Does Gender Matter? An Interview Study on Gender Representation in Software Systems

Abstract

[Context and Motivation] Inclusivity is a term that is widely used today. If you look the word up in a dictionary, it will say something along the lines of ’treating everyone fairly and equally’. How do we then make our software inclusive? And specifically, how do we make our software inclusive to people of different genders? [Question/problem] This bachelor’s thesis aims to research the role of gender in software through an interview study. Current research in this area is scarce, and it is therefore in our interest to understand where gender matters in software systems, where it can be avoided, and how we make our systems more gender-inclusive. Another important point of view that this thesis covers is how non-binary people are being represented in different software systems. [Principal Ideas/results] Through thematic coding, the results of the study presented various themes related to gender representation in software. The themes managed to answer the research questions about what the state of practice is with representing gender in software, and what experiences non-binary people have with being represented in software systems. [Contribution] It is concluded that it is important that software engineers take the issues of gender representation seriously. Often this means to not even register a user’s gender in the first place, as many of the interviewees stated that it is not necessary. When it is relevant to register gender, it should be done in such a way that includes more than the binary male and female options to make sure that people of various gender identities feel included and welcomed in the digital world.