Gender Bias Make Up assignment

What is your understanding of gender, gender identity, and biological sex? Is there anything more you need to learn?

Gender is distinct from sex. It is more about the identity you have, and less about your personal biology. I think of gender as a wide spectrum with male on one end, and female on the other with a wide range of identities between. Sex is usually determined by genitalia, but also incompasses a wide range of expressions.

I was unfamiliar with the history of software development in general, so this was my first intro. I usually tend to view history as being written by the victor, or at least by the most privoleged so I tend to wonder about the groups who's contributions tend to be ignored. I was not surprised to find that the history of women's contributiuons to development have been hidden or devalued. I was surprised to find that ratio of men to women was 50/50 at the start, but not surprised to find that currently women only occupy 20%. There have been many ways in which the roles women have been encouraged to fill have been narrowed down to exclude tech, science, art, design, etc.

I see gender bias as a huge problem in tech. It leads to less diverse perspectives, and the perpetuation of systems designed by men for men, or worse, by men for women. "Shrink it and pink it" by way of apps.

Most voice assistants re-inforce gender binary ideas, cementing the idea that the "norm" is male or female, and excluding anything in between from being accepted. I was encouraged to hear Q, because it means that we have a chance to normalize the spectrum of genders.

It pushes back against the ideas that your voice assistant or "secretary" should be female. It's a computer! There's no reason it should be one gender or another which only reinforces the binary.

I am aware of the responsibility tech has in choosing which habits, or stereotypes the world carries forward. We have a chance to create a world for each human, rather than just for each man or woman.