Emilia Nercessians: GENDER, TECHNOLOGY, AND REDEFINITION OF POWER RELATIONSHIP

EMILIA NERCISSIANSEMILIA NERCISSIANS

Department of Anthropology, Social Sciences Department of Anthropology, Social Sciences Faculty, University of Tehran, IranFaculty, University of Tehran, Iran

[email protected] [email protected]

GENDER, TECHNOLOGY, AND REDEFINITION OF POWER

RELATIONSHIP

AGENDA

• UNESCO’S Strategies : Base of

discussion

• Gender and Technology : Relationship

• Types of Universities : Historical

Approach

• Statistics

• Comparative study : UT and AUA

• Concluding Remarks

UNESCO contributing to peace and human development in an era of globalization through education, the sciences, culture

and communication

Three Main Strategic Thrusts

Developing and promoting universal principles and norms, based on shared values, in order to meet emerging challenges in education, science, culture and communication and to protect and strengthen the "common public good".

Promoting pluralism, through recognition and safeguarding of diversity together with the observance of human rights.

Promoting empowerment and participation in the emerging knowledge society through equitable access, capacity-building and sharing of knowledge

Two Cross-Cutting Themes

Eradication of poverty, especially extreme poverty

The contribution of information and communication technologies to the development of education, science, culture and the construction of a knowledge society

UNESCO’s Medium-Term Strategy 2002-2007(31 C/4)

…and 12 Strategic Objectives and international development targets to be met

One can conclude:• Emancipation through Education

• Awareness through Education

• Liberation through Education

• Breaking barriers through Education

• Health through Education

• Friendship through Education

• Hope through Education

• EMPOWERMENT THROGH EDUCATION

• Technology as reproducing traditional gender power relations; exclusion of women

• Masculine cultural dominance of technology

• Women as incapable of using technology

• Women as passive users of technology

• Technology as constructed around men’s interests

• Technology as liberating women from their constraints, endowing them with powers they did not have before

• Subverting the intended purposes of technology

• The potential of technology to challenge gender power relations

• Reconstructing technology around women’s interests

• Women and interpersonal communication technologies

The relationship between gender and technology

Troubled and problematic Empowering and liberating

Women and the Internet

the embeddedness of the Internet within wider public discourses, societal and economic power relation as Political economyInferior relationship;Flaming, trolling and online practices of sexual harassment: the persistence of traditional gender power relations and domination in cyberspace Questions on Women’s status in developmental contexts: what are the consequences of women’s online activity for the material conditions of their lives? Have these conditions changed or

remained disregarded ?

Cyberfeminism, believes that “women weaving the web”: the capacity of the networked organisation of the World Wide Web to erode or subvert the culture of masculine dominance .

Online spaces as “safe” spaces, are

enabling women to evade unpleasant practices

Post-modern approaches, towards

cybertechnology is as enabling the experiment with a new sense of self, gender-free and fluid; reconfiguration of gender categories.

Reproduction of masculine dominance

Empowerment and liberation

Donna Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Donna Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," in Twentieth Century," in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of NatureSimians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York; (New York;

Routledge, 1991), pp.149-181.Routledge, 1991), pp.149-181.

• A cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction.

By the late twentieth

century, our time, a

mythic time, we are all

chimeras, theorized and

fabricated hybrids of

machine and organism; in

short, we are cyborgs.

Efforts to bridge the “Digital Divide”

Public actions

e-awarenesse-infrastructuree-readiness

e-aspects

e-technologye-industrye-society

Individual efforts

literacymedia literacycomputer literacynetwork literacy

To achieve anTo achieve ane-society of fulle-society of fulle-readiness with e-readiness with

citizens of advanced citizens of advanced network literacy.network literacy.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

• How the University of Tehran can

promote the use of information

technology, especially by its female

students.

The university has to find solutions because:

it has to adapt to the global scale shifts

associated with transition to cyberera

it must adapt to rapid technology changes

it must adapt to a more participatory and

gender symmetric environment

• Electronic learning, and use of information technology

and knowledge management techniques are important for

maintaining the academic excellence and assuring the

provision of quality education to its students.

• They are also important because the university must

respond to the changing needs and expectations of its

stakeholders

• It is especially important for the university to resolve the

problem of technology utilization by both genders because

it has to act as an agent for change in the broader polity

Moving From Atoms to Bytes

Machine

Mechanical Power

• Hierachies

• Cause-effect

• Command and control

• Assembly line production, welfare state

Computer

Power to calculate

• Binary Thinking

• Pre-programmed

• Speed & precision

• Rengineering organizations

Brain

Power to Think/Learn

• Self-organized

• Life-long learning

• Network based

• Virtual + Real Interactions

• Strategic thinking

• Risk Management

Mechanics Informatics Infonautics (navigation)Late 19th Century, first

half 20th CenturySecond half of 20th

CenturyLate 20th Century and first

decade of 21st Century

13th Century 18th Century 20th Century

Evolution of Universities as Part of Societal Transformation and Knowledge Transformation

Integrative Scholarship

1650

Teaching1850

Service1950

Universities TransversitiesMultiversities

University of Faith University of Reason University of CommunicationUniversity of Consilience

Integrative University

Medievalism Enlightenment

Post-Modernism TransmodernismModernism

Local National GlobalInternational

Agrarian Age Industrial Age Knowledge Age

( Post-Post-Modernism )

Research

Logical Hierarchical Holistic, Organic

CopernicusDescartes

KantDarwin

Maxwell, BohmWilbur

Peirce Wheatley

IRANIAN CONTEXT:EMPLOYMENT BY GENDER

UNEMPLOYMENT RATES; (urban and rural)

Highest among young urban women

Women’s employment rate distributions

High among mid-aged women with university education

•

University Admissions

Applicants for University Entrance Examination 2006-2011

Year Total # of Applicants

Male%

Female%

Accepted

2006 1343843 41.4 58.6 410000

2007 1341629 35 65 507000

2008 1335000 36 64 437069

2009 1252000 37 62.7 524769

2010 1286812 60 40 518000

2011 138000 60.5 39.5 ___

Number of students

Teaching staff

University StaffMail & Female

Recent Statistics

• Total number in Iran– 26714 Univ. Staff

– 5714 Female 21.4%

– 21000 Male 68.6%

• University Staff in State Universities of Tehran– 4512 Univ. Staff

– 743 Female 16.5%

– 3769 Male 83.5%

The 7Cs 1. Cost

2. Capacity 3. Content

4. Creativity 5. Culture 6. Conflict

7.Cenorship

Seven main obstacles which does not let the usage of ICT

conclusion

• A two way learning process constitutes the main vision of this research.

• Female students must overcome all difficulties (problem of 7 C’s Cost, Capacity, Content, Creativity, Culture, Conflict, Censorship) and learn alongside the male students, to use technology effectively.

• The university as a learning organization, must learn from its female students to develop new ways of dealing with technology (disengendering technology utilization).

USE OF IT BY STUDENTS AT UT

• Internet also used by male students more often than

female students ( %62.5 male and %36.5 female

students)

• Female students send and receive emails, chat, and use

Internet for purchasing and recreation more often than

males;

• Males, use the Internet mostly to get news or to search

for matters of interest

GENDER, TECHNOLOGY, AND HIGHER EDUCATION AT AUA

A smaller scale investigation, using the same

methodology, was subsequently carried out for

identifying the rate, purpose, and different usage

techniques of the Internet by male and female

students in the American University of Armenia

The purpose was to identify those differences so as

to try to enhance users’ Internet experiences.

• Female students were more careful about new things; they wanted to know more before trying; they were not too inclined towards innovation and wanted to do things as they had done before. Male students, on the other hand, considered themselves as more proficient in computers than females.

• Students in Engineering and Business colleges were more proficient in computers than those of English and Political Science.

• Students generally used the Internet as means for improving their social status, and their career opportunities, and becoming engaged in social networks.

• The investigation revealed that majority of the students of both genders enjoyed using computers and considered the cyberspace as effective means for passive as well as active participation in news groups and accessing enormous amount of electronic materials.

ENGENDERED SMART ENVIRONMENTS

Regeneration of masculinity and femininity in smart environments takes place both through ascription of gendered roles to technology users and direct engendering of smart devices themselves.

A substantive approach on the future of technology in society must be shaped not just by what the technologies can offer, but must also take into account factors influencing popular attitudes and propensities towards utilization of available technologies.

Context awareness has been argued to be an important factor in endowing smart environments with communicative and cultural competences necessary for quick adoption of ambient intelligent technologies especially where solidarity oriented ideologies predominate.

• The prevalence of cognitivist attitudes towards intelligence, however, pose a major problem hindering the progress of technologies related to intelligent systems and devices.

• With the advent of computational intelligence and the associated philosophies of connectionism and situated action, attention has shifted towards more biomotivated, embodied and collectivist views of intelligence.

• Ambient Intelligence refers to a vision of the future knowledge based society where intelligent interfaces enable people and devices to interact with each other and with the environment.

• Too much cognitive intelligence and too little communicative and cultural competence will make the device utilization hard and unpleasant.

• It is very important in the case of sociotechnical systems to determine who will control their actions and who will benefit from the provision of their services.

• Networking for change is important not only for responding to the rapid shifts in our surroundings and taking advantage of the opportunities created by the technology via exchanging our theoretical findings and practical experiences, but also shaping the future path of technological progress and modes of its utilization.

• It can be argued that the networking approaches, in any learning organization, are best suited for the contemporary needs of the academia in a rapidly changing world.

• From a system point of view the network can be viewed as an evolving autopoetic system.

• Recent developments in distributed artificial intelligence and the convergence of new technologies from telecommunications, distributed computing, multimedia, and databases now make possible a network of diverse but interconnected educational and learning entities

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