Nava

Gross
UW Spring 2015
INFO 102: Media Reflection II

Reflection on Geek Mythology:
A Collection of Down-to-Earth Poems

Disclaimer
as a feminist poet
going into CS-type fields,
this article had me preparing myself
for the unwelcome culture Ill be up against.
lost my faith in humanity for a moment,
but found it, dusted it off. purified in

Tags
culture, women, success, computing, patriarchy

Introductory quote pt. I
Investors, CEOs and other technology leaders are implicitly biased against women.
(Larson)

Introductory quote pt. ii
I can be tricked by anyone who looks like Mark Zuckerberg. Tech leader Paul Graham.

Introductory quote pt. iii
programming and operating computers was hard and important work, but it wasnt
recognized, rewarded as such when workers were women (Abbate 13).

rape culture and glass ceilings: spectrum of sexism i
someone might be shocked by rape and murder and sexual objectification,
but still hold unquestioned bias about masculine superiority
and the need to dominate and control femininity.
lets get introspective.

Silicon Valley
the expectation is
young men [are] living, breathing computers
[they] are creating the new world (Margolis and Fisher 67)
their story is the model of the road to success in computing

Definitions
Define road to success
Define archetype for success
Define professional
Definition: white, cisheterosexual masculinity.


being isolated sucks.
the minority hacker culture has come to dominate the field. (74(?))
the myopically obsessed programmer,
associated with masculinity, is the archetype for
computing success.


culture of the field (Margolis and Fisher 74)
patriarchy of the football stadium
societal expectations of the discipline

double standards
the work of cisheterosexual presenting men
is valued over the work of women (and persons with noncishet gender/ sexuality)
through sheer power of
#patriarchy.
to rally against this double standard
somehow
manages to be subversive.

since when in equality subversive?
Still, some say that yall are looking in the wrong places
for signs of devotion and success
in this computing shit.
Boys are immature, yet still idolized.
thats #patriarchy for you

bitch work
further than that, work associated with masculinity
is prized above bitch work,
I met a nice, ignorant young man AKA example
of #patriarchalsociety
who self-described his job as
bitch work.
then I performed a poem about feminism.
how did that turn out? well,
maybe its that the words came from my woman mouth
and were therefore bitch words.
as it happened, he said nice, and we started talking about other things.

culture pt. i
this is in every field.
every job.
all mainstream academic disciplines.
theres always bitch work.

sometimes we just dont say so out loud.

critique culture pt. ii:
the way computer science is
conceived and taught and the violent way
it is used in video games.
The violent way it is used in video games
ties into misogyny and objectification of women, especially non-western women.
cash drops for rape and murder, as noted by Anita Sarkeesian
in her videos Women as Background Characters.

culture pt. iii: reality count
similarly, in pop culture media, theres background feminism.
on TV, women in positions of power/ esteem/ prestige/ bank
are overrepresented
in relation to
the reality count.

culture pt. iv: spectrum of sexism ii
sexism doesnt exist in just
A) Paul Grahams comment or
B) female representation in video game design
or C)
its part of how we think.
and Im specifically noting this,
just to make it very clear
how all this is related.

Works Cited
Abbate, Janet. Recoding Gender: Women's Changing Participation in Computing. Cambridge,
MA: MIT, 2012. Print.
Larson, Selena. "Why So Few Women Are Studying Computer Science." Web blog
post. Readwrite. Wearable World Inc., 2 Sept. 2014. Web. 4 May 2015.
Margolis, Jane, and Allan Fisher. "Geek Mythology." Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in
Computing. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2002. 61-75. Print.