Week 6 lecture slides

GENDER & TECHNOLOGYEDF6442

PRESENTED BY SHU-HUA CHAO

Gender & TechnologyQ: What have the experts asked and said about gender and

technology?Does technology liberate women and encourage equality, or are the new technologies reinforcing sexual divisions in society?

Does the problem lie in men’s monopoly of technology, or is technology itself in some sense patriarchal? - Judy Wajcman

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

Liberation rests on the construction of the consciousness, the imaginative apprehension, of oppression, and so of possibility. - Donna Haraway

Men care about establishing a hierarchy whereas women care about connecting with others…

Women's reluctance to judge is...a recognition of the intricacies of real-world situations, and the uniqueness of individuals' experiences. - Carol Gilligan

Your thoughts…

What are the roles of

in technology?

Males/Females

How does technology affect you:

as a student?

as a teacher?

A: Use a feminist theory

Q: HOW CAN WE EXPLORE GENDER AND TECHNOLOGY?

Using a feminist theory

Grint and Gill (1995) state that there is a cultural association of technology with masculinity,

Feminism interrogates the gendered process of exclusion and segregation of technology creation and use

Webster (1995) argues that feminist analyses of technology mainly use:

o liberal feminismo ecofeminismo socialist feminism

Feminist approachesFOR EXPLORING GENDER & TECHNOLOGY

Liberal feminism• Perceives technology as inherently neutral

• Women's pure relationship to technology has been made problematic

• Technology itself is not submitted to critical analysis, and women themselves become the problem

• Gender is significant yet irrelevant to technology creation and practice (Grint & Gill, 1995)

A patriarchal society establishes the relationship between sexes and IT by: a) assigning women with tedious,

eye-straining electronic assembly b) allowing men to predominate in

the decision-making and design (Cockburn, 1983)

How does this relate to the

“gendering of technology”?

Socialist feminism

• 20th century - capitalism favours interests of the dominant class

• This Marxist social theory influences which is later referred to as “the social shaping of technology” (Rosser, 2006).

• Technology is not only a social product but also comprises of human activities

• The focus: place gender and class on equal stance in shaping technology.

• Reinforces sexual division of labour and wage labour.

Yet social shaping of technology has often been contextualised in terms of males but excluding females at all levels.

Racial/ethnic feminism

African American feminism uncovers the role of race in the distribution of the technology labour market.

Women of colour are disproportionately distributed in the lowest paying and highest health-risk related parts of the technology workforce (Rosser, 2006).

As knowledge and consideration of users are central to the technology design, a design team consisting of mixed gender and racial diversity are essential in creating diversity in technology design.

What benefits can female engineers from other races

bring to the design and production of

technologies?

Essentialist/eco feminismFemales are united by biology, including gender differences in spatial and verbal abilities and other behaviours (Rosser, 2006).

The behavioural variable of aggression and its associated competitive nature of engineering and computer science explain why females have not entered these fields in great numbers.

Males’ inability to conceive make them shift their intention to control the right of developing technologies and to dominate the natural world and females (Easlea, 1983).

• Eco-feminism represents one strand of essentialist feminism

• Used to explain either superiority or inferiority of females to males, based on biological differences

Existentialist feminism

Existentialist feminism suggests the value that society assigns to biological differences between males and females make women the “other” (Tong, 1980).

Females’ roles as the predominant caretakers of babies and children result in more technologies invented for childcare by females than males.

Males who spend less time doing tasks which most females fulfil create a language which is male-exclusive only.

Can you think of gender specific technologies

produced by the opposite sex?

Why?

Psychoanalytic feminism

• Based on the Freudian theory

• Biological differences lead to different ways for young males and females

• Male dominance is examined during the construction of gender and sexuality in the oedipal stage of psychosexual development (Rosser, 2006)

• Male computer scientists design technologies using a “hard-systems” approach

• Encouraged to be independent, autonomous and distant

• Reflect characteristics of masculinity

Females as users of technology: • find technologies fails to deliver the results they need,

• the design does not include their views, priorities and needs.

Radical feminism Beliefs:• patriarchy dominates

all institutions, ideologies and technologies

• females experience difficulties in placing their experiences, lives and needs in everyday life and environments.

• Believes in connection and conception of the world as an organic whole

• Refuses dualistic, hierarchical approaches and dichotomies which fragment the organic whole of reality

• Practically no alternative feminist technologies

• Masculinity and patriarchy have become so deeply rooted in contemporary technologies

How do men limit women’s power/position in technology?

Postmodern feminismRejects the idea that all females speak in a unified voice or they should be universally addressed.

Females can no longer be seen as homogenous due to specific national, class and cultural identities (Rosser, 2006).

Simplistic assumptions in technology designs: • ignore females’ needs and priorities• assume females are uniform across all social classes, nationalities and cultures

Postcolonial feminism Central beliefs:• patriarchy

dominates throughout the postcolonial and neo-colonial periods

• culture, science and technology of the coloniser or former colonising countries may still remain superior (Rosser, 2006)

Due to new technologies transcending boundaries of space and time, they were able to exploit sexual and racial divisions of labour.

Females from developing countries are preferred for: • high technical &

English proficiency • relatively high

productivity• low labour costs

What do you know of the

technology taking place between

the former colonies and the

colonisers?

Cyberfeminism

• The theory that overtly fuses technology with gender

• Explores ways IT provide venues to liberate or oppress females

Believes in the potential of the Internet and technologies as allowing new opportunities for jobs and creativity for women (Millar, 1998).

This theory may be an end to male superiority because it:• offers a route for reconstructing feminist politics • focuses on the implications of new technologies

rather than divisive factors (Paterson, 1994)

An activityUSE A FEMINIST APPROACH TO

EXPLORE YOUR RESEARCH

An example...Research Problem

• Limited numbers of females studying information technology (IT)

• Only 20% of commencing students were female in 2004

• Lack of female participation in Australian IT tertiary education

Research QuestionWhat are the factors influencing female undergraduates’ participation in CS degrees in Australia?

Postmodern feminist approach examines:• the constructions of gender in a socially constructed,

hegemonic male space

• the qualities which females may need to bring into a male world to succeed

• the learning approaches by gender

• Males prefer a formal, hierarchical planning approach

• Females prefer an interactive approach (Turkle & Papert, 1990)

1. Go to http://www.text2mindmap.com/2. Create a mindmap by typing in in the left

column.3. List ideas into branches by indenting using

the “Tab” key or hold “Shift” + “Tab” together.

4. Change colours or font sizes (if you like) using the “Controls” column on the right.

5. Finish the mindmap by clicking button on the left.

6. Click once you have finished creating your mindmap.

7. Upload your mindmap as an attachment in the “Mindmapping Activity” discussion forum.

Mindmapping activity (20 – 30 min)

Shu’s mindmap

ReferencesCockburn, C. (1983). Brothers: Male dominance and technological change.

London: Pluto Press.

Easlea, B. (1983). Fathering the unthinkable: Masculinity, scientists and the nuclear arms race. London: Pluto Press.

Grint, K., & Gill, R. (1995). The gender-technology relation: Contemporary theory and research. London: Taylor and Francis.

Heeks, R. B. (1993). Software contracting to the third world. In P. Quintas (Ed.), Social dimensions of systems engineering: People, processes, policies and software development (pp. 236-250). Elmsford, New York: Pergamon Press.

Millar, M. S. (1998). Cracking the gender code: Who rules the wired world? Toronto: Second Story Press.

Paterson, N. (1994). Cyberfeminism. Retrieved March, 29, 2010, from http://internetfrauen.w4w.net/archiv/cyberfem.txt

Rosser, S. V. (2006). Using the lenses of feminist theories to focus on women and technology. In M. F. Fox, D. G. Johnson & S. V. Rosser (Eds.), Women, gender and technology (pp. 13-46). Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Tong, R. (1980). Feminist thought: A comprehensive introduction. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.

Webster, J. (1995). Shaping women's work: Gender, employment and information technology. New York: Longman.

THANK YOU FOR ATTENDING THIS SEMINAR!

I WISH YOU ALL THE BEST FOR YOUR FUTURE STUDIES AND RESEARCH!