[SIGCIS-Members] NPR - When Women Stopped Coding

[M. Hicks]

Hi Dag (and all)-

I remember listening to this episode back when it came out, and I certainly enjoyed it. A lot of times though, I think that this history (at least as presented in popular media) is informed or framed by a kind of technological boosterism that is often quite unhelpful, and even implicitly based on discriminatory practices. 

As a counterpoint, I would like to offer this article I just read today about efforts to get more women and minorities into computing, and some of the problems with that as a goal in and of itself:

https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/the-pie-is-rotten-re-evaluating-tech-feminism-in-2016

I think this is a very interesting debate for historians because it gets to the heart of what kinds of things really "fix"  structural discrimination. It also asks us to extend our gaze down the economic chain/tech production chain and into global contexts. I'm reminded of Nathan Ensmenger's keynote from this year's SIGCIS.

Thanks for bringing up the topic!

Best,

Marie

______________________
Marie Hicks, Ph.D.
Asst. Professor, History of Technology
Illinois Institute of Technology
Chicago, IL USA
mariehicks.net | mhicks1 at iit.edu | @histoftech

On Dec 14, 2015, at 4:08 PM, Dag Spicer <dspicer at computerhistory.org> wrote:

Interesting piece… would be interesting in people’s thoughts…

http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/17/356944145/episode-576-when-women-stopped-coding

Dag 


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