Why women don´t program? concerning the bonds between gender, technology and software

YANSEN, GUILLERMINA; MURA, NAHUEL; ZUKERFELD, MARIANO

Hangzhou

Conferencia; 10th Globelics International Conference (The Global Network For The Economics Of Learning, Innovation, and Competence Building Systems), Hangzhou, China.; 2012

The Global Network for the Economics of Learning, Innovation, and Competence Building Systems (GLOBELICS)

The main question to be discussed in this paper is: Why women don´t program? In other words, why in an activity that appears similar to others where women have gained ground, cannot be found an analogous progress? We´d like to underline the necessity of considering these five factors when analyzing the genealogy of women´s exclusion in the world of software. One, we discuss the relation between gender and technologies in general, paying attention to first socialization. Two, we advance some years into the lives of boys and girls and we analyze their first relations with digital technologies. Third, relating to puberty or adolescence, we inquire on the affective dynamic which, concerning their peer group, is established by those who dedicate much of their time to computers. Four, we take into account the gender gap in college or bachelor careers related to informatics. Five, we review the gender representations that employers of informatics workers possess. These five parts of the explanation have different foundations. Some rely strongly on our qualitative fieldwork in Buenos Aires; others are based on texts or statistics which belong to other authors.