Re: gender & new information technologies

Kathy Ahern (kahern who-is-at unlinfo.unl.edu)
Tue, 18 Jun 1996 12:33:55 -0500

Vera and Eva;
I have been enjoying the conversations on this list as a spectator
observing the action from the periphery with fascination. I, too, would
add another personal note. Your comments elicit a certain "harmonic
resonance":
(from Vera)
>How is this relevant to gendered learning? Mary and Suzanne write of a
>research agenda" focus(ing) on organizing priciples, practices, and
>relations contributing to competence". For some of us, such practices
>include the joyful, socially mediated and transmitted knowledge of the new
>technologies by people who have played with, discovered, and shared their
>competence, their pleasure in the hardware store, their pride in knowing
>the NIT's. But as I write this, I worry about the gender stereotype my
>personal story represents, but not voicing it would be to support
>an other gender stereotype, that of the silenced woman.
(Eva's reply)
>another personal note
>(or is it generic?)
>you write:
>
>>Gender bias is more
>>than an ongoing problem.
>>It is so deeply part of our lives as men and women
>>that to speak of it is to exhale...
>
>I just realized this weekend the connection
>between my asthmatic tendencies (an exhalation problem if any)
>and this injunction against speaking
>-- against speaking *first*--
>
>Writing is a different thing:
>you do it with your fingers

This list (and others) is, at least for me, a powerful example of
using a new technology to find my *voice*... to break down the *silence
barriers* (or "injunction against speaking first")... to let my *fingers*
do the talking... seeking to overcome intimidation with a new group in a
new setting in order to join the compelling conversations in progress...
Is the use of computer technology/NIT and finding one's voice an
issue of "gendered learning"? Hmm...
(said thoughtfully, seeking to understand, inviting further comment)

Kathy
*****

Kathryn A. Ahern e-mail: kahern who-is-at unlinfo.unl.edu
SEER Water Project phone: 402-472-4162
N-158 George W. Beadle Research Center FAX: 402-472-7842
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Lincoln, NE 68588-0664

The Water Project is an interdisciplinary distance learning project of the
Satellite Education and Environmental Research (SEER) Program.