Sexing Code

"Sexing Code is a highly instructive and profound discussion on the contemporary and historic situation of women in the traditionally male dominated world of computer programming as well as on the representation of female programmers in the media . . . Herbst vividly shows that the act of programming is not randomly associated with men and that it is in fact the substantial political and economical meaning and agency of codes that guarantees and stabilizes this close association." - Andreas Jahn-Sudmann, Ph.D. Co-editor of Computer Games as a Sociocultural Phenomenon: Games Without Frontiers - War Without Tears."Claudia Herbst’s new book is an important contribution to the discussions concerned with women’s participation in code cultures. Sexing Codes incorporates both critique of media representations and the views and experiences of women in programming in order to unravel “the historical and visual milieu within which code culture is embedded.” Herbst guides her readers through an impressive range of examples, stories and contexts, from the marginalization of women in histories of computing to the gender dynamics of software culture, from the representations of female hackers in journalism and Hollywood film, to the works and views of female media artists." - Susanna Paasonen, Ph.D. Author of Figures of Fantasies.