Q: 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

What are the roles of

in technology?

How does

technology affect

you:

Q: HOW CAN WE EXPLORE GENDER AND

TECHNOLOGY?

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 feminism

o ecofeminism

o socialist feminism

FOR EXPLORING GENDER & TECHNOLOGY

• 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”?

• 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.

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?

Females 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

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?

• 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, autonomo

us 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.

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, hierarchic

al 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/positio

n in technology?

Rejects 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

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?

• 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)

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 Question

What 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.

Cockburn, C. (1983). Brothers: Male dominance and technological change.London: Pluto Press.

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

Grint, K., & Gill, R. (1995). The gender-technology relation: Contemporarytheory 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, fromhttp://internetfrauen.w4w.net/archiv/cyberfem.txt

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

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

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