I'm rubbish at computers #findingada #adalovelace

I work at the University of the West of England as an instructor in journalism. Most of the courses I teach on have a strong practice element, meaning a lot of computer use, and the majority of the students are girls/young women. I hear, almost on a weekly basis, the deathless phrase "I'm rubbish with computers." And in all but one notable case, this was uttered by a girl.

Where did this idea come from?

"The omission of women from the history of computer science perpetuates misconceptions of women as uninterested or incapable in the field [...] rendered invisible."

Jennifer S. Light - When Women Were Computers

Light uses the example of the largely female Ballistics Computers which were employed by the US military in the second world war to provide calculations used for artillery and projectile weapons. These jobs, though involving complex mathematics, came to be labeled as 'clerical work' and the men who had previously done the job (not as well, apparently) went off to become well-respected and better paid 'engineers'. 

So we have a moment of division in science and technology (neither the first nor the last) that, despite the successes of feminism in the 20th century, seem to remain. In the past we might have put this down to biology, poverty of expectation, nurture or playing up to stereotypes. Regardless of the reasons it is a failure on the part of any 'developed' nation to ignore half the population.

From my discussions with colleagues who have children (and in my own experience) the next generation (or the one after that, at least) will be different. These are children raised by parents who have grown up with computers, and computer games, as a major part of their lives; who work, learn and play in environments where the computer is both the main conduit to the outside world and the tool with which they organise their lives. Computers are more available, but it's going to take some inspirational women (beyond the business of computers) to encourage more girls to get into programming - web design (the nexus of design and code) and digital journalism (design plus interface) might be great starting points. So that's where I'm going to kick off.

This is a long-winded way of me saying that if you come into one of my classes you can expect two things regardless of your gender, experience or knowledge.

• "I'm rubbish at computers" is not acceptable and will get your name on the Sad Face.
• Code will become part of what you do. You will (probably) love it.

I was going to write about Anita Borg, but thought there wouldn't be much point in rehashing stuff you'll find elsewhere on the internet. And the truth is, I don't know enough about any woman in technology to hold fourth on their influence on me (apart from perhaps Imogen Heap). Women are under-represented in technology and this has to change. You can't, after all, build a knowledge economy if half the population are not confident enough to actually sit down and play with software.

Comments

[Claire Alcock]

We (TypePad) love women in tech and journalism/blogging! We are also celebrating Ada Lovelace and her contribution on the Everything TypePad blog - we found this article and linked to it here.

http://everything.typepad.com/blog/2010/03/our-kind-of-holiday-ada-lovelace-day.html

Thank you!