Christina Björkman

Feminist research and computer science: starting a dialogue

In this paper I discuss how feminist research focusing epistemological issues can be used within computer science (CS). I approach and explore epistemological questions in computer science through a number of themes, which I believe are important to the issues of what knowledge is produced as well as how it is produced and how knowledge is perceived in CS. I discuss for example paradigms and metaphors in computer science, the role of abstractions and the concept of naturalisation. In order to illustrate epistemological views in CS and how these can be questioned from the viewpoints of feminist epistemology, I also do a close reading and commenting of a recent book within the philosophy of computing.

Women in Computing

The history of computer science is composed mainly of male achievements and involvements, even though women have played substantial roles. Although women are a significant part of computing history, the numbers of women in computing still have yet to reach parity with men. This article covers womens experiences and impact in the computing history of the United States and in several other nations and explores some of the reasons for the disparities between the number of men and women in this field. Keywords: women in computing; pipeline shrinkage problem; early computing history; gender equality; support; recruitment; retention

Feminist Technoscience Rearranging in the Black Box of Information Technology

What kind of focus will feminist research develop at a technical university, where information technology (IT)38 constitutes the overarching research field? In this article we want to illustrate this question with the core issues that we have identified, as well as to animate these with the authors’ stories. Finally, we want to propose a short agenda of issues and challenges for future feminist technoscience research.