Journal #1: The Beginning

When Nat, Erin and I began to formulate the idea of interrogating girls’ relationships with technology, the idea sort of spurred a mini revelation in me. I had flash backs of my own girlhood. One flashback was of me at eight years old in computer class, defiant about learning to type and always peaking under the typing skins. I still pick and pluck at a solid ten words per minute. My second flashback was seeing my mother always getting my dad to fix the VCR, or push play on the “boom box”. My mom is still fearful of the universal remote and every time I try to teach her how to text on her cellphone, she yells. “TOO MANY STEPS!!”. My revelation was: at a young age, girls are not encouraged to be tech-savy, and as a result, many avoid technological jobs or degrees in computer science, or they remain fearful of technology in their adult lives. Most cartoons and sitcoms depict men as boys as the nerds, mad scientists or the brains behind the operation. Girls and boys in elementary schools learn behind the same computers, but it is the boys who are most likely to be found behind laptops, soundboards, cameras and video game consoles in their free-time. I don’t believe it is for lack of desire that girls don’t engage technology as often as boys but instead, they are deterred by the negative "computer nerd" stereotype and girls are simply just not encouraged to do so.

Think back to high school, who was that kid the teacher always called upon to fix the power point or projector? Was it a boy? How many DJ’s do you know that are girls? How many girls have grown up to work for Apple? Open Source? The media support centre at Uvic? I am excited to begin this quest to find and locate these geek girls, computer chicks, and techno-freak females, that often go under the radar and deconstruct this social conditioning around girls and technology. I am excited to learn how to blog from Erin, to learn how to use iMovie from Nat, and to put to death my girlhood fear of everything technological, so other girls can too!