A Techno-Passion that is Not One: Rethinking Marginality, Exclusion, and Difference

Contemporary portrayals of the gender-computing relationship are limited in their perceptions and constructs. Dependent on overly generalized subjects (girls and women not much interested in computing) and a singular and all-consuming notion of what constitutes a passion for technology, girls and women are cast asuninterested bystanders or moral critics of computing. To varying degrees, girls’ and women’s disinterest is explained as an outcome of their techno-passion gap.Highlighting three women digital artists’ technology stories, I develop an alternative story that plays out in the marginal spaces of artists’ practices, performances, and reflective marginality. I begin with a broad and brief overview of three common gender-technology stories and elucidate some of their limitations. My focus turns to a mainstreamed educational and popular narrative that ‘girls and women just aren’t that into computing’. I argue for an alternate story that finds value in marginality and a web of ambivalent passions and ethical commitments that drive an artist’sinterests in technology.