Do you see having a risk-taking mentality as a barrier to entry forwomen who want to join the tech industry?Women can quickly access the information that they need to kick-startor fast-track their knowledge and learning. But it’s true that our researchhas found that when women are looking at advancing their careersthey can they fall short when applying for a new position, particularly ifthey’re coming from a more traditional area of media (the telecommunicationsindustry, for example) and they’re trying to move in to one that’smore technologically mediated. And let’s face it – nearly every industrynow requires a lot more technological knowledge.When looking at a job description, women will go through all of therequirements and if there are ten things the prospective employer islooking for, they’ll figure that if they don’t have nine or all ten of thosequalifications that they won’t actually be suitable or qualified for the job.And so they won’t go for it as often as a man would.A guy might look at that job description and go “OK so they’re lookingfor these ten things, yeah I’m pretty confident about five or six of them,two of them I can I pick up, I know nothing about two of them but youknow, hey I’ll go for this job.” Whereas a woman might go – “Oh I’m notso sure. If I can’t go in and show that I can perform in at least nine orten of those categories, I’m not going to get hired.”Why do you think that is?Women need to feel that they know enough: that they can move into newareas and be able learn within them, that they’ll be able to learn fromtheir colleagues and from their experiences, and that they’ll be able tomanage in that atmosphere. Women can begin to relax more and be confidentin their abilities – what they know and what they can learn on theirfeet – without thinking that they have to hyper-perform.We try to teach our students the value of making mistakes and failure.You can’t succeed without failing. Sometimes you have to fail really big toactually understand what you need to learn, and how to do that quickly,so that the next time you’re prepared and ready to take a more qualifiedrisk. If you don’t have the confidence and the courage to take risks inyour own career you’re not going to get very far.I think sometimes women feel that they can’t compromise a comfortableposition for one where they’re going to have a lot of anxiety. But we haveto be able to move ourselves over those barriers and out of our comfortzone. We have to feel the confidence to be able to take those risks andget the rewards. And have fun with it!You’re also currently working on your Ph.D. too, is that right?That’s right, I’ve been chipping away at my Ph.D. for the last five years.It’s called Eros, Women, and Technology and it’s about how women interactwith technology and the place of the erotic body in technology.I think the place and importance of the body, and particularly the eroticbody, has been lost in technology. Many women aren’t so willing to makethe trade off between the mind and the body; they want to communicatewithout getting themselves lost in their own heads and leaving their bodiesbehind.The Ph.D. is a philosophy degree but based in my field of work, so mythesis includes things like the history of women artists using personaltechnologies such as photography and videography, the history ofwomen’s education in technology, how women are concerned about theirchildren’s use of technology, how technology has impacted women’slives and bodies in areas such as the now very technologized act of childbirthand how that affects women’s health. It’s a big topic! It’s probablya bit too big [laughs]. So at the moment I’m scaling back and refining it,and pulling it all together.It’s interesting because it feels like the tech industry is finally beginningto acknowledge the role of women in technology. Has academiadone a better job at highlighting this topic?One of my committee members, Jennifer Jenson, and one of my colleagues,Emma Westecott, are doing a lot of very interesting work onwomen and games. And I think there have been a lot of good studies inthis area for quite a while. It’s an important area because it’s a way in.How many guys do you know who are working in technology found theirway in through a love for video games? Well guess what: video games fora long time were not that appealing to girls. Some girls love first personshooters but lots of girls really don’t. They often prefer collaborative andnarrative games. And there aren’t nearly so many of those available, andvery few have been designed by women.There aren’t many studies on how to get more women into technology,so I wanted to add my perspective as a woman who has been workingin technology for the last three decades. It’s become clear to me thatthings haven’t really progressed, and that it’s not just a bit of a problem– it has actually become a bit of a crisis.What was it that drew you into technology? Did you play video gamesgrowing up?You know what, [laughs] the first video games only began to appearonce I was grown up! I do remember being immediately taken by SpaceInvaders, the arcade game; I was addicted to it rather quickly. And it wasinteresting because I first played it in the UK, when I was over there withMartha and the Muffins recording our first album and we all thought,“Wow, this is fantastic!” They didn’t yet have it over here so we were alltrying to figure out how we could introduce Space Invaders to Canada[laughs].But I’d been working with computers a long time before that. I’d beenworking with computers since I was about 19.So you had a start in technology before recording your first album.Looking back at your career, I had the impression your successes inmusic, design and technology were all distinct periods of your life, butperhaps they were more interwoven than I had imagined.When I was younger I really wanted to go to art school here at OCAD (itwas the Ontario College of Art at the time), and I needed to make moneyto pay for my tuition. I got this funny little job where a woman trained meto do punch card programming for big mainframe computers. This wasbefore there were even keyboards and displays. I didn’t know anythingabout it, but it had a logic to it that I really liked, and I was not afraidof it. Once I learned to do basic programming I realize that I enjoyed it,and I could work independently; I didn’t have to do a 9-5 job, I couldprogram and do data entry and data analysis in the middle of the night ifI wanted. It was a good job and it put me through art school.There was something abstract about it, something tangible that I reallyliked. I’m not a mathematician (I don’t have that kind of brain), but itseemed visual and physical, something I could get my hands on. Also,lots of people didn’t know how to do it, so it felt sort of like a secret and Ifelt kind of powerful.At the Ontario College of Art, I was most interested in working in sound,video, holography and disciplines that had technology supporting them.I also did painting and drawing which I had always done, but I wantedto figure out how to combine them. So I took animation, film and videoediting; I created sound pieces and edited video to them. The great thingwas that in those early days – I’m talking about the late 70s – we had allof the facilities here at the school. We had some of the very firstsynthesizers, which were not keyboard synthesizers but peg-boardsynthesizers.And then I met my pals from the band that I ended up joining, Marthaand the Muffins, and we were all really interested in using new instrumentsand experimenting with tape and sound. We were playing withtechnology and making abstract sound pieces before we were makingmusic together.Was there any kind of precedent in your family of having an aptitude fortechnology?Both my daughters now work in technological fields too, but no, not really.I mean, I had an artistic and musical family, but you know, this wasbefore technology was really a thing. I do remember taking one of thoseaptitude tests, and for some reason mine said I should be a mechanic[laughs]. I always did like making things, taking things apart and puttingthem back together.30 | Blouse Technology Issue
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