What took place in 1944-45 undoubtedly surprised the engineers. Programming the computer required familiarity with the machine's electrical logic, its physical structure, and its mechanical operation.
The women learned by crawling around the ENIAC's massive frame, locating burned-out vacuum tubes, shorted connections, and other nonclerical 'bugs'.
Kraft, P. (1979) The Industrialization of Computer Programming: From Programming to "Software Production
Instructor: Dr. Mary Bryson, Faculty of Education, UBC
Office in Scarfe 2526, 822-5284, Open House Tuesdays 1-3 pm, appointments available by arrangement.
Email address: brys@unixg.ubc.ca 
Course E-List: EMail the
Class list: 502-q@interchange.ubc.ca
Course URL: http://www.educ.sfu.ca/gentech/gendrsyll.html
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Conceptions of gender identity and notions of technological competence are co-constructed and inter-dependent. Girls and women live, paradoxically, in a state of intimate connection with technologies of re/production and yet are represented as perennially inadequate- groping towards and never quite reaching competence- technophobic and Luddite.
This interdisciplinary graduate seminar explores contemporary theory, research, and virtual on-line environments concerned with the representation of gender and the provision of opportunities for the transformation of existing inequitable conditions and the retooling of performances of identity.
Seminars will focus on current topics, such as hypertext, queer theory, Internet gender-swapping, critical theory, performance theory, feminist technology assessment, postmodernisms, women's uses of the Net, e-zines, and virtual worlds such as MUDs and MOOs. Participants will also actively observe, analyze, and construct new technology artifacts- e.g., make a video, design a web page. Instruction in HTML (WWW production language), video skills, MUD/MOO netiquette, and multimedia tools will be provided to support critical analyses of related multimedia artifacts and to permit course assignments to be done using new tools.
Sadie Plant, Zeros and Ones,
Persimmon Blackbridge, Prozac Highway, Press Gang Publishers
and selected articles placed on Reserve in Education Library (Scarfe) (502-101 and 502-201) and/or available on this WWWsite
Recommended Texts
Ursula Franklin: The Real World of Technology
Judy Wajcman: Feminism Confronts Technology
Carla Sinclair: Netchick: A Smart Girl Guide to the Wired World
Trinh T. Minh-Ha: Framer Framed
Allucquere Rosanne Stone: The War of Desire and Technology
Teresa de Lauretis: Technologies of Gender
Persimmon Blackbridge: Sunnybrook: A True Story with Lies
Kiss and Tell: Her Tongue on My Theory
Kiss and Tell: Drawing the Line
Marge Piercy: Woman on the Edge of Time
Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger: Situated Learning
Lynn Cherry and Elizabeth Reba Weise: Wired Women: Gender and New Realities in Cyber-Space
Sally Hacker: Pleasure, Power and Technology
Sally Hacker: Doing it the Hard Way
Ruth Shwartz Cowan: More Work for Mother
Dorothy Smith: The Everyday World as Problematic
Trinh T. Minh-ha: Woman Native Other
Lynn Hershman Leeson: Clicking In
Avitall Ronnell: The Telephone Book
Sherry Turkle: Life on the Screen
Constance Penley and Andrew Ross: Technoculture
Joan Rothschild: Machina Ex Dea Feminist Perspectives on Technology
Donna Haraway: Simians, Cyborgs and Women
Monique Wittig: Les Guerilleres
Valerie Salonas: The SCUM Manifesto
Cynthia Cockburn: Machineries of Dominance
George Landow: Hypertext Theory
Dale Spender: Nattering on the Net: Women, Power and Cyberspace
Doug Noble: Progress without People
Judith Whyte: Girls Into Science and Technology
Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow (Research Reports)
This course requires consistent attendance, full participation in classroom activities, and may require some out of class skill development (e.g. using email), and in that case individual instruction and technical support is available. Email participation is an integral component of the course, and students will be expected to participate regularly in email discussions of weekly topics. The final project can be EITHER a collaborative or solo endeavor which (a) deals with material relevant to this course and (b) involves the production of a video, completion of a web page, multi-media artifact, OR other non-essayist and in-depth treatment of a relevant topic as arranged with the instructor.
ASSIGNMENT of Marks
E-Mail Journal- 30%
E-Mail Discussion Facilitation- 20%
Major Project- 40%
Participation- 10%
Hands-on/Experimentation
As the class proceeds, students will engage in hands-on exploration of the following materials. They will be discussed in conjunction with the readings.
* Chat rooms -- AOL, IRC, Compuserve, Web-based
* Computer games -- different kinds/genres ("slash & burn" vs. "girls games")
* Virtual worlds -- MUDs, graphical worlds, Palace, etc.
* Tamagotchi -- using one, exploring web sites
* Artificial Life -- computer programs (e.g., Creatures)
Weekly Topics, Discussions, and Readings
Class format: During the first class meeting, the class will divide itself into groups. Each week, members of one group will get together before the class period, discuss the topics/ readings (What questions did they raise? What are their greatest strengths? Their greatest vulnerabilities? Where could the readings have gone further?), and produce 3 questions for each of the readings.
The class period will be divided in half; a discussion of the readings led by the group that has prepared questions for the class and a lecture/discussion by the instructor. At the conclusion of each class, the instructor will bring the class to a close and foreshadow important themes in the following week's assignment. Additionally, there will be a 15 minute break and time allocated for hands-on practica.
September 8--Introduction: Ada's Legacy: "Surfing Like a Girl?" A survey of research concerned with (a) access to and competence in uses of new technologies; (b) gender issues, and (c) questions of 'identity' in theory and practice.
Practicum: "Web Savvy and Guided Tour"; Check out this site: Click on me!
Sept. 15-- Foundational theoretical work #1: Introductory survey of
foundational terrain for thinking about the gender/identity question
in
relation to "tools".
Readings: Teresa de Lauretis: The Technology of gender; Ong: Disassembling Gender in the Electronics Age; Parmar: Black Feminism: The Politics of Articulation; Balsamo: Feminism for the Incurably Informed; Butler: The Future of Sexual Difference; Stone: Will the Real Body Please Stand Up; Ronell: Interview
Assignments: Two E-Mail journal entries
Sept. 22-- Foundational theoretical work #2: Survey of foundational terrain for thinking about "technologies" and "women".
Readings: 
Franklin:
Real World of
Technology pp. 11-74; Wajcman:
Feminism Confronts
Technology pp. 1-26 &
137-167; Haraway: A
Cyborg Manifesto; Bryson
and de Castell: Learning to
Make a Difference; Braidotti:
Mothers, Monsters and
Machines; Rogerat: The case of Elletel
Assignments: Two E-Mail journal entries
Practicum: Lorna Boschman, Video Director, screens A Cancer Video and discusses implications of doing "digital documentaries"
Sept. 29--Instructor away at Conference: "Discipline and Deviance: Genders, Technologies, Machines": Duke University
October. 6-- Digital Women and the New Technoculture #1
Readings: Sadie Plant: pp. 1-137; Marvin: Brownian motion: Women, Tactics and Technology
Assignments: Two E-Mail journal entries + Proposal for Major project (4 pages maximum length)
Practicum: "Creating Web Pages"
Oct. 13-- New Tools and the Workplace:
"Less work for mother?"
Readings: Benston: A New Technology But the Same Old Story; Ruth Shwartz Cowan; Cockburn: The Kitchen and the Tool Shed; Kling/Iacono: Office routine: The automated pink collar; Webster: What do we know about gender and IT at work; Chatman: The information world of low-skilled workers; Vehvilainen: Women Defning their Information Technology
Assignments: Two E-Mail journal entries
see Ellen Balka's WWWsite on Feminist Technology Assessment
Ruth Schwartz Cowan: The Consumption Junction
The Social Construction of Technology
Oct. 20-- Small Group Brainstorming and Problem Solving about Major Project
Readings: All materials pertaining to your major paper
Assignments: Enumerate specific problems/challenges facing you in creating your major project and write a one page summary (copied to overhead transparency) of your major goals and obstacles.
Attend the (admission free)
WomanSpeak Institute talk by Hilda
Ching, SCWIST (Society for Canadian Women in Science and
Technology) "Science &
Technology: Women's Evolving Participation"
Douglas College, New West, 7-9 pm, Boardroom
700 Royal Avenue, 4th floor, Fraser River side of the building
Reserve your (free) seat by calling: 527-5440 or register online at:
http://www.development.douglas.bc.ca
Oct. 27-- Girls Tools and Schools
Readings: Sutton: Equity and Computers in the Schools; Bryson & de Castell:Imagining Teachers as Luddites In/deed; Huber and Schofield: I like computers, but many girls don't: Makrakis: Gender and computing in schools in Japan; Grignon: Computer experiences of Menominee Indian students
Assignments: Two E-Mail journal entries
AAUW
Report: "Technology Gender
Gap Develops While Gaps in Math and Science Narrow"
National Science Foundation data show decline in bachelor's degrees awarded in computer science to women was twice that of men
U.S. College Board examination data 1987-1997 show no increase in female students taking Computer Science pre-college examination
"Surprising but True" Facts about Girls, Boys, and Schools
Preparing Males and Females for Which Jobs?
Nov. 3-- Genders Per/formed: Politics and Practices of Representation
Readings: Trinh: Difference: "A Special Third World Women Issue"; Ellsworth, Larson, & Selvin: MTV Presents: Problematic Pleasures ; de Castell and Bryson: Retooling play: Dystopia, Dysphoria and Difference; Haraway: The Virtual Speculum in the New World Order
Assignments: One E-Mail journal entry and a 2 minute unedited documentary video "Who Am I and What Difference Does it Make?".
Nov. 10-- Digital Women and the New Technoculture #2
Readings: Sadie Plant: pp. 137-256
Assignments: Two E-Mail journal entries
read Lisa Nakamura's talk
After/Images of Identity: Gender, Technology, and Identity Politics
presented at "Discipline and Deviance: Gender, Technology, Machines"
Nov. 17-- Gender, Identity, and Techno-Politics for Virtual Worlds
Readings: Spender: Nattering on the net; Kendall: MUDer? I Hardly Know 'Er; Turkle: Computational Technologies and Images of Self; Sinclair: NetChick; Stone: The War of Desire and Technology; Fuller/Jenkins: Nintendo and New World Travel Writing
Assignments: Two E-Mail journal entries + Proposal for Major project (4 pages maximum length)
Nov. 24-- Gender Narratives and New Technologies
Readings: Persimmon Blackbridge: Prozac Highway
see also Women and Gender On-Line by Leslie Reagan Shade
Assignments: Two E-Mail journal entries
Dec. 1-- Course Wrap-Up and Discussion
Assignments: Two E-Mail journal entries + Major Project due Dec. 15
DESCRIPTION OF E-Mail ASSIGNMENTS
E-Mail journal-- all mail posted to: 502-Q@interchange.ubc.ca
Throughout this course, students will be asked to keep an E-Mail journal in which to record reflections, musings, responses by other students, contradictions, scribbles, insights and so on... Each week, you will asked to make a minimum of two entries using the E-mail system available on the UBC mainframe system. Early in the term, tutorials are available in the basics of E-Mail on the mainframe at UBC.
Content of E-Mail Entries: At least one entry will be in response to one of the assigned course readings. That entry must be posted to 502-Q@unixg.ubc.ca by the Sunday preceeding Tuesday's class. The other/s can pertain to your progress to-date vis a vis your major project, or can pertain to other reading/s. When you come to the Tuesday class, you should have completed and printed out at least two entries, so as to furnish a starting point for the dialogical work of the class. Periodically, the instructor may collect the E-Mail journals and provide feedback. Please identify those pages which you would like the instructor to read (or to NOT) by attaching Post-It notes, or the like.
E-Mail Discussion/Facilitation: Each week, one group will be responsible for reading all of the E-Mail contributions pertaining to that week's topic. Facilitators will generate a brief summary of the entries and a critical/reflexive analysis of the major themes, points of agreement, disagreement, and the like. The facilitators will discuss the significance of the conceptual framework used by the authors of the week's articles/chapters, and generate a critical analysis of both theoretical and methodological strengths and shortcomings. Prepare about 30 minutes of material. The facilitators will then animate an open discussion. If you cannot attend class on the day for your facilitation, please remember that it is your responsibility to switch with a colleague and to inform the instructor.
Course
Description