Núria Castell: "If a woman had designed the washing machine, all washing machines would be top-loading."

A doctor in computer engineering and former dean of the Faculty of Computer Science at the UPC, Núria Castell was one of the first women to graduate in computer science at the UAB 40 years ago. She is also the driving force behind Digital Woman, an independent communications platform working to address the gender gap in the technology sector in Catalonia. We spoke with her about technology, education, and the gender gap.

He began his studies in computer science in 1976. Why did he choose computer science?

— A high school classmate and I were interested in math, but the only reference we had if we studied what was then called exact sciences was to become high school teachers; we never even considered becoming university professors. And it wasn't a career path that really appealed to us. We thought it was too theoretical, and we wanted something more applied. At the time, my classmate's sister was studying biology at the UAB (University of Buenos Aires), and she brought us a brochure with all the majors, and there, in a little corner, was the title of computer science. You can imagine the amount of information we could gather at that time... But we came to the conclusion that computer science was a way to work on reasoning, logic, and math, but in a more applied way and with other career opportunities.

Have you never had access to computers before?

— There weren't any computers anywhere. In fact, there weren't any in the Faculty of Sciences where computer science was taught. It's like learning to sew and having a needle and thread, but no sewing machine. We were a bit like that. I learned to program with punch cards and paper and pencils. It was a completely unknown venture into the future at a time when computer science studies weren't yet recognized as a university degree. In 1976, just as I was starting out, the creation of the bachelor's degree in computer science and the creation of three computer science faculties in Spain were published in the Official State Gazette: one in Madrid, one in San Sebastián, and one in Barcelona. The peculiarity was that in Barcelona, ​​instead of creating it where the studies were being taught, the University of Barcelona...

It was a masculinized environment. Is it still that way now?

— At the Autonomous University alone, 400 people enrolled that year, and only 13 of us were girls. The evolution has been curious. Years later, after the creation of the degree program in the 1980s, the percentage of girls enrolling in computer science was around 40%. And now we're at around 19-20%. We're recovering, because in the 2010-2011 academic year, the first one I was dean of, only 6% of the 400 students were girls.

And what is this decline attributed to?

— It's a global decline. We don't know if it initially rose because it was fashionable and new, and then it started to be marketed as a more masculine subject. Then, in 1991, the degree programs changed names, moving from bachelor's degrees to engineering. It's true that engineering has always been more masculine, and many people attribute the decline to the name change, but it was already there before. In the US, they've always been called Computer Science and Computer Engineering, and they have the same problem.

In the beginning, the programmers were women.

— And women who were hidden, whose names were not known until the 1980s. The English word for computer is computer and it comes from the fact that there were teams of women doing mathematical and statistical calculations and they were the ones calculatorsAnd they, who already had that mental and operational agility, are the ones who begin to program computers. And it wasn't a minor profession.

But it is surprising that it is now a masculinized profession.

— A series of stereotypes have been created that are very difficult to break. And another thing: everyone knows what a doctor or an architect does, but not what a computer engineer does.

How to close the gender gap in technology?

— A key issue is breaking stereotypes, and the way to do this is to generate many role models that highlight the fact that there are women doing very interesting and cross-disciplinary work. Many initiatives were carried out in high schools and high schools, but it's too late; they've already chosen, and now we're going to primary school. Because we already know that stereotypes and the distinction between whether it's a man's or a woman's job are established at age 5 or 6. The higher you go, the more difficult it will be, so we have to generate role models in primary school, and if we can go to kindergarten, even better. At Dona Digital, we also highlight university students. If you're 15, you can be more easily reflected in a 20-year-old girl than in a 60-year-old woman.

Why have we been led to believe that we are not good at math?

— There is a lack of self-esteem. A study carried out by the UOC's gender group confirmed that boys see themselves as better than the grades they get, while girls see themselves as worse. There's a lack of trust. A professor at the University of PCC, Núria Salán Ballesteros, always says that if you put a screwdriver in the middle of a table with boys and girls, a boy will grab it first. If there are only girls at the table, a girl will be the first to grab it. Sometimes actions need to be carried out in a small group to create a comfort zone.

What do women contribute to computing and technology?

— They provide the vision of 50% of the population. I always say that if the washing machine had been designed by a woman, all washing machines would be top-loading. And the issue of seat belts is still unresolved; they were designed with mannequins representing a male model of a certain height. And in the case of software, the same. When you create and design apps, you have to consider the population you're targeting. If you have a mixed team, one person might think about things another person might, and if it's intercultural, even better. It's important that everyone's perspective is shared so that the designs take into account all the possibilities of who the app's user will be.

What should be the role of technology in schools?

— I think banning technology in schools is wrong because we live in a technological environment. And with artificial intelligence, it's very important to foster young people's critical thinking. The fact that they don't have a computer in elementary school is already a good thing for me. Computational reasoning can be done on paper, but it can be used in occasional sessions. Technology is neither good nor bad; we must know how to use it, and, of course, to the extent appropriate for each age group.