We know that the proportion of women in IT education has been low for decades, but it was still disconcerting to welcome the students to the brand new Bachelor’s degree in information technology in Sogn and Fjordane last week, and find that there are only 3 women among the new students in a group of close to 30 students.
Clem Herman, Radhika Gajjala (WNRI team), and myself have a chapter in press with the title “ICT Changes Everything! But Who Changes ICT?” Through examples we illustrate the effects of a feminist gaze on ICT, including the importance of questioning who is producing and shaping technology.
Abstract:
Information and communication technology (ICT) has a changing power and digitalization is gradually changing society in all aspects of life. Across the western world, men are in majority in the ICT industry, thus, the computer programs that change “everything” are most often made by men. Unless questioned, this male dominance can be perceived as a “norm” and becomes invisible. Against this background, this paper will provide three examples of how a feminist gaze can contribute to raise important questions and produce an awareness of how exclusion mechanisms have produced a highly homosocial tendency in design of ICT systems in the western world.
The three cases illustrate how a feminist gaze leading to feminist interventions can make a difference in various ways. The first author presents a case study of a pilot for involving programming in public education in secondary schools in Norway, where a complete lack of gender awareness makes this an offer for boys in most schools. Author two presents a case study comparing the situation in the IT business in the UK and India, finding challenges not only to the situation in the western world, but also to white western feminism. Author three discusses alternatives ways of involving women in ICT work, through practices of feminist pedagogy, emphasizing hands-on work.
To be published here in September: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99605-9_18
NORDWIT 