Researcher with the Gender and ICT group
What is your academic background?
I graduated in Sociology from the Free University of Berlin, also studying Computer Science and Cultural Anthropology. Then I also managed to get a grant to go to The New School for Social Research in New York. And then after finishing my degree I came back to Barcelona. But my academic career hasn’t followed a straight path: I came back here and worked as a programmer for two years before returning to university to work on a European project on education and ICT. On top of that, I’d begun my PhD, at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, in Philosophy of Communication. Then since 2001 I’ve been working on a number of different projects. When I began at the UOC in 2009 I had a two-year Beatriu de Pinós grant. And Later I started working on a FP7-funded European project, GENPORT, a portal on gender and science.
What field of study does your group, Gender and ICT, focus on?
The subject of gender touches on a wide range of areas; it’s tied to structural inequality across our society, not just in ICT. In our Gender and ICT group we analyse how gender inequalities continue to exist with technology ever on the rise and omnipresent in everything we do.
Is the gender divide in technology similar in neighbouring countries?
Gender inequality is pervasive throughout Europe; you can find it in almost any country in the world. There are very few women in the ICT field, just as there are very few men in care-related professions. It is a widespread, universal reality.
What are the main causes of the gender divide in science?
When an inequality is this obvious we think the reasons should be equally simple. It’s a complex phenomenon, like any other issue in society. It has to do with stereotypes, like for example relating women with care-oriented fields, such as education or health, or men with technology. These stereotypes are operating continuously in our daily lives, maintaining this gender divide. But there are also reasons that start in childhood. If you go into a toy store, there is a clear difference between the products for boy and girls, whether it’s the colour or the type of toy. The consequences of this binarism can be seen in the professional sphere or the expectation that boys or girls will study for degrees suited to their abilities.
Does being a man influence the study of gender?
The topic of gender is not exclusive to women. This is a mistake we make often, limiting gender to women. It also involves men, masculinities, what it means to be a boy. This is important in the field of health, for example, where we find men who think masculinity consists of being a “tough guy”, that is, macho, when it also means knowing how to take care of yourself. One aspect relates to the other: in technology there are few women, and in care-related fields, few men. As a man of course, some questions don’t affect me directly due to my biology. But when it comes to thinking about or highlighting equality and inequality, being a man doesn’t matter. Just as there aren’t many women at conferences on electrical engineering, you won’t find many men at those on gender. There is a certain awareness that, if we want to change this situation, we have to think about men as well as women and face this problem together.
What’s your group’s new European project about?
ACT – Communities of Practice for Accelerating Gender Equality and Institutional Change in Research and Innovation across Europe – is a three-year Horizon 2020 project that has just got started. It carries on where GENPORT, the gender and science portal, left off. Now the idea isn’t so much to compile and disseminate resources but to create communities of practice, with organizations and individuals working to implement equality plans in science and research. What we’ll do is work with research centres and research funding organizations that already want to set up equality plans and help them by using everything we’ve learned from previous projects.
Who is the gender portal you’ve designed aimed at?
GENPORT is for anyone interested in gender in the field of science. You can find an archive of past projects on the subject, since the EU has already dedicated over a decade to financing initiatives in this area. Sometimes the projects aren’t easy to locate and we make it easier to access this information. There is also a calendar of relevant events, a directory of people working in the field, organizations and other types of resources, as well as online discussions about different topics. The most important aspect is that the portal is open to the community and anyone can register and join the discussion.
What would you recommend to help us better understand the field of gender and ICT?
I recommend the Gendered Innovations (genderedinnovations.stanford.edu) website, a joint project between the EC and Stanford University that provides examples of how the gender dimension is present in knowledge. For example, crash test dummies. For a long time when they tested a car’s safety, physiological differences between men and women weren’t taken into account when assessing the physical repercussions of traffic accidents. Not taking gender issues into account when generating knowledge can have a negative impact on half the population. This portal provides interesting examples along these lines.
I would also recommend the movie Hidden Figures, which tells the story of the women – Katherine Johnson above all – who worked at NASA on aerospace calculations in the ‘60s and ‘70s. For them to contribute to the collective scientific effort to make the space programme work, they had to surmount deep-rooted stereotypes about how a woman – and in her case an African-American women – could contribute. It’s a good example of how the gender divide can affect knowledge production.