Feminist Philosophy and the Digital Culture

Dr. Dennis Weiss York College English and Humanities Department 1994 Dennis Weiss

Liberal Feminism and the Computer Culture With its emphasis on personhood, rationality, equality, and individual self-fulfillment, liberalism would seem to provide no basis for thinking that women ought to be excluded from the computer culture. Human beings are to be valued not because of their sex but because of their abilities and there seem to be little ground for thinking that women do not have the same abilities as men in the various computer fields. A liberal feminist examination of the computer culture may focus on any number of issues. In this brief essay, though, I will concentrate on the existence of sexual bias in the computer field in terms of home, school, and employment and argue that this bias limits women's equal participation in the computer culture. An examination of the computer culture reveals that there is indeed widespread sexual bias and discrimination against women and this has resulted in a situation in which women are not receiving equal opportunities to those of men. This is especially worrisome given the increasing importance of computers in every facet of our lives. Bias against girls and women in relation to computers can be found in the home, school, and workplace. Parents are more likely to purchase computers for a son than a daughter and are more likely to send a son than a daughter to a computer camp. A 1989 study concluded that 60% of boys had access to a computer at home, whole only 18% of girls did. Men and boys are often more likely than women and girls to use a computer for recreational purposes. Only 30 percent of women aged 45 to 64 own computers, a figure that falls to 6 percent for women 65 and older. Many women do not have the recreational free-time that men have to experiment and play with computers. In a study based in a video arcade, researchers report that boys outnumber girls three to one in their participation on the machines. In a 1990 study of elementary and secondary schools in the United States, girls accounts for only 28% of the users of
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computers at the elementary level, 22% in middle school, and 26% in high school. While accurate figures are hard to come by, it is estimated that women of all ages make up 34% of Internet users. The detrimental effects of women's lack of access to computers shows up in their college and career opportunities. The "pipeline" in computer science refers to the smaller numbers of women at each stage in the academic ladder: 35% of the bachelors degrees in computer science are awarded to women; 27% of masters degrees, and 13% of the Ph.D.s. Only 6.5% of computer science faculties in research universities are women and only 2.7% of the tenured computer science faculty are women. The Sacramento Bee reports that while women make up about 35% of the high-tech work force, not one of the 50 biggest computer companies traded on stock markets has a female chief executive. Furthermore, the detrimental effects of using computers are disproportionately borne by women. Secretarial positions are often the first to be eliminated when offices are automated and 98.9% of secretaries are women. Women make up the majority of low wage office workers who spend their days "keyboarding" and suffer the strains of carpal tunnel syndrome and other illnesses associated with computers. There are often subtle and not-so-subtle hurdles to increasing the number of women participating in computer related fields. In academia, female students are frequently discriminated against by both professors and other students. Often times computer labs are monopolized by male students. Video and computer games are often designed explicitly with boys in mind and their subject matter (sports, death, and competition) appeal to them alone. Programs and CD-ROMs designed for girls (such as the Barbie CD-ROM) appeal to stereotypically feminine traits and female roles (fashion design). Sexual harassment is pervasive on many computer networks where women are often propositioned for virtual sex. Taken together, these facts suggest widespread discrimination against women in the computer culture. A liberal feminist analyzing the computer culture would emphasize this bias and the need to provide women opportunities equal to those of men. In order to achieve a state of equality or level playing field, a liberal feminist would argue that women need to be educated to overcome the power of stereotypes and biases against women. A liberal feminist might propose single-sex classes for girls studying computers and programming. Teachers and professors should be taught to recognize bias in the classroom and eliminate it. Computer systems administrators should create strict and enforceable harassment policies to protect women against on-line harassment. Women's networks and Internet cites should be created to encourage women to study and enter the computer fields.

Marxist Feminism and the Computer Culture With its emphasis on class and the division of labor, one point at which a Marxist feminist analysis of the computer culture might begin would be by noting the changes that the world economy is undergoing in the so-called "information age." We are rapidly moving from an industrial to a post-industrial age in which information is the new commodity and computers and technical skills define the workplace. Despite these widespread changes in the global information economy, though, it is an economy that continues to devalue women's labor. Engels argues that "the first condition for the liberation of the wife is to bring the whole female sex back into public industry" (170). It is clear that this has yet to happen in the information economy. That there are class distinctions in the new information and computer economy is made clear by any number of statistics. Women are underrepresented in the top management posts. The Sacramento Bee points out that women make up about 35 percent of the high-tech work force, but not one of the 50 biggest computers companies traded on the stock markets has a female chief executive (De Bare). Karen Hossfeld claims in "'Their Logic Against Them': Contradictions in Sex, Race, and Class in Silicon Valley" that while women account for close to half the total paid labor force of Silicon Valley, only 18 percent of the managers, 17 percent of the professional employees, and 25 percent of the technicians are female. On the other hand, between 68 and 90 percent of Silicon Valley's low-skill and low-wage assembly workers are women. The lower the skill and pay level of a job, the more likely it is that the position will be filled by a Third World immigrant woman (348). The introduction of computers into the workplace has affected the position of women in other ways. Unskilled clerical positions, what were often entry-level positions for women, have largely disappeared from the work force. New electronic surveillance techniques make possible a high-degree of employee monitoring for job performance, increasing job stress. In "The New Economy: Female Labor and the Office of the Future," Barbara Baran notes that the information economy is predicated upon cheap female labor, largely suburban housewives, to insure its competitive edge. Data processing companies seek out suburban communities where they are likely to find large numbers of relatively docile housewives who are willing to work on a part-time and temporary basis for substantially less money than middle-class men. Many women accept these work conditions because of the reigning ideology that emphasizes continued female dependence on the male wage (Baran 530) As Hossfeld notes, "Because employers view women's primary job as in the home, and they assume that, prototypically, every woman is connected to a man who is bringing in a
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larger paycheck, they claim that women do not need to earn a full living wage" (352). Furthermore, by making it possible to work at home, computers often separate women from the public sphere and keep them isolated in their homes. A Marxist feminist analysis of the computer culture might also note the transformations taking place in consumer consumption. The capitalist system perpetuates itself on the back of the consumer and capitalism is successful only so long as people continue to purchase products. The computer culture has created a product premised upon almost instantaneous obsolescence; your first purchase of a computer begins a never ending cycle of purchases. By purchasing and knowing how to work with computers you will have access to the latest information and the best jobs. The almost universal "benefit" of computers, though, is only available to the upper and middle class. Proponents of the "wired" nation overlook the fact the poor, including many women and single-family homes, cannot afford telephone service, much less Internet service. Finally, on a more positive note, a Marxist feminist analysis might also note that computers and computer networks make possible the formation of women's and labor organizations. While computers may isolate people in their homes, they also permit people to interact with one another, across local and national boundaries, to create organizations on behalf of the poor and oppressed. The computer has created new forms of social interaction and electronic groups that may unite women and the poor in their struggle against the forces of capital. Works Cited Baran, Barbara. "The New Economy: Female Labor and the Office of the Future." Women, Class, and the Feminist Imagination. Ed. Karen Hansen and Ilene Philipson. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1990. 517-534. DeBare, Ilana. "High-tech Industry Zipping Along, But Women are Often Left Behind." Electronic manuscript available at http://www.sacbee.com/news/ projects/women/wcmain.html Engels, Friedrich. "Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State." Feminist Frameworks. 160-170. Hossfeld, Karen J. "'Their Logic Against Them': Contradictions in Sex, Race, and Class in Silicon Valley." Feminist Frameworks. 346-358.

Radical Feminism and the Computer Culture Radical feminists focus on the lenses of sex/gender and sexuality, arguing that the sex/gender system structures virtually every aspect of our lives and is so pervasive that we hardly notice it. Sex and gender make up the framework through which we perceive and interpret the world. Furthermore, an analysis of the sex/gender framework explains the functioning of patriarchy and is the root cause of the oppression of women. The validity of these claims is borne out by an examination of the computer culture, itself structured according to the values of the patriarchy. The very basis of the computer culture is the computer, a formal, rule-drive technology that exemplifies the stereotypically masculine values of the patriarchy: order, reason, hierarchy, control. The development of the computer is inextricably linked to wartime needs and the military, which represents our culture's definition of masculinity and manhood: aggression, violence, domination. Great Britain's first computer, Colossus, was a single-purpose decoding machine designed to unscramble German wartime radio transmissions. The first true digital computer, ENIAC, was a machine created to assist with the computation of ballistic missile trajectories, a job formerly done largely by women using hand-held calculators. The Internet's history began with the Defense Department's ARPANET, the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network, and much of the initial planning and support for the Internet came from the Defense Department. The continued emphasis on masculine activities in computing can be seen in the design of many computer and video games which often focus on traditionally male oriented hobbies and sports. The predominant themes of recreational computer games are war, battles, crimes, destruction, and competitive sports. The computer has often been defined as a mind-machine, a machine that exemplifies the perfect mind; perfect because it is rational, precise, and logical. Artificial intelligence tries to discover the rules of human thought and program them into a computer. This emphasis on disembodied, mechanistic thought valorizes the mind over the body and reason over emotion. This is significant given that in Western culture men are stereotypically identified with mind and reason and women with body and emotion. Artificial intelligence, while supposedly a "science" of the mind, actually exemplifies the patriarchal values of the intellect and the exclusion of emotion. This emphasis on the mind to the exclusion of the body is also a feature of the Internet where all communication is disembodied. It has often been remarked that on the Internet you are what you type. Sex and gender, race and ethnicity, body language, tone of voice disappear as significant components of human communication and interaction. This represents the patriarchal desire to flee from the confines of the physical body, the so-called prison-house of flesh.
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The prevalence of pornography and sexual harassment is a further indicator of the manner in which the sex/gender framework has structured the computer culture. Video and computer games such as Sega's "Night Trap", in which nameless attackers dressed in black stalk scantily clad teenage girls through a large house, are all too common. A popular CD-ROM, Virtual Valerie, promises the owner his very own virtual girl friend who you can ask to wear different revealing outfits and guide into different sexual activities. Perhaps the most popular newsgroup is alt.sex.stories, devoted primarily to masculine fantasies of sex and violence. In chat rooms and other virtual communities, women report high levels of sexual harassment, usually requests for virtual sex. Meanwhile, one of the few CD-ROM games for girls, "McKenzie & Co.," is described as Saved by the Bell on CD-ROM. It revolves around dates, dresses, make-up, the prom, and part-time jobs. While the computer culture is structured according to stereotypically patriarchal values and is often hostile towards women, radical feminists have also embraced the computer, revisioning its culture from a feminist and woman-centered perspective. Feminist computer scientists have recovered the voices of women in the early history of the computer, women such as Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper. Women and feminist groups have created women-only spaces on the Internet where women from around the world can share their concerns and organize feminist activities. "Systers" is a network of 1,100 female computer scientists in 15 countries that has as one of its goals exposing women to the full range of significant professional interactions among women without the input of men. Big Sky Telegraph organized women's resource centers through Montana to provide increased services to women.

Socialist Feminism and the Computer Culture Socialist feminism combines the Marxist methodology of historical materialism with the insights of radical feminism's critique of the patriarchy and the sex/gender system. The socialist feminist argues that the mode of production has two aspects: the mode of production of things and the mode of production of people, what Engels refers to as reproduction. These two aspects of the mode of production work together to produce the specific type of oppression women experience in a society. In contemporary Western societies, the specific mode of production is defined by capitalism and patriarchy. A socialist feminist analysis of the computer culture would attempt to bring out the manner in which capitalism and patriarchy have colluded to produce the specific oppression women experience in the computer culture. The first step in such an analysis begins with a recognition of the changing nature of the economy in the late twentieth century, a move consistent with Marxist
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methodology. Today our economy is changing from an industrial economy premised on the production of things to an information economy premised on the production of knowledge. The newest commodity is information. This shift from an industrial to an information based economy suggests an historic opportunity for women. While the patriarchy has often produced a prima facie excuse for segregating women from industry (heavy labor, the need for strength or physical skill, threat to women's health and pregnancy), in an information economy, these threats seem irrelevant. There are no physical barriers that should keep women from taking their rightful place in the information economy. Programming, systems analysis, and other information technology jobs should be as open to women as to men. Indeed, it is often claimed that the information economy celebrates brain not brawn and, therefore, women should be recognized as being as capable as men are in succeeding in such an economy. An analysis of the significant figures in the computer culture suggests, however, that women are not represented as equally as men. As I have suggested in previous essays, the information economy is as segregated by sex as any previous economy, including the industrial economy. A purely Marxist analysis of the information economy is insufficient to explaining why women have been left out of the computer revolution. A Marxist analysis needs to be supplemented by an analysis of how the patriarchy and the current sex/gender system operate in conjunction with capital to create the oppression of women in the computer culture. I have indicated the elements of this in the previous essay on radical feminism where I argued that the computer culture is structured according to patriarchal values that exclude women. This analysis can be extended by drawing on Gayle Rubin's account of the sex/gender system, the set of arrangements by which biological sex is transformed into socially recognized genders. This is the second mode of production in socialist feminist analyses. In contemporary society, boys and girls are socially constructed in ways that create disadvantage for girls in the computer culture. The characteristics most valued in women are often dismissed in the computer culture. Girls are taught that computers are not feminine, are too "nerdy." Girls are not encouraged in disciplines such as math, science, and computer programming. The toys that young girls play with do not encourage their exploration of machines and technology. The significant popular figures in the computer culture are almost completely men: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, etc. Girls are not taught to see the area of computing as a possible career path. Girls and women report high levels of sexual harassment in computer labs, computer companies, and Internet online services. Taken together, these points suggest that in our society young girls are socialized in such a way as to guarantee they stay marginalized in the computer culture. This further serves to guarantee that women will be unable to compete against men for
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many of the best jobs in the information economy. In an information economy, the best paying, most prestigious jobs are going to go to those individuals who have the ability to deal with computers. By socializing girls in such a way that they perceive computers as something foreign to them, patriarchy benefits by keeping the best jobs in the economy for men. Men further benefit by guaranteeing that women remain dependent on men for showing them how to use vcrs, microwaves, and home computers. Capitalism benefits because women then remain dependent on men in order to earn a worthwhile family income. This in turn maintains the nuclear, heterosexual family that has been the linchpin of capitalism's success.

Global and Multicultural Feminism and the Computer Culture From a global and multicultural perspective, feminism is directed to look at the impact of racial, ethnic, and global issues on the lives of women. Global and multicultural feminisms ask how the lenses of nationalism, imperialism, colonialism, race, and ethnicity might transform and broaden the feminist perspective. The work of global and multicultural feminists has led to the recognition that many mainstream feminist movements have been insufficiently attentive to these issues of import to minority women, women of color, and women from developing countries. The marginalization of these women and their concerns is clearly evident in the computer culture. A global and multicultural feminist perspective on the computer culture is largely about silences and invisibilities. While the rise of the so-called "digital" or computer culture has been widely reported and studied, very few of these studies consider the impact of this emergent culture on minorities and third world peoples. Consider for example two influential texts on the computer culture, Howard Rheingold's The Virtual Community, on the impact of computers on our community life, and Sherry Turkle's Life on the Screen, a discussion of the impact of the Internet on self-identity and gender. Neither text so much as mentions the impact of computers on minorities or minority women. Neither text features any discussion of race or multicultural issues. The silences of these texts on the impact of computers on multicultural issues represents the norm in work on the computer culture, including the work of women and feminists. While women have not been traditionally well represented in the computer culture, they are an increasing presence and there is a growing literature documenting the impact of the computer on women and the growth of women's computer support groups. This literature is largely silent on the issue of race, ethnicity, and global feminist concerns. Furthermore, it is a literature devoted primarily to the concerns of educated, middle-class women. The central concerns of
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feminist critiques of the computer culture have been concerned with access to college and graduate school, equal opportunity for management positions in high technology companies, and equal opportunity for young girls to study computers and have access to appropriate software. These concerns, while admirable, fail to recognize the plight of many poor minorities for whom these goals are not realistic. Having access to software appropriate to young girls, for instance, presumes that one in fact has access to computers and an educational system that provides some computer training. This is not the case in many poor and minority school districts and in minority households. Based on a survey of 55,000 households in 1993, the Census Bureau estimated that 37.5% of whites were using computers at home, at work or in places like public libraries-compared with 25% of blacks, and 22% of Hispanic people. Moreover, it estimated that 26.9% of white adults had personal computers at home, compared with 13.8% of black adults and 12.9% of Hispanic adults. The Tomas Rivera Center asks in its policy brief on Hispanics and the Internet: "How many Hispanics-29.3 percent of whom are below the poverty level-will be able to afford computers, modems, software, and the online connections to information without some sort of subsidy?" The Panos Institute notes in a report that about 70% of computers linked to the Internet are in the U.S. and only 10% in Africa. Clearly, there is a significant disparity in access to computers, a disparity surely exacerbated by the multiple jeopardy that global and multicultural feminists have identified. Men have greater access to computers than women and middle-class, educated North Americans have greater access than others. It is reasonable to assume that minority, poor women and third world women suffer from the multiplicative effects of gender, race, and class. Where computers have had an impact on poor minority and third world women is in electronic sweat shops, where many multinational corporations exploit the cheap labor of young, unskilled, single women in developing countries. In Hong Kong, Motorola employs only women workers to load chips into computers and in the Philippines, 84 percent of the assemblers at Philips Components are women. In "Women and Computers," one of the few articles written by feminists to touch on this issue, Ruth Perry and Lisa Greber argue that the working conditions of this female labor force are particularly exploitive. The women earn less than the minimum cost of living and often are the objects of violence at the hands of factory foremen.