INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION This reader provides a brief look into the history of women in technology, with a focus on feminist theoretical and practical approaches to the changes that technology has brought into the lives of women. The reader includes a collection of seven key texts from cyberfeminist discourse, as well as other material that give a historical context. It is built on the hypothesis that, as Sadie Plant describes it, 'there is an intimate and possibly subversive element between women and machines especially the new intelligent machines - which are no longer simply working for man as are women no longer simply working for man'. The first part of my research is looking at women's introduction into the workforce in the technology field. The focus is on the type of work women were doing as 'human computers', a job that was considered low-level, menial and was, therefore, overlooked when it came to praising the advances in technology. As an example, the selected text on this topic is 'When Computers Were Women' by Jennifer S. Light, in which she talks about women's work on the ENIAC computer after the second World War. Seen only as placeholders for the men gone to war, women were eventually removed from their positions and from historical memory. An aspect that comes back often in the materials gathered in this reader is the connection between writing software and weaving. Working with textiles has always been interlaced with the lives of women. The first wellknown programmable computer was build based on a punch card system used by the first electric loom. Apollo
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