Connecting Women

Book excerpt: This important volume examines European perspectives on the historical relations that women have maintained with information and communication technologies (ICTs), since the telegraph. Features: describes how gendered networks have formed around ICT since the late 19th Century; reviews the gendered issues revealed by the conflict between the actress Ms Sylviac and the French telephone administration in 1904, or by ‘feminine’ blogs; examines how gender representations, age categories, and uses of ICT interact and are mutually formed in children’s magazines; illuminates the participation of women in the early days of computing, through a case study on the Rothamsted Statistics Department; presents a comparative study of women in computing in France, Finland and the UK, revealing similar gender divisions within the ICT professions of these countries; discusses diversity interventions and the part that history could (and should) play to ensure women do not take second place in specific occupational sectors.