Texts
From EFF
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.
The existence of exclusively female forums is controversial and legitimately so. Exclusive forums such as male-only or white-only or Christian-only clubs have been used to exclude other groups from information and power sharing. As the founder of Systers, a large female-only mailing list, I have frequently been called upon to justify the exclusion of men and to explain why Systers is not discriminatory in the above sense. This article attempts such an explanation. I hope to generate discussion, but more importantly, to generate understanding and cooperation.
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 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.
A quite old, but still relevant text.
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.
MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Technical Report 1315, August 1991.
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.
text linking the ideology of patriarchy and the mythologies that dominate the search for new scientific talent
