Library for Agitation

Groups, Events, Role Models, Texts concerning women and tech

Thursday 21 June 2007 by Anneke Halbroth

A collection of women’s groups dealing with ICTs, events, initiatives, regular meetings and texts we like. If you want to suggest something we should add please send an email to eff@systerserver.net!

Quick browsing

We propose to study the role of gender in free/libre/open source software (F/LOSS) communities because an earlier EC study (Ghosh et al 2002, 2005) revealed a significant discrepancy in the proportion of men to women. It showed that just about 1.5% of F/LOSS community members were female at that time, compared with 28% in proprietary software. Through an ethnographic study consisting of empirical surveys, participant observation and qualitative interviews, we aimed to provide the world’s first comprehensive study of gender in F/LOSS and develop policies to maintain the EU’s leading role in this field.

Machtelt Garrels : Howto Encourage Women in Linux

We all know about the reasons why women are not in Linux, and in IT in general. Whatever may be your personal reason for starting to read this HOWTO, here are some Linux and Open Source advantages particularly interesting to women.

Wendy Harcourt 2005: Cyberspace as a networking tool for feminists

Wendy Harcourt argues that cyberspace is undoubtedly making communication much easier, it has shifted spaces and ways in which we interact even if the same power/knowledge nexus remains. She reflects on how she with other women around the world use Internet in their feminist work. Her essay asks if cyberspace, despite misgivings, works as an effective political tool for feminists. She gives examples from the development project Women on the Net, her work as a feminist activist and researcher in Europe and internationally to illustrate how cyberspace functions as an active feminist space.

Cynthia Lanius: Ten Tips on Getting Girls Interested in Computers

Old but relevant nonetheless.

Yuwei Lin 2005: Inclusion, diversity and gender equality: Gender Dimensions of the Free/Libre Open Source Software Development


YLin: Inclusion, diversity and gender equality

This essay describes and analyses challenges (societal and organisational) and advantages (e.g. new models for mobile and collaborative work online), particularly regarding gender issues, encountered in the recent FLOSS development. The paper concludes with suggestions on how to create rules and resources and the creation of a common FLOSS space for both genders.

Yuwei Lin 2005: A Techno-Feminist Perspective on the Free/Libre Open Source


YLin: A Techno-Feminist Perspective

This paper tries to analyse the FLOSS development from a "techno-feminist" perspective (Wajcman 2004). Staying away from a reductionism that simplifies the gender issue in the FLOSS community to the level of a fight between men and women, the issues I attempt to address include not only the inequality that women face in computing, but also other inequalities that other users face mainly emerging from the power relationships between expert and lay (namely, developer and user) in software design. Instead of splitting women and men in the FLOSS development, this analysis helps motivate both men and women to work together, reduce the gender gap, and improve the disadvantaged statuses of women and a wider users community in the FLOSS development. The features of FLOSS have been said to open up a range of opportunities to change the power relationships in society: experts and lay, developers and users, developed and developing countries, rich and poor etc. The feature of low development cost, modularised features, transparent information are particularly celebrated in a knowledge-based society.

Annalee Newitz (ed.) 2007: She’s such a geek

She’s Such a Geek is a groundbreaking anthology that celebrates women who have flourished in the male-dominated realms of technical and cultural arcana. Editors Annalee Newitz and Charlie Anders bring together a diverse range of critical and personal essays about the meaning of female nerdhood by women who are in love with genomics, obsessed with blogging, learned about sex from Dungeons and Dragons, and aren’t afraid to match wits with men or computers.

Ellen Spertus 1991 : Why Are There So Few Female Computer Scientists?

This report examines why women pursue careers in computer science and related fields far less frequently than men do. In 1990, only 13% of PhDs in computer science went to women, and only 7.8% of computer science professors were female. Causes include the different ways in which boys and girls are raised, the stereotypes of female engineers, subtle biases that females face, problems resulting from working in predominantly male environments, and sexual biases in language. A theme of the report is that women’s underrepresentation is not primarily due to direct discrimination but to subconscious behavior that perpetuates the status quo.