Prof. Dr. Debora Weber-Wulff HTW Berlin Fachbereich 4 AWE: Gender and Computing Summer Term 2024

This course is about the topic of Gender and Computing. Many computer scientists are convinced that since there is no gender to a bit, there is no gender "problem" in computing, or rather, it is a fantasy construed by politically correct radical feminists. In reality, computer science is a very highly gendered field. In addition, the production of our artifacts—computer programs, web sites, and documentation—is strangely gendered. In this course we will be investigating what gender is, how the genderization of our field manifests itself, and what we can do to produce gender-sensitive artifacts.

The course meets weekly on Mondays at 15.45 in WH C 537 .

The grade in this course will consist of a weekly participation grade and a 10-page term paper, which can be handed in at any time, on a topic dealing with gender and computing. You must clear the topic you want to write on with me before May 13, 2024. It is not acceptable for you to be using any generative AI program to create any part of your paper. You may use the spelling checker installed in an editor to fix your spelling, but not external systems such as Quillbot or Grammarly. The paper can be in English or in German. If I find positive evidence of the use of a generative AI system, this will mean an automatic failure for the course and a mark on your permanent record. Positive evidence consists of hallucinated statements, non-existent references, or too many words like "delve" that are not generally in your vocabulary.

You are expected to complete the weekly readings or watch the videos before coming to class, as we will be discussing them in class.

There is a Moodle room where you can find the materials for the course that are not available on the open web.

The picture above is Mattel's "Computer Engineer Barbie." I have two of them, we will be having a look what this image has to say about the perception of women in computing during the first session.

The schedule can be found here, it is as always tentative.