Ellen Ullman (b. 1949) is a software engineering consultant and writer based in San Francisco who has been involved in the computer industry since 1978. She is the author of Close to the Machine: Technophilia and Its Discontents (City Lights, 1997). Her writings have also appeared in Harper’s magazine and in several anthologies. This essay was published originally in Wired Women: Gender and New Realities in Cyberspace (ed. Lynn Cherny and Elizabeth Reba Wise, Seal Press, 1996).
"Come In, CQ: The Body on the Wire" (Composing Cyberspace p. 32) is not available
online.
1. What does Ullman mean by "programmer loneliness" or "engineering loneliness," and how does she use the story of her childhood neighbor Eugene to illustrate this phenomenon? If you’ve known someone like Eugene or the adult engineers described in the essay, how would you compare his or her personality to Ullman’s subjects?
2. What gender differences does Ullman emphasize in the way women and men use electronic technologies? Do you think these are stereotypical behaviors? In what ways do you think some gender stereotypes are questioned or subverted in this essay?
3. How does Ullman behave differently online and offline? What does she seem to feel is missing from her online experiences? What is the nature of the "odd intimacy" (¶ 72) she says that e-mail allowed her to achieve with Karl, and how do you think Ullman feels about this resolution of the affair?
4. What is the effect for you of Ullman’s ending the article with a report about the demise of the Morse code? How does this ending comment about what’s come before, or what ideas in the essay does it emphasize?
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