| This dissertation includes two components: a prototype of a computing magazine with a feminist agenda and a research essay that places the magazine in a scholarly context. The magazine prototype, connect! , is positioned between Ms. and Wired---voices of the "feminist revolution" and the "digital revolution", respectively. The prototype models the best of both worlds with its Ms.-like women-centered focus and its Wired-like discussion of computing in relation to culture. connect! is a forum for viewing computers and information technology as a resource for addressing complex social issues---helping women redefine our self concepts in ways that create possibilities for full participation in computing as users, beneficiaries, and developers of computer technology. In connect! computing is not about power, money, and consumption; instead, it is about social issues and the ways in which computing and the people who engage with it can operate in service of society. The research essay establishes the need for a publication like connect!---women are under-represented in computing as users, beneficiaries, and developers of computer technology. Two primary contributors to this under-representation are the perpetuation of stereotypical images in mass media and the historical legacies of scientific thought. Stereotypical representations of women in mass media persist in defining women's lives in limited and limiting terms. These limiting stereotypes influence women's perceived access to, interest in, and capabilities in computing, both as users of the technology and as developers of it. The following historical legacies of scientific thought have also had a powerful influence: defining science as male and nature as female, the subsequent development of a male-oriented computer culture, barriers to women's education and employment in science and computing, and limiting epistemologies. connect!, a magazine that places women at the center of the discussion of computers and society, is one way to redress the imbalance created by the history of scientific thought and contemporary media stereotypes. |
