Women and Computers: An Introduction

Abstract

Sometimes technological change seems the only constant in our lives; in our darker moments, the Frankenstein specter of technology, embodied by the atomic bomb, haunts our collective dreams. The rapidity of technological innovation, and our urgent need to describe and adapt to its effects, may overwhelm the examination of more fundamental questions concerning its nature and its relation to human need. Popular consciousness as well as formal scholarship too often share an overriding concern with the effects of technological change while neglecting to look for the forces driving these changes. The exceptions, welcome and provocative, have been all too rare.' The relation of gender to technology-the effects of technology on women's and men's lives, the ways in which women and men construct and use technology, the theoretical implications of gender socialization for future needs and developments in technology-these connections have yet to be made, this story has yet to be written. Yet it is imperative that as feminists we try to sort out these forces and habits of thought if we want best to influence the directions and uses of rapidly changing technologies.