Gender & Computing

CFP: Gender and Interdisciplinary Education for Engineers – GIEE 2011

admin — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 06:05:18 +0000

HELENA International Conference:
Gender and Interdisciplinary Education for Engineers – GIEE 2011
Paris, June 23-24 2011
October 15th, 2010: Deadline for abstract submission

Paris is a nice city!

“I’m a professional businessman, not a professional Pakistani”

admin — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:57:10 +0000

My favourite quote of the day. From Denise Riley, who points out that collective identity, like women or any other group identity, are impermanent and alternating: “While you might choose to take on being a disabled person … as a political position, you might not elect to make a politics of other designations. As you do not live your life fully defined as a shop assistant …. and you can always refute such identifications in the name of another description … Or, most commonly, you will skate across the several identities, which will take your weight, relying on the most useful for your purpose of the moment; like Hanif Kureishi’s suave character in the film My Beautiful Laundrette, who says impatiently, ‘I’m a professional businessman, not a professional Pakistani’” (Riley 1996:31).

Riley, Denise. 1996. Does A Sex Have A History? In Feminism & History, edited by J. W. Scott. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 17-33.

CFP: Feminist Interventions in Theories and Practices

admin — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 06:59:02 +0000

The 6th European Conference on Gender and ICT: Feminist Interventions in Theories and Practices
Umeå University, Sweden
March 8th - 10th 2011

Pre-Conference Workshop on Gender and Technology Curricula
March 8th, 9.15-12.00

Read full CFP here

“Ainda somos pessoas quando jogamos”, diz pesquisadora

admin — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 15:02:12 +0000

I don’t know this language, but apparently it means “We’re still people when we play, says researcher”, and it is the title of an interview with me in Brazil’s biggest newspaper Folha, according to the journalist.

I tried to translate the interview back to English, and I came out as a “he”. So maybe my comment about computer games being great entertainment also for middle aged women doesn’t really make sense in Brazil?

The illustration they’ve chosen doesn’t really say “middle aged women” either (which can be found in World of Warcraft!). Women used to be “incompatible” with computers (Wajcman). This has changed during the last decade, but we might still be incompatible with (certain types of) computer games?

Finally an academic book about dogs!

admin — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 07:46:44 +0000

Not quite new, but landed in my mail box a few days back - When Species Meet, by Donna Haraway, published 2007.

Starting from the questions “Whom do we touch when we touch a dog?”, Haraway guides us through another long journey among our companion species. Still in the first chapter, but somehow her writing seemed more accessible to me, perhaps because of my shared passion for dogs.

The first dogs we meet are not of flesh and blood, but an overgrown root and Sydnes Harris’ vitruvian dog (borrowed from CartoonStock.com).

Gender Codes

admin — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 06:42:47 +0000

Gender Codes: Why Women Are Leaving Computing, Thomas J. Misa (ed.), Wiley, July 2010.
- soon in a bookstore near you!

13 chapters on gender and computer history, among them, mine on “Cultural Perceptions of Computers in Norway 1980-2007″

Blurb:
A fresh, constructive examination of the gender imbalance in computer education and technologyThe computing profession is facing a serious gender crisis. Women are abandoning the computing field at an alarming rate. Fewer are entering the profession than anytime in the past twenty-five years, while too many are leaving the field in mid-career. With a maximum of insight and a minimum of jargon, Gender Codes explains the complex social and cultural processes at work in gender and computing today. Edited by Thomas Misa and featuring a Foreword by Linda Shafer, Chair of the IEEE Computer Society Press, this insightful collection of essays explores the persisting gender imbalance in computing and presents a clear course of action for turning things around.

Through engaging historical accounts, Gender Codes tells the stories of women programmers, systems analysts, managers, and IT executives who flooded this initially attractive field in the 1960s and ’70s. It celebrates their notable successes in all segments of the industry. The book then examines why, while most other science and technology fields have seen steady growth in the number of female participants, the computing field experienced just the opposite.

Providing a unique international perspective, the contributors to this unprecedented volume reveal how computing has become male-coded, highlighting the struggles women have faced in the office, the media, and in culture at large. The book assesses the existing intervention strategies and pinpoints why they are not working and what can—and must—be done to stall the exodus.

Gender Codes will resonate with female professionals in computing, engineering, and the sciences; with scholars and educators in history, gender/women’s studies, and science and technology; with deans, department chairs, center directors, and those in industry and government with hiring responsibilities; and with staff and executives at foundations and funding agencies.

Digital Culture 25 years

admin — Fri, 21 May 2010 08:18:27 +0000

It is the 25th anniversary of Digital Culture this year. We have already had a couple of anniversary-guest lecturers, with among others, Michael Joyce, hypertext author and professor of English at Vassar College, talking about “Authorship as Re-placement”.

Last week and this week we have Roderick Coover visiting, and he has given a guest lecture about his new book, SWITCHING CODES: THINKING THROUGH NEW TECHNOLOGIES IN THE HUMANITIES AND ARTS, and presented a film about French wine makers. There’s still an opportunity to meet Coover, as he will present some of his work at Akademiet Cinemateket 19.00 today.

CFP Beyond the leaky pipeline

admin — Fri, 21 May 2010 07:52:46 +0000

Deadline for sending abstracts to Beyond the leaky pipeline: Challenges for research on gender and science is getting close
CFP
May 31.

See presentation below

The new Bachelor program in Digital Culture

admin — Sun, 16 May 2010 08:11:55 +0000

We had 59 primary applicants for our new Bachelor in Digital Culture, starting this fall, and more than 400 had the program on second or third place on their wish list! The highest number at our department, LLE, and we are a bit proud!

Mid October Conferences

admin — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 08:27:28 +0000

If you are thinking about organizing a conference this fall, please avoid mid October! Statistically we do a lot of things in certain patterns, and one of the patterns seems to be to choose mid October for conferences. Probably sounds sensible when planning it 8-10 months ahead, and I can easily imagine the discussion as if we’d had it ourselves: “We’ll have the conference next fall - mid term is probably best: after the term start and before the exams. Let’s make it mid October.”

And the result? A number of interesting conferences competing with each other.
As a participant of the Meta-analysis of gender and science research project I will be at the conference Beyond the leaky pipeline, 19-20 October 2010 in Brussels, Belgium.

Which means that I will miss out on HiNC3 where I’m also part of the program committee:
The Third IFIP WG 9.7 Working Conference on
History of Nordic Computing
HiNC3
18 - 20 October 2010
Stockholm, Sweden

And I will miss out on this:
NordiCHI 2010: Extending boundaries,
October 16th - 20th, 2010
Reykjavik, Iceland
(CFP Deadline April 12)

I could reach AoiR’s 11th conference, if I don’t go home in between:
Internet Research 11.0 – Sustainability, Participation
October 21-23, 2010 in Gothenburg, Sweden