PyLadiesCon 2024

This talk will highlight the hardships faced by women in computer science, a field which is male dominated and often pressurizes women who have chosen this field. Our talk aims to enlighten people about the history of programming while simultaneously discussing the progress and participation of women in coding. Along with facts, this talk will not only help in supporting and motivating the aspiring women in coding but also shed light on the challenges that women have faced in the past. We are familiar with names like Alan Turing and Robert Kahn, but this talk will discuss the exceptional works of Dr. Grace Hopper, who wrote the first computer compiler and Ada Lovelace, who is considered to be the first computer programmer while having an IQ of 160, matching that of Einstein. Women are underrepresented in tech while also being underpaid. Despite the fact that only 28% of women are in tech, during World War II, women operated some of the first computational machines used for code-breaking. There has been a rise and fall and rise of women in programming and conferences like Pyladies, support and encourage women coding in python. Due to such conferences, there has been slow incremental progress. Django Girls is a workshop where women are incentivized to participate due to their cupcakes and free pizza! Women have the amazing ability to be creative while also being able to adapt their solutions according to the challenges they face. There are so many success stories, where learning coding especially in Python as it is fairly easy, has helped people survive, change their career path totally. This talk will hopefully motivate women who are apprehensive about learning coding. This will also discuss some of my personal experiences as a woman in Computer Science.