Acknowledging the Significance of Gender

Ann-Marie Lancaster

• 1. Gender as a Predictor
• 2. Understanding Gender Bias
• 3. The Traps
• 3.1 Trap #1: Everyone experiences discrimination
• 3.2 Trap #2: Presence of women equates to absence of gender bias
• 3.3 Trap #3: An “other” is the source of the problem
• 3.4 Trap #4: Women need to change
• 3.5 Trap #5: Experiences in the other sciences are worse
• 4. Conclusion
• End Notes
• References

4. Conclusion

Continued exclusion of women from science and technology implies that women will have few opportunities to influence the ways in which scientific and technological developments will affect their lives. Gender bias not only creates barriers for women and denies them participation in crucial decisions, it also disadvantages society as a whole. The bias toward dominance and competition is apparent throughout the history of science and technological development. When we infuse values such as cooperation, interaction, connectiveness and caring into our study of science and development of technology, we will reduce the impact of factors such as competition, domination and separation. A potential outcome is the development of more socially responsible practices and policies.

Understanding the problem of gender bias is an essential part of the process of solving it. As our understanding of how gender bias functions in the computing culture grows and evolves, so will our ability to counteract it. It is this understanding that will enable us to develop specific strategies to reduce its impact in our computing curriculum and pedagogy, in our interaction with and evaluation of students, and in our interaction with and evaluation of our women colleagues. It is futile to attempt to address the under-representation of women in computing without members of the computing profession gaining a deeper and broader understanding of gender bias and its pervasive influence. Until we reduce the male orientation of the computing culture and transform it to include the values and perspectives associated with the female gender, we will continue to deny women access to the opportunities in computing. The first step in the process of providing access is to acknowledge the significance of gender.

Bowling Green State University

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