In class on Wednesday, Professor Rodriguez asked us to think about how each of the three articles we read overlapped. Two of the articles had significant pieces in common. They were more traditional pieces: one was a history of computing, the other a Nobel lecture by Jack Kilby, the inventor of the integrated circuit. The piece focused on technological development, invention and innovation. They depicted men alone in their workshops taking up ideas and crafting hardware that would fundamentally alter the trajectory of computing. History was linear and glorious, and prestige was available to those who worked hard enough in the right industries. The third article had notably little in common with the other two, which was to me the most notable and the most important answer to the question of overlap. It described the way Navajo women were exploited in the mass production of circuit chips. Men like Kilby and these women stand in stark contrast. Kilby is an example of why we see the American dream as unlimited social mobility. The women are examples of the harsh limitations of this dream, and the barriers in place for those who do not start in a place of relative privilege.
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This is a really important analysis, Georgia. I think that you are absolutely right in that the way Kilby is presented vs. the Navajo women is a stark contrast. This is not a disparity that has gone away but has continued to compound itself many times over. Computer technology is a field dedicated to preserving what a GWSS scholar might call “whitesupremacistcapitalistpatriarchy” (hooks, bell. Feminism is for Everybody 2000.) These articles both highlight the ways we are subliminally able to praise and highlight the work of these male computer scientists while often any recognition to others who have tremendously shifted the field goes unnoticed.