Ada Lovelace Day 2010

24th March is set aside to celebrate the role of women in IT and general geekdom. As the years go by, maybe because I’m looking in different ways, it seems that the divide is narrowing. Perhaps it’s just that I’m now working in organisations much more gender balanced; for the first 7 years of my working life I was used to being one of only a few women in the IT and New Media industries. I remember finding out that I was being paid £5k per annum less than a male peer in one company. We joined the same week and had left university the same year with similar experience. I was furious.

These days I’m surrounded by teachers, lecturers and academics and plenty of female peers and role models. Our new Vice Chancellor is Susan Price, and both of my Directors of Study have been women.

Which leads me to reflect on the impact that two women have had on my current thinking. Professor Janet Finlay, my first DoS before she left the faculty, has played a part in my life-changing direction quite apart from offering sound advice on the direction of my research. When I was a Masters student at Huddersfield, I walked past her door everyday to get to the Multimedia Lab, and so when I subscribed to the British HCI group quarterley (Interfaces) 3 years later as a professional, her editorship always held my attention. When she put a call out for a haptic-interface PhD position at Leeds Met a couple of years later, I forwarded it to my husband who subsequently gained a doctorate under Janet’s directorship. Through his journey, I was inspired to study my own doctorate and Janet became my DoS. Janet continues to open doors to opportunities and I’m so grateful that our paths crossed all those years ago.

There are many women who work in IT who I respect greatly, but there is one conversation I had in 2007 which allowed me to catch up on 30-odd years of naivety in the space of a couple of hours. Having been given the opportunity to join a PRaDSA workshop (still very grateful to Steve) I met Paula Graham from Fossbox. Paula works tirelessly to enable community access to technology, a job in itself worthy of a mention. But it was particularly her resilience and determination to be true to herself I admire the most. I had a very sheltered life in comparison, and Paula’s stories of everyday life astounded me.

I’m a little less naive these days and have become more familiar with feminist literature and I find it very comforting. I wonder what kind of a feminist Ada Lovelace would have been….