Women and Technology

Essay # 52002

Computer and Technology > Technology
Education > Education and Computers
Gender and Sexuality > Gender Studies

A discussion of how interconnected barriers and inequalities limit female participation in computer use.

1,248 words () | 5 sources | MLA | 2004 Canada

Paper Summary:

This paper examines an article by Collins called "Adolescent Females and Computers". It discusses how young females are marginalized in the computer world because of education policies relating to computer instruction in schools.

From the Paper:

"Computers are relics of patriarchal, capitalist society that a fixation on cars, women's bodies, and destructive technology. Those who design hardware, software, and networks, support, service them, and teach about them are predominately men. Women are in the global production lines of the computer industry, in data entry, and in secretarial positions (Alvarez 120). They assemble unsymmetricaly in those areas of computer technology that are low paying, repetitive, and mechanistic. Women have the least influence and power over what kinds of technologies are produced and for what purposes (Hynes 173-174). Women are more often users or consumers of technology, while men are its designers. Technologies are not gender neutral, computers are made by men for men."