Race differences in job performance and career success
Communications of the ACM
The incredible shrinking pipeline
Communications of the ACM
The impact of gender differences on the career experiences of information systems professionals
SIGCPR '01 Proceedings of the 2001 ACM SIGCPR conference on Computer personnel research
Toward improving female retention in the computer science major
Communications of the ACM
The social context of turnover among information technology professionals
SIGCPR '02 Proceedings of the 2002 ACM SIGCPR conference on Computer personnel research
SIGCPR '02 Proceedings of the 2002 ACM SIGCPR conference on Computer personnel research
Feminist Philosophy and Information Systems
Information Systems Frontiers
Triple jeopardy: race, gender and class politics of women in technology
SIGMIS CPR '03 Proceedings of the 2003 SIGMIS conference on Computer personnel research: Freedom in Philadelphia--leveraging differences and diversity in the IT workforce
Is there a retention gap for women and minorities? the case for moving in versus moving up
Strategies for managing IS/IT personnel
Women in information technology
Strategies for managing IS/IT personnel
An examination of gender effects on career success of information systems employees
Journal of Management Information Systems - Special section: Information technology and IT organizational impact
Information technology education and employment for women in Kenya
Proceedings of the 2006 ACM SIGMIS CPR conference on computer personnel research: Forty four years of computer personnel research: achievements, challenges & the future
IT Education and Workforce Participation: A New Era for Women in Kenya?
The Information Society
Understanding underrepresentation in IT through intersectionality
Proceedings of the 2012 iConference
Embracing intersectionality in gender and IT career choice research
Proceedings of the 50th annual conference on Computers and People Research
A structured review of IS research on gender and IT
Proceedings of the 2013 annual conference on Computers and people research
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In this paper, I examine how and why the situated knowledge and lived experiences of working-class African American women shape their standpoint on information technology (IT). Using the biblical metaphor of the exodus and narratives of ascent, these women view IT access and training as part of a strategy for escaping poverty and despair. Whereas most of the extant gender and IT research provides rich insights into the marginalization of women, the women in this study felt empowered by IT. This contradictory outcome has three implications for the study of gender and IT. First, researchers must consider the multiple identities such as gender, race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, and sexuality that shape and are shaped by women's engagement with IT. Second, the notion of IT workforce should take into account not only the highly skilled IT workers who design and build IT artifacts, but should also consider the lower skilled workers who indirectly use IT. Third, IT training programs that serve working-class women must go beyond the transfer of IT skills to individuals. They must also redress the persistent structural barriers of poverty, spatial isolation, illiteracy, sporadic work, and racial and ethnic discrimination that systematically limit women's ability to compete for jobs that provide higher incomes, greater safety, more security, full-time hours, increased benefits, higher status, and less stressful work environments.