{"id":106,"date":"2006-10-11T17:47:12","date_gmt":"2006-10-11T15:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fia.pimienta.org\/weblog\/?p=106"},"modified":"2008-05-22T12:27:57","modified_gmt":"2008-05-22T10:27:57","slug":"talibanism-in-technology-by-deepa-kandaswamy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fia.pimienta.org\/weblog\/?p=106","title":{"rendered":"Talibanism in Technology by Deepa Kandaswamy"},"content":{"rendered":"

text from: BRIDGING THE GAP<\/a><\/p>\n

The article examines the global phenomenon of “technological talibanism” and seven reasons why women in science and technology have remained invisible through out the ages.<\/p>\n

Seven reasons why women in technology remain invisible…<\/p>\n

Most of us have heard of the Taj Mahal, one of the seven wonders of the
\nmodern world. We also know it was built in memory of Mumtaz Mahal.
\nBut how many of us know of her aunt, Nor Mahal? She invented the
\ndevice to perform attar distillation from flowers to make perfumes.
\nDespite 4,000 years of contribution, we do not know about most
\npioneering women in technology\u2014like Empress Shi Dun, who invented
\npaper, Penthesilea, who invented the battle axe, and Catherine Green,
\nwho invented the cotton gin (though Eli Whitney holds the patent).
\nFlorence Nightingale, the famous nurse, was also a brilliant
\nmathematician, and her contribution as the inventor of the pie chart that
\nbusinesses, technologists, researchers and governments throughout the
\nworld use today, is virtually unknown.<\/p>\n

This continues even in this \u2018Information Age\u2019 where we boast of living in
\nknowledge-based societies. How many of us know of Helen Greiner, a
\nscientist and the only woman to run a robot company in the world or of
\nVanitha Rangaraju who is the only Indian woman to win an Oscar for her
\ntechnical work for the movie Shrek?
\n
\nA lot has been written about the Taliban\u2019s treatment of Afghan women,
\nwhich resulted in the worldwide outcry against women wearing full-
\nlength burkhas, which rendered them invisible and the denial of their
\nfundamental rights. However, there\u2019s not even a whimper about the
\nsystematic Talibanism of women in technology, which has made them
\ninvisible throughout the ages. Despite a large number of talented and
\nsuccessful women in the field, why is it that society tends to associate
\nonly men with technology? This appears to be a global phenomenon,
\ncutting across class, race, and the development of countries.
\n“Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where a backbone ought to be…”
\nClementine P\u2019ford, journalist and editor
\nAfter elaborate research and having interviewed several women and men
\nin the fields of education, business and technology, I found there are
\nseven primary reasons why women in technology continue to remain
\ninvisible\u2014social myths, conditioning, media, networking, deterrence,
\nbalance and marketing.<\/p>\n

Social myths
\nCutting across cultural differences, the patriarchal system has always
\ndefined the place and role of a woman. This has led to perpetuation of
\nmyths like:
\nMany women do not recognize themselves as discriminated against\u2014a
\nvisible proof of the totality of their \u2018conditioning\u2019
\nMyth #1: Women are emotional while tech is strictly logical. As a result,
\nthey don\u2019t go together.
\nMyth #2: Men are good at math and machines while women have no clue
\nabout these.
\nMyth #3: Men are the providers while women are nurturers.
\nMyth #4: Technical women are unattractive, arrogant, and abnormal.
\nMyth #5: Women can\u2019t do it because they are made that way: the divine
\nor the evolution argument.
\nMyth #6: Women aren\u2019t as good at visualizing as men, and hence, don\u2019t
\nmake good engineers.
\nA lot of research exploring these myths is collecting dust in various
\norganizations throughout the world. Anne Fausto-Sterling examines these
\nissues in “Myths of Gender”. In her book, she describes the research
\nstudies conducted to analyze adult brain differences. The conclusion of
\nthese various studies proves that verbal ability, visual spatial perception,
\nand math ability have nothing to do with the gender of a human being.
\nHowever, many males accept these myths readily. Njin-Tsoe Chen,
\nproject leader, Schuitema, Netherlands, observes, “To some degree it\u2019s
\nsociety, but evolution also plays a role. Men and women are different.” A
\nrecent survey conducted by search engine AltaVista found that the myth
\nof men being better in technology, alive on the internet, as 80% of the
\nmen claimed they are better surfers than their female partners.
\n…thus, most of the \u2018knowledgeable\u2019 sources are men. As for the audience,
\nI\u2019m sure it\u2019s mostly male too.<\/p>\n

“I think that the number of women in science and technology is certainly
\nlarger than zero but it is a small percentage\u20145% or less,” says Dr
\nHemker, German Physicist at Credit Suisse. Aggressive women get
\nlabeled as bitches. There is a program in California for \u2018bossy broads,\u2019
\nwomen whose assertiveness scares men and whose companies send them
\nto learn how to \u2018temper\u2019 their behavior. Implicit attitudes are difficult to
\nchange. When a woman shatters these myths and succeeds in the
\ntechnical field, she is made out to be a honchess, arrogant feminist or said
\nto have slept her way through to the top. Instead of being accepted for
\ntheir accomplishments, successful women are questioned as to how they
\nbecame successful.<\/p>\n

Conditioning
\nThe social myths perpetuate stereotypes that lead to conditioning. There
\nis pressure on women to look and behave in certain ways, which is deeply
\ningrained in their psyches. Perception is everything. Kate Millet, the
\nwriter and educator said, “Many women do not recognize themselves as
\ndiscriminated against; no better proof could be found of the totality of
\ntheir conditioning.” Stereotypes based on social myths exist because of
\nmass media. It starts at an early stage when parenting is done using
\nstereotypes\u2014girls like dolls and boys like cars. “I think it does kids harm
\nnot to see what they gravitate towards and make toy selections
\nappropriately. I was always jealous of my brother\u2019s radio controlled cars
\nand electronics sets,” says Helen Greiner, president of iRobot.
\nAccording to Diana Bouchard, graphic artist, Quebec, Canada, “Looking
\nthrough thousands of photographs weekly, women are depicted 95% of
\nthe time as \u2018beginners\u2019 with males standing behind them, pointing at the
\ncomputer screen as if to say \u2018ok, now you click here.\u2019 It\u2019s indicative of
\nmale mentality that women don\u2019t get it.” When young girls see this, they
\nassume technology is not for them. While there\u2019s much discussion about
\nthe social impact of the media\u2019s depiction of a woman\u2019s body, there is
\nalmost none about the impact it has on careers and educational
\naspirations.
\nIn an Internet survey where I polled over 2,557 women working in the
\ntechnical field, 56% of the women stated they have never been able to
\nwear a skirt to work in any tech industry job event, because they\u2019re afraid
\nof being perceived as unprofessional. 70% said plain glasses, little or no
\nmake up, and a tight hair bun helps them if they want their work to be
\ntaken seriously. Finally, the conditioning is so absolute that women are
\ntold they are automatically empowered by the design of the technological
\nenvironment known as the kitchen with all its fancy gadgets, which turns
\nout to be a way of luring women to occupy their assigned place in
\nsociety. This is better known as the “gendering of space” argument,
\nwhich was propounded by Dr Radhika Gajjala, Bowling Green State
\nUniversity, Ohio.
\nIf men and women were truly equal at work, both would hold roughly
\nidentical expectations of what is possible and what isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Media
\nBy not covering successful women in technology, the media denies the
\nnext generation role models. Today, if you flip through any popular
\ntechnical magazine, you would rarely find an article written by or about a
\nwoman. Why?
\nDavid Ball, editor of Packet Magazine, answers, “Out of my top five
\nfreelance writers, four of them are women. While our writers get bylines,
\nin many cases, the byline goes to the content expert that was interviewed
\nfor the story. There appears to be more male engineers and technical
\nproduct managers than female.” Regarding dearth of articles about
\nwomen, Don Davis, editor, Card Technology magazine, says, “The
\nmajority of the executives in the industry we primarily cover are men.
\nThus, most of the knowledgeable sources are men. As for the audience,
\nI\u2019m sure it\u2019s mostly male.”
\nThus, editors justify lack of coverage saying their readers (again assumed
\nto be male) wouldn\u2019t be interested in knowing about women in
\ntechnology. It is up to the women\u2019s magazines to cover these topics and
\npersonalities. This becomes a vicious cycle as the typical woman\u2019s
\nmagazine covers what are considered “women” subjects like fashion,
\nbeauty, and family and leave IT to tech magazines.
\n“There should be a proper regulatory framework to ensure that the
\nbroadcasters\u2019 air programmes on successful women in technology. The
\nregulators should ensure that broadcasters comply,” says Emily Khamula,
\nBroadcasting Officer in Malawi, Africa.
\nProf Rodney Brooks, MIT, disagrees. “See the article in Forbes on
\niRobot, featuring Helen Greiner and the movie Me & Isaac Newton,
\nfeaturing my former student Maja Mataric. Or see the press coverage for
\nmy former student Cynthia Brezeal\u2014Time magazine featured a story,
\nplus myriad TV appearances. None of my former male students have
\ndone as well in the press as these three.”
\nA woman who swims with sharks has a better chance of being published
\nthan a man who does the same thing. Why? Because she is considered a
\nmaverick. Mass media coverage of Prof Brooks\u2019 three former female
\nstudents who specialized in robotics can be explained as robotics is still
\nconsidered a maverick field for technical women. Despite the social myth
\nthat women in technology are abnormal, why don\u2019t they get the
\nlimelight? This is because only \u2018displayable\u2019 aggressiveness results in
\nlimelight. For women in technology, externally, one mightn\u2019t seem
\naggressive; internally, they have to be because of the job, which doesn\u2019t
\nmake good copy.<\/p>\n

Networking
\nLack of networking plays an enormous role in rendering women in
\ntechnology invisible. It is hard for women, however, to hang out with
\ntheir male colleagues after work. Two factors remain as major obstacles
\nto networking.
\n1. Old Boys\u2019 network.
\n2. Male colleagues\u2019 wives or girlfriends.
\nA female senior manager at Intel, says, “I find networking to be a major
\nproblem. I cannot have the same informal \u2018outside work\u2019 relationship
\nwith my peers and senior executives that my male \u2018competitors\u2019 could
\nhave without spouses being concerned and some people\u2019s tongues
\nwagging.”
\nMost of the time progress at work depends on being able to have the same
\naccess to male co-workers after hours as the other male co-workers have.
\nThis isolates women from the “old boys\u2019 network” and trust building that
\noccurs at senior levels that leads to more opportunities.<\/p>\n

Deterrence
\nDeterrence is done in two places\u2014school and home. According to a
\nUnesco study, girls consistently match or surpass boys\u2019 achievements in
\nscience and mathematics in schools across the world. In developed
\ncountries, young women are discouraged from pursuing engineering. In
\ndeveloping countries, there is refusal to invest in a girl\u2019s technical
\neducation.<\/p>\n

A study by the National Science Foundation found gender-based
\ninequities in the USA. According to it, despite gains in girls\u2019 participation
\nin advanced math in the 1990s, 34% of the girls report being advised not
\nto take math in their senior year of high school.
\nAccording to a NIME study, in Asia most families across cultures are
\nwilling to invest in technical education for their girl child because it
\nimproves marriage prospects but after marriage inevitably, over 50% of
\nthese women do not pursue a full-time career.<\/p>\n

Balance
\nWorking hours required and the social set up for the jobs in the technical
\nfield demand quite different commitments. This directly affects the
\nsocially defined role of a woman as a nurturer. Therefore most women
\nfeel there is a lack of balance in their lives and this leads to guilt. In
\nCalifornian Law, pregnancy itself is considered a disability with a note
\nfrom your doctor.<\/p>\n

Shazia Harris, a clinical psychologist and researcher in education,
\nPakistan says, “My research indicates that females will opt for fulltime
\njobs if the option is available even after marriage and even after having
\nchildren which was one of the major factors for losing the professional
\nfemale workforce, i.e., home responsibilities before career.”<\/p>\n

Marketing
\nGenerally, men market themselves better. In her book \u2018What\u2019s Holding
\nYou Back?\u2019 Linda Austin says men tend to over-represent their abilities
\nand qualifications by 30-40%, while women under-represent theirs by the
\nsame amount. This works to a 60-80% gap between what a man and a
\nwoman with similar qualifications claim. Accord-ing to Jennifer Pikes, an
\nengineer who worked for IBM, “Even in the \u2018soft\u2019 technical area
\n(technical writing department), men seemed far more eager to make a
\nname for themselves than the women did.”
\nThough social perceptions are slowly changing, women in the technical
\nworkplace remain behind the scenes because they tend to play down their
\ncontributions. This is because “feminism” has become a bad word in
\ntoday\u2019s society. Many women in the technical field are scared of being
\nlabeled “feminist” that they would rather \u2018dumb down\u2019 than take credit
\nfor their work. Also, social conditioning tends to make women as
\nsecondary, non-aggressive, non-risk-taking team players.<\/p>\n

Recommendations
\nDorothy Parker once said, “You can\u2019t teach an old dogma new tricks.”
\nTrue, but why not create a new one? For starters, we could begin by
\nasking the same questions that members of the civil rights movement did.
\nThis issue of invisibility of women in technology is currently hovering
\nbetween intent and execution, with industry leaders wishing the whole
\nissue would simply disappear instead of addressing the problem head-on.
\nThis is where government advocacy and media can play an enormous
\nrole.
\nTechnical workplaces founded on a male \u2018norm\u2019 need to be changed to
\nallow fair competition for jobs and advancement for women whose
\nstrategies differ from the norm. If the norm involves weekend \u2018beer
\nbusts\u2019, it\u2019s not the female employee who needs to \u2018loosen up\u2019 but the
\nemployer who needs to identify appropriate venues for company
\nmeetings and encourage diversity.
\nFemininity as the culturally defined model of female behavior enforced
\nfrom the outside needs to be examined. One needs to strongly reject any
\nsort of artificial \u2018femininity\u2019 and teach our society to embrace diversity,
\nto allow girls to be \u2018technically\u2019 ambitious without labeling them
\n\u2018tomboys\u2019 and to allow boys to be sensitive without branding them
\n\u2018sissies\u2019. Generalizations based on myths should not be assumed of any
\nparticular man, nor used to discriminate against any particular woman.
\nWhile ignoring the contributions of a single individual is really bad and
\nignoring the contributions of a minority is appalling, ignoring the
\npotential contributions of half the population can be best explained in two
\nwords\u2014plain stupid.<\/p>\n

Deepa Kandaswamy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

text from: BRIDGING THE GAP The article examines the global phenomenon of “technological talibanism” and seven reasons why women in science and technology have remained invisible through out the ages. Seven reasons why women in technology remain invisible… Most of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,41,3,35,13,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-critica-sociala","category-english","category-feminism","category-intersectionalities","category-publications","category-technologynew-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fia.pimienta.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fia.pimienta.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fia.pimienta.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fia.pimienta.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fia.pimienta.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fia.pimienta.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fia.pimienta.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fia.pimienta.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fia.pimienta.org\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}