The Proceedings of the Information Systems Education Conference 2001: §00n    Home    Papers/Indices    prev (§00m)    Next (§01a)

Best Paper Award 2001: Gender and Information Technology: Implications of Definitions

Denise Shortt    [a1] [a2]
School of Information Technology Management
Ryerson University    [u1] [u2]
Toronto, Ontario, Canada    [c1] [c2]

Irene Devine    [a1] [a2]
School of Information Technology Management
Ryerson University    [u1] [u2]
Toronto, Ontario, Canada    [c1] [c2]

In this paper, we examine implications of definitions of information technology to women's participation in the industry and in academe. This paper is exploratory only, based on a review of selected government and industry reports and data related to IT education and the profession. However, we argue that there is evidence to suggest that the discourse related to information technology has the effect of excluding women and multi-disciplinary perspectives. On the one hand, we argue that there is considerable evidence that the IT industry and skills it demands are multi-disciplinary and that many people working in the industry, particularly women, come from a variety of disciplines. On the other hand, despite the evidence of the multi-dimensional nature of IT, the impact of convergence, the importance of matching IT solutions to user needs and so on, a very narrow definition of IT dominates the discourse. This definition equates IT and IT professionals with computer science and engineering disciplines, which are predominately male. The result, then, of this narrow definition is to marginalize women and their contributions. This is a pattern that has been observed with the development of other disciplines, such as medicine. Not only does the narrowing of the definition of Information Technology tend to exclude and devalue the contribution of women, but it also results in the marginalization of other disciplines, which would bring more neutral or critical perspectives to bear on technology. Thus, the exclusion of multiple disciplines and women may contribute to poor technology decision making at the societal and organizational level.

Keywords: gender, information technology, institutional theory, human resources

Comments and corrections to
webmaster@isedj.org