The inclusion of women in the building of technology (and specially, of digital technologies) is an issue that has got the attention of a variety of groups, from policy makers to researchers, public organisations, NGOs and entrepreneurs, and also of course groups that describe themselves as feminist.
Why does the “gender gap” raises so much attention? Probably the reason for this, as several studies demonstrate, is that the inequity and the inequality of gender in the field of technology hasn’t been always this way. Data from from 2013 of Sadosky Foundation of Argentina, revealed that in the 1970s more than 75% of students in Computer Science were woman. Other studies, even when they are less rigorous, show that inexplicably in the 80s there was a global tendency that saw less women in the technology field.
It is hard to understand this reinforcement of woman and man stereotypes and impossible to determine the cause for it. A possible explanation is that there was a conservative backlash in the 80s that stalled the progress that social and feminist movements had made in the 70s in relation to gender equality
Read the full article in GenderIT.org .