Organizing Feminist Activism Through a Newsletter Network: The Association for Women in Computing, 1978–91

During the 1970s, women increasingly entered computer science as a field but in 1984 bachelor computer science programs started to graduate fewer women.2 Starting in 1978, the national Association for Women in Computing promoted gender issues in technology through newsletters, conferences, and networking. Despite the existence of this network of activists, scholars have yet to examine how women technologists viewed their industry and the hardships that they endured during the 1980s, instead of relying on the commentary of technology journalists, most of whom identified as men. This project examines how the organizers of the Association for Women in Computing built a collective activist network across the United States to support opportunities for their members using newsletter content. They designed their activities from their perspectives and experiences to meet the needs of their members who faced gender discrimination. The Association for Women in Computing addressed the gender gap in the technology industry for its members by collecting and distributing information around localized recruitment, networking, organizing national events, providing training, and sharing field information. Issues that these women rallied around included equal rights in the workforce such as pay and sexual harassment. Their concerns, however, also extended into career development, discussions around the exclusionary labeling of technical skills and job roles often held by women technologists, and gaining affiliations with male-dominated technology associations. Despite their unifying efforts, the decline of women technologists in computing fields continued, and the AWC shifted their activism to include scholarship funds and awards. Their activism, however, became obsolete while failing to adapt to the causes and needs of technologists who identified as people of color and LGBTQ+ as seen in future organizing.