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Toxic Masculinity in Technology

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Within schools and education there are going to be subjects that are believed to appeal to men more than women and vice versa, in this case it will be within computing and in technological areas. Computing is seen as a predominantly male heavy subject, while yes there are successful females in the industry it doesn’t change the fact that “only 19% of computer science related degrees were female, with a staggering 81% of students being male” (STEM Women, 2020). This makes it one of the most male dominated subjects out there, both within education and in the real world, this is only matched by 1 other subject, that being Engineering and Technology, However these statistics are from the years 2017 – 2018 meaning that it is possible that one of these subjects now has a somewhat larger female crowd attached to it. STEM Women It is currently estimated that less than 24% of white, British boys from working-class backgrounds leave school with five GCSEs at grade C or above.” (Mackay F, 2017) h
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Decolonising the Education Curriculum

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  What is it? Our curriculum is built to provide the necessary topics that we deem is important to teach to the youth of our society. However, decolonising  the curriculum is an issue that has been prominent in the education sector over some years.  Over the years this realisation that the curriculum teaches from Eurocentric and postcolonial outlook has highlighted areas where we must make a change. One concern has been mentioned in this Guardian article as it refers to a lack of representation in students' reading list. This has led to creation of a narrow outlook within the curriculum wherein white hetero male authors implicitly favoured over minority ethnic writers. In result of this, it has introduced a systematic divide to the material available and puts the excellent work of BAME authors into the shadows. Evidently, BAME students must be able to see themselves reflected in the curriculum in order to see themselves as creators of knowledge. This is not to
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Code like a girl

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  Code Like a Girl Throughout my years in education, whether that be during my years in college or during my undergrad I have always found it difficult accepting the fact of being the only girl on my course. It never made sense  to me why computer science related subject was seen as male dominant subject. It raised the question to why it is seen as a male dominant subject? It is quite shocking that even today in the 21st century an eyebrow is always raised when I introduce what kind of background I belong to. Something which I defiently want to change. Whilst researching I came to know that women were in fact one of the very first computer scientists to exist. In the era of the WW2 women were mostly known for working within software and being one of the first every computer scientists? All we need to do is pay attention to this matter, we are always to quickly name famous male computer scientists but what about the famous female ones? None of can even think of a name. All we need to do
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How the Internet affects Developing Societies

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In human history, there is no doubt that the internet is one of our greatest achievements. The ability to access a range of information at the touch of our fingertips, to connect instantly to people all over the world in less than a second. It is so intrinsic to our lifestyles in the modern world that the United Nations have declared access to the internet as a human right. In accordance with this, we have seen technology deployed all over the world both in developed and developing countries. However, the conversation of how the internet could affect a previously disconnected society is rarely discussed - many people often assume that the world is connected already. However, as of 2020 Q4 only 63.2% of the world's population has confirmed access to the internet. There is also a gender gap regarding internet access - women in Africa are 50% less likely to have internet access compared to men. In Indonesia, men are only slightly more likely to have internet access than women, but a
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Computer Scientists, are we showing all the role models?

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  If you do a search in google with the term “computer scientist” you will realise that at first glance most of the results you get are men, and all are white.  Image 1: Google search results “computer scientist”. Source: google search, 4th Feb 2020 However, with little research one will discover that this does not represent with fairness the story of computer science. William Lau, a computer science teacher who has a great amount of excellent resources for Computer Science teachers in his page , did a great poster which shows the diversity of the pioneers in tech, highlighting that there were and are many women and non-white people that have done a huge contribution to what today computer science is.      Image 2:  BAME Pioneers in Tech.  Source: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/5/folders/12VdfGYg1eLV1vCxXHtV-5xMbJRg7BzZ4   The poster is fantastic, showing clearly how pioneering work comes from different places, and that there is representation from all genders and races. Beca
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Impact of Technology: E-Waste in Africa

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  The national curriculum often focuses on how technology is a benefit to our lives as a society - we create new programs and machines to solve problems that we have identified. It also covers the dangers that technology has on our personal lives, such as staying safe with the seemingly never-ending development of social media. However, the curriculum avoids going into detail about the negative aspects that constant development of technology has on the physical world, especially in areas such as Africa. The largest problem that affects the developing world would be that of e-waste (electronic waste). E-waste can be defined as "electrical or electronic equipment that has been discarded," according to  this website  dedicated to information about e-waste.  Introducing the Issue There are many reasons that e-waste represents a large issue with technology, including human-related and environmental damage. With the disappointing issue of "planned obsolescence" now becomi
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