<nettime> CPSR Newsletter: Gender in the Internet Age

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Introduction: Gender in the Internet Age
        by Ellen Spertus
        spertus@mills.edu

  There is a widespread, but false, belief that time and technology
  necessarily improve people's lives. CPSR members know that we
  have to work to make sure that technological advances reflect
  our values. Society does not improve automatically. The
  situation for women in computing has both improved and
  worsened many times in computing's short history. Less
  quantifiable is the effect of computers on girls and women who
  are not computer professionals. With the rise of the Internet, the
  influence of computers has broadened. The purpose of this
  newsletter is to explore how the Internet and other computing
  advances subvert or reinforce gender roles. Will current trends in
  computing lead to greater opportunities for both women and
  men, or will it cement them in their current roles? Will women
  be creators of software and virtual communities, or will they be
  disempowered users? How will men's and women's interactions
  online be different from their interactions in "real life"? What
  changes will propagate from the online to the real world?

  In this issue, linguist Susan Herring presents a survey of research
  on gender in computer-mediated communication on mailing
  lists and in discussion groups. Lisa King, the president of DC
  Web Women, discusses gender in online communities, which she
  distinguishes from public or semi-public discussion groups.
  Virginia Eubanks, editor of the cyberfeminist 'zine Brillo, begins
  with the claim that the Internet is "actively and aggressively
  hostile to women" and discusses her successes challenging the
  "paradigms that actively exclude white women and people of
  color". Information scientist Elizabeth Buchanan examines the
  representations of women in video games, finding that they are
  "victims, vixens, or invisible".

  The importance of women's being involved in the creation of
  both technology and the rules governing technology is argued by
  Alison Adam and Karen Coyle. Alison Adam, a computer
  scientist and author, contends that "bringing feminist ethics to
  bear on computer ethics offers a novel and fruitful alternative to
  current directions in computer ethics." In the raciest piece in this
  issue, librarian and author Karen Coyle discusses technology that
  has been hidden because of its relation to female sexuality.

 Two different perspectives on trends for women in technology
  are presented, with computer scientists Vanessa Davies and
  Tracy Camp providing the latest (bleak) statistics on women in
  computer science in the United States, while author Dale
  Spender provides a more optimistic view of Australian women
  in information technology. The issue concludes with a
  (deceptively?) light piece by computer scientist Ellen Spertus
  on humorous ways that women can respond to prejudice.

  More excellent writing on this topic exists than could fit in a
  single issue. For a larger collection of such essays, we
  recommend Wired Women: Gender and New Realities in
  Cyberspace, edited by Lynn Cherny and Elizabeth Reba Weise.
  If you like Dale Spender's and Alison Adam's essays, you may
  want to read their books Nattering on the Net : Women,
  Power and Cyberspace and Artificial Knowing : Gender and
  the Thinking Machine, respectively. For more online reading
  on this subject, see CPSR's page on Women and Computing [
  http://www.cpsr.org/program/gender/ ] and The Ada Project [
  http://tap.mills.edu ].

> --
Susan Evoy   *   Deputy Director                     
http://www.cpsr.org/
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility
P.O. Box 717  *  Palo Alto  *  CA *  94302         
Phone: (650) 322-3778    *
Email: evoy@cpsr.org   
Donations online: https://swww.igc.apc.org/cpsr/annual-fund.html

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