is situated in the Department of Computer Science at University of Copenhagen Denmark and has been an ongoing inquiry into the specific circumstances within computer science that produce gender imbalance and includes activities dedicated to making a change through design interventions. FemTech.dk was created in 2016 to engage with research within gender and diversity and to explore the role of gender equity as part of digital technology design and development. FemTech.dk considers how and why computer science as a field and profession in Denmark has such a distinct unbalanced gender representation in the twenty-first century. The focus was initially on the student base of the bachelor’s program in computer science, which from the 1980s until 2016 was remarkably smaller than for other science programs at the University of Copenhagen. In terms of numbers, only 15 women students entered the bachelor’s degree program in 2012 and 2013, and only 12 women students entered the program in 2014. In each of these 3 years, more than 160 students entered the program in total. Reviewing the 15-year period 2000–2014, the share of women students in the program was 7–9%, the lowest percentage of women in a study program across all of the University of Copenhagen. To compare, in 2016 the share of women students in the Math program was 30%, and in Physics was 25%.