[Linux-aus] Ada Initiative Q&A support it?

[Donna Benjamin]

On Mon, 2011-02-28 at 18:22 +1100, Mary Gardiner wrote:
> Note that I'm unlikely to spend time answering questions asking me to
> prove the existence of discrimination against women in either IT
> generally or open source specifically, or to prove the value of having
> women in the community. I'd like to produce some new material about
> this at some point, but there's an extensive literature (see Kathy
> Reid's citations for a partial list) and I can't do the
> proofs justice this week. 

Thanks Mary.

This is an important point, and one that needs to be reinforced.  

The Ada Initiative should not spend time on base level education, or
what we might call 'GeekFeminism 101'. It needs to focus on new
knowledge and action for change. In many comment threads responding to
issues of gender and IT we inevitably see a lot of the same kinds of
questions. This means valuable time gets spent going over old ground.

Kathy Reid's post is an excellent foundation.
http://lists.linux.org.au/pipermail/linux-aus/2011-February/018592.html 

Here are links to the books she referenced:
Etzkowitz, Kemelbor and Uzzi 
"Athena Unbound: The advancement of women in science and technology"
Google Books link - http://goo.gl/NeEBr  

J. McGrath Cohoon and William Aspray
"Women and information technology : research on underrepresentation"
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10924 

Another one I would recommend is
Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher
"Unlocking the Clubhouse"
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?tid=8515&ttype=2 

If you don't want to get books - then using google scholar to find
articles by any of the authors in those books can be quite a good way to
get access to some of their ideas and research.

-- 
Donna Benjamin - Executive Director
Creative Contingencies - http://cc.com.au
ph +61 3 9326 9985 - mob +61 418 310 414
Campaigning to http://digitisethedawn.org