Data Feminism: Discussion with the Author

A new way of thinking about data science and data ethics that is informed by the ideas of intersectional feminism.
We are thrilled to have a discussion about data, inequality, gender, and race with the author of Data Feminism Dr. Catherine D'Ignazio. The evening will begin with a recorded presentation Dr. D'Ignazio and her co-author Dr. Lauren Klein made about their book on data science and data ethics through the prism of intersectional feminism. Dr. D'Ignazio will then join us live to answer questions and continue the discussion with us!

Come learn about the Dr. D'Ignazio's work that has been lauded as "required reading for data scientists looking to conduct their craft responsibly"!

Book Description:
Today, data science is a form of power. It has been used to expose injustice, improve health outcomes, and topple governments. But it has also been used to discriminate, police, and surveil. This potential for good, on the one hand, and harm, on the other, makes it essential to ask: Data science by whom? Data science for whom? Data science with whose interests in mind? The narratives around big data and data science are overwhelmingly white, male, and techno-heroic. In Data Feminism, Catherine D'Ignazio and Lauren Klein present a new way of thinking about data science and data ethics—one that is informed by intersectional feminist thought.
Illustrating data feminism in action, D'Ignazio and Klein show how challenges to the male/female binary can help challenge other hierarchical (and empirically wrong) classification systems. They explain how, for example, an understanding of emotion can expand our ideas about effective data visualization, and how the concept of invisible labor can expose the significant human efforts required by our automated systems. And they show why the data never, ever “speak for themselves.”
Data Feminism offers strategies for data scientists seeking to learn how feminism can help them work toward justice, and for feminists who want to focus their efforts on the growing field of data science. But Data Feminism is about much more than gender. It is about power, about who has it and who doesn't, and about how those differentials of power can be challenged and changed.

Bio:
Catherine D’Ignazio is a scholar, and artist/designer, and hacker mama who focuses on feminist technology, data literacy and civic engagement. She has run women’s health hackathons, designed global news recommendation systems, created talking and tweeting water quality sculptures, and led walking data visualizations to envision the future of sea level rise. D’Ignazio is an assistant professor of Urban Science and Planning in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT where she is the Director of the Data + Feminism Lab