Dissertation
Wednesday, 31 March 2010
by Kate Howlett
In an attempt to force me to work more I have decided to make available to the world: my dissertation word count. It's unorthodox, unheard of but, it just might work. To this end I have a cute little widget on the left. Every time I do a major piece of writing I am allowed to update the counter. It will be updated at the least at the end of every day but also if, like now, I have written 1000 words and am about to go to lunch!
Ada Lovelace Day and Women in Tech
Wednesday, 24 March 2010
by Kate Howlett
Happy Ada Lovelace Day!
For those of you who don't know who Ada Lovelace is, or would like to know more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_lovelace
As part of Ada Lovelace Day people all over the world are being encouraged to write about inspirational women in science, engineering and technology. These unsung heroines are due their arias and today is the day for that.
Anyways, what aria should I sing? It seems to me that there are "unsung heroines" and there are just women. Women who work hard, love what they do and are unacknowledged. I don't know their names, their colleagues do, their bosses should but I don't. They are just people, doing their job. And they are also brilliant.
I am a very bad woman in technology because it seems to me that, partly, the reason there are so few women in this field is because they don't want to be. It's not entirely about gender imbalance, prejudice or whatnot. It's just 'cos they're not interested. I think it's important to raise awareness and try and entice women to join the dark side but we shouldn't be too disheartened if we don't succeed.
I feel that the women who are already here, working with technology, are the ones who care. If the prejudice scares them off that much then they don't care enough to battle it. Now, I'm young, naive and haven't had to deal with much prejudice or issues so maybe I don't understand what it's like. Feel free to tell me.
Anyways, so, the women who care enough to ignore prejudice, to succeed through the gender imbalance, to change the ratio of men to women by one teeny tiny percent, these are the unsung heroines. Yes, we should try to encourage women into this area but we shouldn't forget those who are here already. Some are young and naive like myself. Some have been around for years, when there was *more* prejudice. Perhaps they're even complaining that we have it easy, that everything is so open, that stereotypes are changing and they're right. So we should sing them a song about how brilliant they are; changing the world a percent at a time.
For those of you who don't know who Ada Lovelace is, or would like to know more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_lovelace
As part of Ada Lovelace Day people all over the world are being encouraged to write about inspirational women in science, engineering and technology. These unsung heroines are due their arias and today is the day for that.
Anyways, what aria should I sing? It seems to me that there are "unsung heroines" and there are just women. Women who work hard, love what they do and are unacknowledged. I don't know their names, their colleagues do, their bosses should but I don't. They are just people, doing their job. And they are also brilliant.
I am a very bad woman in technology because it seems to me that, partly, the reason there are so few women in this field is because they don't want to be. It's not entirely about gender imbalance, prejudice or whatnot. It's just 'cos they're not interested. I think it's important to raise awareness and try and entice women to join the dark side but we shouldn't be too disheartened if we don't succeed.
I feel that the women who are already here, working with technology, are the ones who care. If the prejudice scares them off that much then they don't care enough to battle it. Now, I'm young, naive and haven't had to deal with much prejudice or issues so maybe I don't understand what it's like. Feel free to tell me.
Anyways, so, the women who care enough to ignore prejudice, to succeed through the gender imbalance, to change the ratio of men to women by one teeny tiny percent, these are the unsung heroines. Yes, we should try to encourage women into this area but we shouldn't forget those who are here already. Some are young and naive like myself. Some have been around for years, when there was *more* prejudice. Perhaps they're even complaining that we have it easy, that everything is so open, that stereotypes are changing and they're right. So we should sing them a song about how brilliant they are; changing the world a percent at a time.
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