Hacktivism and the male-only stereotype

This research explores hacktivism as a new form of online political activism. It uses qualitative interviews with a gender-equal sample of 10 self-defined hacktivists to address issues of gender and the discursive strategies used by males and females to handle the hacktivist community’s male-only stereotype. The semi-structured interviews are analysed using Foucauldian discourse analysis (FDA). The analysis indicates that male hacktivists relate to this dominant male-only representation through discursive techniques such as the suppression of gender (Male Oblivious Discourse) or mechanisms of vindication (Male Justification Discourse). Female hacktivists use the accentuation of gender and sexism to counteract male-dominant discourses and establish Female Discourses of Resistance (Emphasis Discourse; Negation Discourse). These gender-related argumentative positions and rhetorical mechanisms demonstrate how the male-only stereotype is created and maintained and how it affects not only hacktivists’ talk and sense-making but also their identity and the hacktivist actions they perform

The Wooster Voice (Wooster, OH), 1984-10-12

This edition includes articles about: the continuation of a forum investigating social and political implications of genetic research with speakers Sheldon Krimsky and Zsolt Harsanyi, both scientists with experience in genetic research; a review of Computer Center use and policy; a convocation performance of various tall tales; Women\u27s Week articles including a definition of the Women\u27s Resource Center, a presentation about sexism in advertising, and a program called Women Negative, Black Women Double Negative focusing on the personal experiences of women on Wooster\u27s campus; and an explanation of the Hacker\u27s Club and its purpose of expanding campus awareness of the opportunities of technology.https://openworks.wooster.edu/voice1981-1990/1090/thumbnail.jp

Experiencing Racial Profiling: Process, Effects and Explanations

What are the effects of profiling a minority group? I propose that being profiled lowers an individual\u27s opinions of police as well as harms the police-community relationship. I analyze the results of a snowball sample consisting of qualitative interviews of six young African American males who think they have been racially profiled. The interviews were conducted in 2003 and 2004. A look at the process of racial profiling is included, and several explanations for law enforcement behavior emerged out of the interviews, including ideas of black criminality, acceptance, disrespect, and the presence of window tint. Furthermore, several significant effects emerged including a lowering of opinion on law enforcement, the detailing of a tension between citizens and police, and an analysis of respondent views on the quality of policing. The respondent beliefs about the importance of race and image symbols as well as neighborhood context as determinants of police attention also emerged. The results illustrate that there are several significant drawbacks to the practice of racially profiling young African American men

Hackers: a case-study of the social shaping of computing

The study is an examination of hacking, placing the act in the context of theories of technological change. The account of hacking is used to substantiate those theories that emphasise the societal shaping of technology over the notion of technological determinism. The evolution of hacking is traced, showing how it reflects changing trends in the nature of information: the most vivid of these is the conceptualisation of information known as 'cyberspace'. Instead of simply cataloguing the impact of technical changes within computing, and the effects they have had upon information, the study shows how technical change takes place in a process of negotiation and conflict between groups.The two main groups analysed are those of the Computer Underground (CU) and the Computer Security Industry (CSI). The experiences and views of both groups are recounted in what constitute internalist and externalist accounts of hacking and its significance. The internalist account is the evidence provided by hackers themselves. It addresses such issues as what motivates the act of hacking; whether there is an identifiable hacking culture; and why it is almost an exclusively male activity. The externalist account contains the perceptions of hacking held by those outside the activity.The state of computing's security measures and its vulnerability to hacking is described, and evidence is provided of the extent to which hacking gives rise to technical knowledge that could be of potential use in the fixing of security weaknesses. The division within the CSI between those broadly cooperative with hackers and those largely hostile to them is examined, and the reasons why hacking knowledge is not generally utilised are explored. Hackers are prevented from gaining legitimacy within computing in a process referred to as 'closure'. Examples include hackers being stigmatised through the use of analogies that compare their computing activities to conventional crimes such as burglary and tresspass.Stigmatisation is carried out by the CSI who use it in a process of professional boundary formation to distinguish themselves from hackers. It is also used by other authority figures such as Members of Parliament whose involvement in the process of closure takes the form of the anti-hacking legislation they have passed, an analysis of which concludes this study

The New Moral Power of Minorities

The model of three interrelated social entities proposed by Gabriel Mugny to account for the role of active minorities in social innovation and change retains all its relevance and heuristic value (cf. Mugny, 1982). However, the fight of the civil rights movements of the ’60s transformed the moral perspective from which the majority regards their own behaviors towards social minorities. This resulted in an immorality judgment of discriminatory attitudes and behaviors that had long been regarded as natural. Thus a change has been effected on the relationships between majority and minority groups, providing minorities with a new moral power. As a result of such a new moral representation of persecuted minorities, a new category of minorities – victimized minorities – has appeared. In this paper two studies are reviewed comparing the influence of victimized minorities and ‘classical’ active minorities. Those studies show that victimized minorities attain more manifest influence than active minorities, while active minorities effect greater latent change on the representation of the minority group

Equal access, knowledge, and empowerment: promoting inclusion in sex education and reproductive health care for Humboldt County\u27s Spanish speaking population

Humboldt County which was a white, working class economy, has recently seen a growing Latino migrant population, doubling from 6% in the year 2000, to nearly 12% in 2016. [Census 2016] Many of these migrants are undocumented and their command of and comfort with using English ranges from fluent to nearly nothing. Women and children from this population may especially be affected by local policy and systems, due to gender and age disparities. The barriers towards health care services extend when considering sexual and reproductive health, which has wavering support and funding in the current political climate. This ethnography examines both the experiences of Latina migrants and Spanish speaking youth in Humboldt County, and their experiences with sexual/reproductive health services and sex education. Methods include participant observation in healthcare, educational and community settings, qualitative interviews, and a survey administered with middle school youth. The narratives and observations have been collected in order to better understand the existing structural barriers and how they affect these individuals. This research concludes that fear of deportation, cultural and religious values, language barriers, and institutionalized gender inequality have created systemic barriers to access in this population. In order to mitigate these barriers, it is recommended that programs take time to understand these structural barriers, through education for providers on structural competency and that reproductive health services increase and maintain an intersectional feminist approach. In addition, the development of outreach and advocacy programs for Spanish speaking populations, and mandatory healthy relationships education for youth, assist in lessening these disparities by meeting Spanish speakers where they are at and educating them about services

The Capitalist Socius and Videogame Production: Autopoietic Subjectivation Monsters

Diverse representations of bodies in videogames have become a point of contention among developers and consumers alike, which has led scholars to question why videogame production is breaking with trends of recognizable, anthropocentric characters in favor of “diverse” bodies. This paper contends that the overarching reason for this is that the capitalist socius (Deluze and Guattari, 1986) has become more readily equipped to be able to monetize and streamline diversity. Instead of diversity and inclusivity in videogames being an act of subversion that was often only done outside of formal videogame production, the capitalist socius and videogame production have adapted the necessary material discursive apparatuses to turn diversity into a form of capital-general. The mechanisms by which videogame production recruits and retains workers via their passion also offers insight into how these material-discursive apparatuses are forming. In examining how the capitalist socius overlays onto the videogame production process, a few things become apparent. Because videogame production operates within the capitalist socius, its goals are similar: to become autopoietic (able to reach a point of homeostasis in which the entity is able to reproduce and maintain its structural integrity), and to turn any and all resources into sources of capital generation. The expectation of bodies working in these regimes is to be as non-threatening and as pliable to new modes of subjectivation and capital generation as possible, but that means that bodies must undergo certain political transformations to adhere to these needs of the capitalist socius and videogame production processes

Hacks, Cracks, and Crime: An Examination of the Subculture and Social Organization of Computer Hackers

This dissertation examines both the subculture and social organization practices of computer hackers. The concept of normative orders (Herbert, 1998: 347) is used to explore hacker subculture in different contexts. To assess hacker social organization, I use Best and Luckenbill¿s (1994) framework of organizational sophistication as well as measures from Decker et al. (1998). The relationships between subculture, social organization, and behavior are explored as well. I collected three qualitative data sets to explore these issues, including posts from six on-line hacker discussion forums, in-depth interviews with active hackers, and field observations at the Defcon 12 hacker convention. These data were triangulated and used to investigate the research questions. The findings suggest the social world of hackers is shaped by five normative orders: technology, knowledge, commitment, categorization, and law. These orders are interrelated, and overwhelmingly influenced by technology. Furthermore, hackers tend to perform hacks alone, but have relatively loose social networks that are used to share information and introduce subcultural norms to new hackers. These networks are couched in a larger hacker community that provided access to a variety of resources and materials. Finally, this analysis demonstrates the dynamic relationships between subculture, social organization, and behavior. I found that subculture and social organization structure the nature of deviant relationships, norms, and behavior. At the same time, the nature of deviant acts appears to influence social organization and subculture. I also discuss the implications for research on computer hackers and crime generally

The attitudes of police officers towards mental health services

The purpose of this study was to investigate the attitudes of police officers toward mental health services and the perceptions of police departments toward the promotion of dependable support systems and mandatory counseling in the work environment. Understanding the culture and norms within a law enforcement agency is critical to the well-being of officers and the communities they serve

Women and the Word : issues of power, control and language in social and religious life

Bibliography: pages 151-157.The intention of this thesis is to offer a perspective on the current debate over women's place in Western religious institutions, i.e. the Judaeo-Christian tradition; and to provide a way of thinking about those issues which will lead to a positive, progressive and realistic vision of co-humanity, and a method of achieving it. The thorny battleground of the "women's debate", as it is inaccurately named, was not my original choice of thesis topic. A lifelong commitment to feminist principles has been matched with an equally lengthy wariness regarding society's attitude towards such matters. Also, the understandable obsession of South African religious studies departments, and journals, with the issue of racism has had the inevitable result of trivializing the related issue of sexism as secondary. The narrowness of such thinking has led to strange distortions, including the belief that evil can somehow be 'ranked' and that there can be a 'hierarchy' of oppression. My intentions changed during a search of religious publications and journals while completing a post-graduate assignment. It was abundantly apparent that the scale of the debate on women's place in religion was fast outstripping most other debates. However, it was not an area which had been treated locally with seriousness. It had unfolded into a comprehensive and highly contentious debate in North American and British campuses and religious institutions, and the proliferation of books and articles on the subject by not only theologians but also sociologists, anthropologists and linguists had greatly extended the platform and the level on which the debate was to be fought. It appeared that women working in many fields were laying claim to religion, and were engaging issues which had previously been left to the handful of articulate women working at least nominally within orthodox structures