Every couple of weeks some crap like this crosses my desk and makes me ashamed to be a feminist (ashamed to be female, for that matter):
>The following review is excerpted from the Arachnet Electronic >Journal of Virtual Culture. >ISSN 1068-5723 September 27, 1993 Volume 1 Issue 6 >_Women, Information Technology, and Scholarship_. Edited by H. Jeanie >Taylor, Cheris Kramarae, and Maureen Ebben.Urbana,Illinois: The Center >for Advanced Study, University of Illinois, 1993. 128 pages. >Paperback. $10. ISBN 1-882875-00-1.Available from: WITS, The Center >for Advanced Study, 912 West Illinois St., Urbana IL 61801. U.S.A. >Reviewed by Leslie Regan Shade McGill University, Graduate Program in >Communications...which should be setting off a few warning bells already.
>_Women,Information Technology,and Scholarship_ (WITS) is an important >and timely volume that provides an introductory exploration into many >of the issues that need to be addressed if women are to become equally >represented in the new "electronic frontier" of cyberspace. For, >despite the abundance of various private networks such as >Compuserve,Prodigy, America Online, Echo, and the Well, and the >meteoric growth of the Internet,this rapidly expanding user base does >not include an equal proportion of men and women....Conclusion? We are being harassed.
>WITS grew out of a working colloquium held at the University of >Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Centre for Advanced Study....Not at Antioch College. Surprising.
>Maureen Ebben and Cheris Kramarae investigate some of the challenges >that women face in creating "a cyberspace of our ownAnd doesn't THAT sound like fun? I can't wait to be relegated to women-only (cyber)space.
>that fosters >women's communication and scholarship in this time of rapid >technological change" (17). Proclaiming that "our challenge to the >university is that women's voices not only be allowed, but be >encouraged and listened to" (15), they focus on women's access, >training, and participation with the new information technologies on >campuses....Build us a ramp and hold our delicate hands. There follows a paragraph that suggests that men are given computer training in a secret treehouse marked "No Girlz Allowed," while women are left to flounder in technical ignorance. Then:
>How can women be given the technical expertise to become comfortable >and versatile with information technology? Ebben and Kramarae contend >that most training within the university environment is ad hoc and >unsystematic, which puts women at a disadvantage since they are less >inclined to be as technically informed--due to the cultural >construction of computing--as their male counterparts. Instead, they >suggest putting the training into women's learning styles, such as >that conducted by Judy Smith through the Women's Opportunity Resource >Development (WORD) in Missoula, Montana, whereby skills are linked to >rewards, and instruction is systematic, with follow-up instruction >given...."Tee hee, what happens when I press _this_ button?" HUH? "Women's learning styles?" Dumb it down for us, willya, this techie talk is disempowering. And give us a scooby snack when we get something right or else we might find this learning environment insurmountably hostile. There's plenty more, but I'll spare you the rest. Inevitably "net pornography" comes up.
> Are such >"questionable" UseNet newsgroups a "proper" use of University >computing facilities?Et cetera. The book suggests guidelines for defining and reporting sexual harassment on the net. If the definition of harassment gets any more attenuated I'm going to vomit.
Jo
Oops, almost forgot, better not mess with a litigious hair-trigger:
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