Monthly Archives: February 2020

Technologies are Us: Feminist Perspectives on Posthuman Futures

  By HGC | February 20, 2020 - 9:10 am | Gender and technology
Comments Off on Technologies are Us: Feminist Perspectives on Posthuman Futures

All interested PhD candidates are welcome to apply for the three days intensive PhD course on feminist thinking about technological development

  • Place: University of Bergen
  • Course dates: September 23-25 2020
  • Registration deadline: 28.02.2020 – 14.00
Read more about the course here: PhD Course information

Photo: Colorbox/Nina B. Dahl

The PhD course invites to feminist thinking about technological development

What are the consequences of current technological development for feminist thinking about equality, freedom and change? Are algorithms gendered, and does it matter? What does sex and subjectivity mean in the age of neuro-technologies and AI? Are we at all still “human”? Is there a specific ethics of the posthuman?

These are some of the questions that will be scrutinized during the three-days course in September 2020. The themes of the course are divided into the following topics:

  • The Biased Face of Technology
  • Ethics and the Posthuman
  • Bodies and Brains

If you are working with these or related questions, or are simply interested to learn more, join us for a PhD course in Bergen.

The course is arranged by Nordic Centre of Excellence on Women in Technology Driven Careers (NORDWIT) and Centre for Women’s and Gender Research at University of Bergen.

Contact organizers:

“Do we really need more women in ICT?”

  By HGC | February 4, 2020 - 8:14 am | Gender and technology, Publication
Comments Off on “Do we really need more women in ICT?”
photo of woman using her laptop

Photo by bruce mars on Pexels.com

This question – “Do we really need more women in ICT?” – appears in a recent article by Gilda Seddighi and myself. In this article we analyze how the ICT industry and ICT workplaces in Norway deal with challenges of recruiting women to ICT work. The question is not ours, but from one of the ICT experts that we interviewed for this case study, and it appeared in a discussion about whether women were really interested in ICT. This discussion and the quote illustrate how gendered stereotypes suggesting that men are more interested in ICT are still active in shaping attitudes towards and engagement in activities to recruit women. Only about one in four working as ICT experts in Norway are women, and this feeds the discourse of ICT as a male field. Reflecting this, the ICT workplaces we talked with produced a series of alternative ways of seeing the need to recruit women, all of which contributed to reducing the importance of active recruitment initiatives.

You can read the article for free (in Norwegian) here: https://www.idunn.no/tfk/2019/04/maa_vi_egentlig_ha_flere_kvinner_i_ikt

Title: “Do we really need more women in ICT?” Discursive negotiations about gender equality in ICT

Abstract

ICT is one of the most gender-divided fields in Norway and illustrates the “Nordic Gender Paradox”, referring to a mismatch between a high level of participation by women in working life in parallel with a strong gendering of disciplines and professions. A higher proportion of women in ICT professions is a goal that is particularly relevant due to increasing digitalization. This article builds on qualitative empirical material and analyzes meetings with 12 organizations that were invited to discuss gender equality in ICT work. The analysis explores how the discourse of gender equality in ICT is perceived in the organizations and how this affects attitudes to practical gender equality work. Ten alternative approaches to gender equality in ICT are identified. These can be analyzed as discursive practices that articulate “resistance” as alternative meanings that challenge the discourse of gender equality in ICT, as they renegotiate, redefine and, in some cases, reject the discourse. Recruitment of women to ICT work is a task left to the individual organizations. The authors claim that there are still gendered perceptions of who is appropriate for ICT work, and these perceptions do not motivate the organizations to engage in gender equality work.

How to quote: Corneliussen, H. G., & Seddighi, G. (2019). “Må vi egentlig ha flere kvinner i IKT?” Diskursive forhandlinger om likestilling i IKT-arbeid. Tidsskrift for kjønnsforskning, 43(4), 273-287.