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Gender and Computer EthicsA Discussion

Gender and Computer Ethics by Alison Adam,December 2000

Presentation by Joel Cieslak

Bruce Maxim, CIS 4951, Fall 2010

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Introduction

Main question: Does gender make a difference inethical decisions?

2 strands of writing covered:

1) Women's access to computer technology 2) Where there are differences between men and

women's ethical decision-making in relation toinformation and computer technologies.

Most traditional ethical theories ignore gender

Paper views gender-based ethics in terms of feministethics

Privacy? Power?

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Barriers and Pipelines Number of women, through every level of

employment in computing remain low still anunsolved problem?

Ethics problem or Access problem?

Labeling it an ethics problem more than an accessproblem takes the focus away from women's failureto take up computing opportunities and putsresponsibility on computer industry to be moreinclusive to women

Paper argues that little has changed for women inthe computer industry in the last 20 years

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Men's and Women's Moral

Decision-Making Is there a difference? 2 conclusions based of quantitative research:

Women are more ethical OR No difference

Mason and Murdock study (1996) Questionnaire for undergrad & grad business

students

Found no difference in ethical decisions for studentsnot employed full-time, BUT women more ethical ofthose employed full-time

McDonald and Pak's (1996)

Both cultural and gender related

Found no major difference between genders, just adifference for cultures

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Men's and Women's Moral

Decision-Making (continued) Khazachi's (1996) found women more ethical Bisselt and Shipton's (1999)

Women are more ethical and more considerate of

others' feelings Escribano, Pena, and Extremera (1999)

Women are more interested in computer ethics thanmen

Kreie and Cronan's (1998) Men are less likely to consider an action unethical,

and rely more on their personal values and whetherthe action is legal

Women are more influenced by many environmental

cues AND their personal values

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Critique of Gender and Computer

Ethics Studies Student Population Not aware of possible power relationship between

researcher and subject

Researchers don't focus on those with work

experience

Quantitative vs Qualitative

Is what people say on a survey what they would doIRL?

Quantitative research was used in all researchexamples (no qualitative)

Interviewing? Observing? What method would youuse?

CONs: difficult to derive a conclusion, time-consuming

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Critique of Gender and Computer

Ethics Studies (continued) Quantitative vs Qualitative Bottom line: numbers cannot replace theoretical,

conceptual explanations

Ethical decisions vs Ethical Process

Different processes can arrive at the sameconclusion- should we focus more on the ethicalprocess? Too dissected?

Focusing only on decision might assume every

man/woman has universal fixed characteristics(stereotyping)

Lack of theory

Studies do not build on past studies, wheel iscontinuously being reinvented

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Critique of Gender and ComputerEthics Studies (continued)

Lack of theory

Studies are inconsistent?

Some researchers jump to generalized conclusionsbased on gender stereotypes

Ex: women have more goodness than men

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A Plea for Feminist Ethics

Privacy issues seem to be different for men/women

Power do white males make all the decisions in the

computing world? If theories that women and men's moral decision-

making is different, should this change how weapproach computing ethics? Is it a big deal?

Researcher Gilligan argues ethical development isdesigned to favor men

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Conclusion

There is not any substantial qualitative research tohelp us better understand the difference in ethicaldecision-making processes between men and

women. There are theories, but only weak quantitative

evidence to back it up

Ethical questions

Should there be a separate code of ethics for menand women? OR

Should one combined code of ethics try to suit bothmen and women's needs equally?