Liza Loop papers Box 3 (cont)
Talking to teenagers about your career - info about gathering info on careers, salaries on the back. Salary information on the other side. --> career access as empowerment.
"Examining sexist attitudes and expectations of teachers" - handout with cartoon of a pre-victorian(?) female school teacher tending to children
- academic performance expectations, classroom/school organization, behavior expectation, opportunities for extracurriculars
- WE ARE WHAT WE ARE EXPECTED TO BE at bottom of handout
- math/science resource center (math sci network) out of mills college
What is history of this math sci network? Who was in it? Teri Perl?
Handout on "Mathematics and Employment" with salary information.
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Computertown Events: Two Profiles
inside look o f planning and conducting a computertown event (peninsula school learning faire, "Computer Business Night")
Look at these papers to understand what priorities they had, what priorities were formally stated and what might not have made it into the article (okay to talk about gender insterests in *this* space? a quick skim doesn't have gender showing up as a unit of analysis)
Inside that folded up printout, document "What is a computer town anyways? A CT is any public access computer literacy project. It is a group individuals, adults and children helping each other to become informed citizens of todays information age. It is kids developing an intuitive understanding of comp tech through recreational games, educational simul, and programming of microcomputers. It is adults teaching their neighbors word processing and computer-absed accting. CT is "informal education" and it is to provide the opportunity for everyone in town to become "Comptuer Literate".
"Why do we need ComputerTowns? ...'We need a wide acceptance and familirity with computers among the pop at large. CT Provides ... non-threatening and fun way of bring about. In future children thinking in ways we can't envision now. Comp rpoviding w/intellectual tool...
1st CT in 1978 - Bob Albrecht and Ramon Zamora (elementary computer programming book authors) brough comps to public places (pizza parlors, bookstores, parks, pub library) to observe ordinary first time users. Donated computers and game tapes to Menlo Park library. Dream of "making Menlo Park, California the first completely "computer literate" community. How is this like a commune mindset? Not really. Focused on changing at grassroots rather than moving away from it all. But this is proabbly 1981 document. I'll need to establish a link between PCC and counterculture.
"Computers have travleled to interest study groups, pizza parlor, ghetto, senior centers, and special education schools. (Handwritten note in red: "economically disadvantaged areas" rather than ghetto...when did political correctness start to take off?)--> this seems like an awareness of marginalized groups that is not typical of the counterculture.
"CT might be an organization or just a feeling shared by indep ppl and groups. Someone sets up a computer where people can touch it, operate it themselves and ask questions and CT is there.
who was this document meant for? what was it published into?
People's Computer Company: Vol 1 Issue 1, October 1972
SO PCC predated computer town. Cool, interesting. See development of ideas over time.
Big bold letters at bottom of front page: "This is page one"
"We did this issue: Bob Albrecht, Mary Jo Albrecht, Jerry Brown, Le Roy Finkel. Contributors: Marc LeBrun (art), Jane Wood (art), Tom Albrecht (art)"
on back:
"Computers are mostly used against people instead of for people, used to control people instead of to free them / time to change all that / we need a...
ship sailing into sunset, with People's Computer Company shining out of sun
cartoon of picketers on the back, men, women, children, four visibly black faces, rest white
picket signs: "NO MORE FORTRAN" "P.C.C. LIVES" "BASIC IS THE PEOPLE'S LANGUAGE" "USE COMPUTERS FOR PEOPLE, NOT AGAINST THEM!"
"help us write the next issue...and the next issue...and the next issue and...does your school, group or org have a comp? do you have a comp? do you like your comp? (do you like the comp manuf?) how do you build a cheap tape winder? do you have any good game playing programs or simulations (in BASIC)? what do you want? would you like to do one or more pages of photo-ready copy for a future issue? would you or your group like to edit and produce a complete issue?" --> reminds me of do it yourself of whole earth cataglog, but WEC does not seem as much into collaborative (or co-)creation
They have a people's comptuer center too.
p.2 - (building?) blocks, a few stacked on others, with pictures on the faces of 4 of them (boy using comp, man using comp/cash register in cartoon, long haired person using comp, columbia's LP "the Firesign Theatre"'s "I think we're all bozos on this bus"
One clearly female figure (naked with breasts, except for flimsy toga draped on body), and another similar figure but only visible from the back looks like theyy're dancing on the blocks and stretching or doing ballet or something.
review of publication "Computers and automation" --> "Scientific American of computer-oriented press...It's a maagazine with a conscience...heavy on social comment and humanistic view of computers. " featured are four issues -- one has a computer generated wirefrrame looking thing on the cover, one a classroom with black students -- black women in the firefront (afro hair...is that significant during the time as a marker of a political community?), man using computer with lightpen and some sort of ear piece (he has chops....again, what does that hairstyle usually signify at the time?), girl in classroom (board with scawlings in background) and she seems to be doing something labby
doesn't seem to be authorship associated with articles
Liza Loop papers Box 3
Folder H14
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She has the Softalk Women in Microcomputing magazine!
Loop Liza
LO*OP CTR INC
3781 Starr King Circle
Palo Alto CA 94306
A series of index cards labeled "Factors"
Card: Females more
- susceptibility to anxiety (sense of competence) {fearful, anxious, less confidence in own abilities, expect poorer prob solving, dissat. w/perf, blame failure on isability, credit luck, social desireability (?) {compliant, conforming, cooperative, responsive to peer pressure}}
Card: Males more
- potency of self-concept (when did term self-concept originate and from where?)
- personal efficacy
- control over external events
Card: Males more
- aggression (rough and tumble, dominate peers..., anti-social, tv aggressive programming, competative)
- activity levels (more active, more curious, more exploration, manipulation of objects (age 3-6), outdoors) (what books were ppl reading about this at the time? are any of these related to studies getting publicity then?); self-perception (more daring + adventurous, more accidents (physical)
- impulsivity
On back of card
Men and women are different. Everybody knows that. But how and why men and women differ is the subject of much argument. In teaching beginners to use personal computers, I notice these differenecs
Men and Women
What are they?
What do these affect the design of computer tools?
Computer Notes, Vol 4 Numb 4 March 1980 from
Monroe #2 - Orleans Boces
Center for Regional Instructional Computing
3599 Big Ridge Road
Spencerport, New York 14559
front page - "Women and Computers"
Teachers guilty of sidetracking female students away from computers, according to Joyce Hackanssson, commenting in the fall issue of Apple Education News. Computers are located in basements of math labs -- "both male bastions. Computing teachers, usually male, expect mroe from male students and respond more to their enthusiasm. We need to expect fems to learn comput, just as we expect them to master spelling words and math drills."
"Ideally, comptuer education should begin in presch or elem levels where fem techers predom; therefore the girls would have female role models. all jun high schools should require a compu course. The curric should include the basic vocab necessary for entry elvel jobs, programming, hands-on experience, and practical applications of computer education."
"Today, 53% of all american women work, yet only 4% earn over $26,000 per year. If we begin today to prep our girls for a future with a computer in it -- perhaps we can turn around that dismal stat."
Joyce - comp educ consultatnt for Children's television workshop. develops software for comput education center at sesame place in pennsylvania.
other pages: computer fair sponsored by IEEE, catalog of education software, description of MECC courseware in table form with reviews
p5: A Library Computer - to permit public to experience comp assisted instruction, to pefrom basic compu functions, and to gain exper in programming, microcomps have been isntaled in more than 5 brances of chicago public library. according to article in feb 1980 byte magazine: engineers, business men, students developing chess skills, and people balancing their checkbooks have been using the devices. which users were overlooked? what was installed on those machines to begin with?
p6: The impact of computers on privacy - survey divides respondents by income, profession, age, but not by gender or race. has this changed in traditional ways that polls are reported now?
p7: cartoons with dad explaining to housewife mom that the dumbfounded boy starying at the huge mainframe comp is to "have all the things I diddn't have when I was a kid"
p9: cartoon of women programming computer with "Go directly to jail. Do not pass go."
p9: "interface age," description of personal computer network where info will flow into world as freely as water.
p10: more cartoons
p11: Students Visist Boces Computing Center: Students invited by teacher to explore careers they were interested in pursuing in the future. three students Jamie, Dan, and Tim toured. Jamie - girl or boy? dunno. all look boyish in picture, but not sure.
addressed to Ms Liza Loop
Changes iin Proportion of Women document
chart of accountants, architects, clerics, editors/reporters, engineers, lawyers and judges, life and physical science, physicians, social scientists, college teachers, all jobs - proportino of women iin 1960 and 1977. increased across board.
"Women are now in 41% of the workforce and one in six of them is in a profession.
Source: Manpower Comments, Vol 15, No 8, Oct 1978"
from Math Science Network (with female symbol iin logo)
Math/Sci Resource Center
Mills College
Oakland, CA 94613"
Personality Development in Males and Females: The Influence of Differential Socialization
Jeanne H Block, UC BErkeley
(with Hechinger written on top in red)
based on APA talk in 1979
author at Institute of Human Development
Science Vol 210, 12 Dec 1980 p1234: Math and Sex: Are Girls Born with Less Ability?
A Johns Hopkins group says "Probably." Others are not so sure.
Looseleaf paper
Women in Sci + Math Network
Knowing about vs using
domestic uses -a ppliance
applications - writeing, networking, accting, dp
education
programming
mud map looking drawing with liza in the middle with a heart around her on back
Letter from SJSU
liza led a workshop "Expanding your horizons in math and science"
by Gina Bari Kolata
Softwalk: March 1981 (spec coll) - Women in Microcomputing
Profile of Ellen Lapham, who founded a company to build musical keyboard synths for the apple called Syntauri and is listed on the PCC website
Profile of Rilla Reynolds, humanities major turned computer operator turned Comp Sci degree recipient turned programmer at Apple, also CPSR Palo Alto member so Terry probably knows her
"Reynolds has a theory about why Apple Computer Inc. and the people who comprise it are successful; it's one of the reasons she enjoys working there so much: "It's play," she declares, "almost everyone here is playiing." Not role-playing or game-playing in the sense psychologists like to use it,but simple, joyful, having-fun play. Someone else at Apple cited Steve Jobs as having the philosophy that when your work's no longer fun, it's time to move on" (8).
"They're all superstars in my mind, and each has contribnuted to Apple's success. It's great." The man who hired many of the superstars adds, "That's why I sleep well!"
"But it isn't only the women at Apple that are superstars; it's the men too. I don't think of the women as different from the men in business, and they aren't treated differently."
"At Apple, those kinds of things aren't important. People have abilities and desires as a manager you must provide what each person needs to make the most of those abilities."
"It is fascinating and delightful that this same strong personal identity leads to an equally strong sense of themselves as women; and these eight very capable businesspeople are among the most feminine women you could ever hope to meet" (4).
Profile of Jo Kellner, Hotline person
"Apple is human-oriented; we're free to be individuals. And that freedom breeds creativity. I can see it in Charlie's work," (Jo Kellner)
Hotline FAQ - "It's not a moneymaker," says Kellner; '"it isn';t intended to be. It's information we want disseminated. The book isn't even copyrighted."
What was the motivation of this issue? What is the cultural moment in which it was produced? How did people react? Ellen Lapham may be able to speak to this.
Feminist AI Projects and Cyberfutures - Alison Adam
From Women, Science, and Technology reader:
discusses feminist research projects in AI and comp ling, but I didn't read this part
Cyberculture:
appeals to male youth, "To 'jack in' to 'cyberspace' sppears to offer a way of transcending the mere 'meat' of the body, once again signalling the male retreat from bodies and places where bodies exist" (339).
Body Free Existence:
interesting stuff but only skimmed it...use of birth metaphors in manhattan project, "obsessive male desire to outdo women in creative ability can only too easily lead to tragic consequences" (341). "pregnant phallus" idea.
Cyberspace as escape:
alternative to drug culture, "since VR and related info tech offer endless supply of new experiences without toxic risks of drugs" - does this hold? if so, links to counterculture drug use, expansion of experience, transcending embodied cognition and understanding?
VR has an 'infinity of possibility...it's just an open world where your mind is the only limitation" - Jaron Lanier. How does one act on this world? Seems childish, escapist, unwanting of any responsibility.
Jennifer Light (1995): computer-mediated communications on internet may offer alternative courses of action for women. However, lots of evidence that gendered interactions and power dynamics exist in the online world as well. To me, unclear how network social capital gets translated into physical world social capital, until physical world becomes subsumed to cyber world. Rather than different courses for women, Haraway proposes that cyborg offers liberatory potential by diluting and "trangressing" boundaries of identity. But Anne Balsamo argues that the roles and patterns of meat-space get rewritten in virtual spaces and in the technological interventions humans seek and/or have imposed on them.
Critique of Sadie Plant for her ungrounded coupling of cyberfeminism to cyberpunk without any acknowledgement of the role of politics. "universalizing tendency" to ignore that gender isn't the only category of impact, and also that gender, race, class affect even anonymous online interactions, as well as access to the tools of entering the cyberworld at all. The naivete she is accused of reminds me a little of counterculture universalization, eschewing of politics, etc. (346)
Women have traditiionally been assigned the role of caring for bodies, leaving men free to lie the life of the mind. (350) (cites another source...Lloyd 1984, Rose 1994)
No Turning Back - Estelle Freedman
"Radicalized in New Left organizations such as SNCC, idealistic activists soon objected to the limitations placed on them as women. Like Maria Stewart and Sarah and Angelina Grimke more than a century earlier, then hoped to be full participants in the quest for racial justice. When men in the movement relegated them to serving coffee, cooking, and having sex, these young women applied their political analysis to gender. Ruby Doris Smith Robinson, a black activist, inspired Casey Hayden and Mary King to write a position paper on women in the movement." (86)
Students for a Democratic Society had similar issues --> "women like 3rd world ppl -- colonized by white males." This group eventually gave rise to the Weathermen, advocates of violent overthrow.
politics of self-determination --> separatist movements
Shulamith Firestone "injustices of class/race end only when women achieve equality" --> similar to counterculture in white middle-class feminism ignoring race, basically
consciousness-raising --> "the personal is political"
Bonnie Kreps (1968): "We in this segment of the movement do not believe that the oppression of women will be ended by giving them a bigger piece of the pie as Betty Friedan would have it. We believe that the pie itself is rotten." How Charles Reich "drop out" is that?
sidenote: lesbianism as an escape from patriarchal notions of romance -- the only possible true love. this seems at least at tension with the argument that it's not a choice -- it's who the person is and it is in part biologically determined characteristic. lots of janus faces going on here.
"To Donna Haraway, who calls all identities 'fabricated hybrids,' our consciousness of gender, race, or class 'is an achievement forced on us by the terrible historical experiences of...patriarchy, colonialism, and capitalism." (93) --> usefulness of gender, racial labels
