Technology AND Gender Essay Examples

Taking into consideration the current status of technological progress, it is also worth noting that with each technological advancement, not only the well-being and level of comfort of humankind advances respectively, but also the significant change in social relationships takes place, especially in gender relations. In this regard, the contemporary scholars of feminist technology studies (FTS) have been researching the positive and negative influences of technological developments re-shaping the social relationships. Moreover, their attempt to discuss these influences has established an outstanding and coherent field of theoretical studies of technology and gender relations. Therefore, having considered the works of these scholars, it is worth stating that there is more than enough of adequate and exact theoretic knowledge related to emergent forms of social power existing in current technologically-advanced world; however, the number of works related to proving close association between the mainstream social and cultural anthropology and FTS appears to be significantly less in comparison (Bray, 2007). Therefore, the current paper will be devoted to figuring out the exact influences of technology upon the gender relations along with proving the place of FTS among the anthropological fields of science.
Correspondingly, the following paragraphs will consider the definition of FTS as a concept and a field of theoretical studies along with its methods and terms. Afterwards, the anthropology of technology will be discussed providing the corresponding theoretical and conceptual framework for considering the gender relations. Further, in order to put an emphasis on methodological and ideological contrasts between cultural and social analyses of technology’s impact on gender studies, the technology will be discussed in terms of two leading theoretical fields: the material culture studies and the anthropology of techno science – the most important fields of anthropology of globalization and modernity. The corresponding conclusions will summarize the overall project respectively.
Just like it has been stated previously, one of the most important and significant ways of gender’s expression within any social system of any nation is with the help technological advancements actual for the related social system. For example, technical skills and levels of technical expertise are distinguished between genders correspondingly, as the discriminative perception of male hunters and female basket-makers has been prevalent during centuries. The same is actual for the adult’s attitude towards children, as the similar traits and perceptions are being transferred from one generation to another. In particular, the boys are nowadays more often found interested in computer mechanics and programming, while girls are taking their time to develop and enhance their communication skills through emotions (Miller, 2004).
In particular, the contemporary world being based upon the heavy industrialization launched by Western nations is heavily sexually prejudiced towards the pioneers of this industrialization concerning the production of physical and intellectual goods, including technology. In particular, they are heavily coded as males being the naturally fit for cooperation with technical and technological progress, while females are supposed to potentially criticize and fear it on the contrary. Additionally, male role in terms of technological development presupposes males to be the producers and stimulators of technological development, while females are supposed to use the results of their work in order to make the life of both genders easier and more comfortable. Contemporary masculine association of technology with males is being expressed in casual social, working and cultural relationships. Correspondingly, the distribution of power over technology and being the driving force of its development is heavily masculinized, as a result (Bray, 2007). Therefore, it is worth agreeing with scholars stating that “since technology and gender are both socially constructed and socially pervasive, we can never fully understand one without also understanding the other” (Lohan, 2004).
It is also worth reminding that the new technological developments may appear unfamiliar and even threatening; therefore, in order to become successfully inserted into the casual life of the humanity, they need to be adapted to it, in other words “domesticated”. Thus, during this process people are gradually adapting to them along with gaining new skills, both communicational and technical in order to successfully use the result of technical developments. Moreover, another important factor in this process is the feedback upstream of unintended/intended uses. In this regard, it is worth noting that the attitude of non-users of technical advancements appears to be equally important to producers of technical advancements compared to their direct users (Wyatt, 2003). Consequently, the technological advancements are directly affecting the lives of all the people inside a particular social system, where this advancement is being introduced. Further, such factor creates a close association of technological integration being also visible on cultural, political and social levels, even despite the fact that the majority of related studies are focused on researching the direct users of a particular technology (Oldenziel, de la Bruhèze and de Wit, 2005).
What is more interesting in terms of current paper, is that the performances of both masculinities and femininities is also being significantly reshaped in different forms varying from emotions to sexuality expressed by both genders.
Scholars have correspondingly distinguished two forms of masculinity, both constitutive and expressive as being closely associated with male’s ability to master technology. Respectively, one is explained as male’s ability to be physically capable of doing this, while the second emphasizes the importance of intellectual requirements to be met in order to master a particular technology. Even taking into consideration the fact that the association between technology and masculinity is more than close, studies successfully prove the mismatches between the perceptions regarding this trend and real state of affairs. Moreover, non-Western nations challenge such trend even more sharply; for example, a related research in Malaysia proved that young women there enter the software engineering companies as employees equally to young men along with their intellectual and personal skills being equally sufficient to fulfill the required tasks (Lagesen, 2008).
It is also worth using the term “coproduction” in order to define the impacts of technology upon genders in various social systems. The term is being favored by the FTS scholar being intended to emphasize upon the performance and processing factors of the aforementioned association in order to avoid the corresponding analytical and political pitfalls resulted by prioritizing one of them. Additionally, defining technology appears also crucial in terms of gender-related questions. For example, an iron cannot be considered a technology while a woman is using it to press clothes; however, the same iron represents a technology, when a man is repairing it. Certainly, such trend creates a wide place for sexual discrimination; for example, a female engineer testing a microwave can easily be mocked that all she does equals to cooking. Furthermore, the advent of computers has introduced them as the tools of information technologies, meaning that males are supposed to work with it and maintain its functioning. Further, the same computer has become an example of communication technologies, which allowed the females to utilize them significantly more successfully and enthusiastically. In other words, “new technologies spur processes of boundary work and renegotiations of what is to be considered masculine and feminine” (Lie and Corneliussen, 2003).
In practical terms, the most important goal of the current paper is to consider how technology causes and stimulates gender inequalities in order to define and design more democratic and non-discriminative forms of technology. In this regard, it is worth stating that the researches devoted to this topic need to focus more on work and production of technologies rather than consumption and representation of them. Moreover, there is a great need to consider the design processes gendering along with designers’ gender subjectivities directly at their research sites. Correspondingly, the studies offer a broad variety of feminist objectivity modes based on working relationships’ dynamic landscapes, correctly structured and represented in order to eliminate the established destabilizations of boundaries between the direct users of technologies and their producers. Moreover, profoundly considering and analyzing the masculine ideologies of contemporary engineering world along with free exposure of gender-related stereotypes concerning technology will significantly complement into democratizing the technology, as well. Hopefully, they will also reshape the technological ideologies actual nowadays into more democratized and non-discriminative. Correspondingly, taking into consideration everything that has been mentioned so far, the scholars recommend women to become involved into technically-related tasks and build engineering careers of various types equally to their male colleagues (Bray, 2007).
It has already been stated that the feminist studies of technology and their interdisciplinary fields in particular have contributed considerably more compared to any other social discipline to establish a solid and stable school of knowledge devoted to technology and gender. Being based upon the corresponding ideas of anthropology, including the integrity of culture and social action along with the “micro/macro” association of casual techniques and skills with various political and economic activities, this field of studies provides an exhaustive empirical observation of the related questions.
Still, the actual state of affairs states that the technology remains highly gender-biased. According to the statistics, the percentage of women occupied by the jobs somehow related in technology remains 17% in the US, significantly lower than previous 40% at the advent of computer technologies. Even considering the democratized approach of equal rights in technology development, which means 50/50 split of men and women developing advanced and improved technologies, it is obvious that 23% of working places that could be occupied by women are occupied by the males in reality. The actual state of affairs states that it is the willingness of women to become themselves familiar in teaching and/or assistance jobs that causes such disproportion regardless of their physical, intellectual and personal skills. In other words, women are also capable nowadays to handle the technology-related jobs; however, they refuse to do this (Laroya, 2014).
Obviously, they have reasons for this, starting from developing technologies to offering technology-related jobs. For example, taking a closer look at smartphones and other electronic devices, rarely can the women find something female-oriented. The maximum the developers and engineers can do is to paint their devices pink or red to emphasize on the “femininity” of the device. Such approach appears to be rather insulting than appealing to women, nevertheless. As for the jobs offering to females, it is also wroth reminding about the nerds and geeks that are mostly working there. Discussing their approach and attitude to women is pointless, it is only necessary to state that they are afraid of women and would try to avoid them at any cause. Rarity of women would be eager to work and develop something new in such environment.
Thus, the previously mentioned paragraphs prove that the technology changes the life of the individuals in different aspects of life; however, it also creates new obstacles and confines to democratize the relationships between people, even on gender basis.

References

Bray, F. (2007). Gender and Technology. Annu. Rev. Anthropol., 36(1), pp.37-53.
Faulkner, W. (2001). The technology question in feminism. Women's Studies International Forum, 24(1), pp.79-95.
Lagesen, V. (2008). A Cyberfeminist Utopia?: Perceptions of Gender and Computer Science among Malaysian Women Computer Science Students and Faculty. Science, Technology & Human Values, 33(1), pp.5-27.
Laroya, G. (2014). Technology's Gender Bias -- A Subconscious Shot in the Foot?. [online] The Huffington Post. Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gil-laroya/technologys-gender-bias_b_5939828.html [Accessed 4 Jan. 2016].
Lie, M. and Corneliussen, H. (2003). He, she and IT revisited. Oslo: Gyldendal.
Lohan, M. (2004). Masculinities and Technologies: Some Introductory Remarks. Men and Masculinities, 6(4), pp.319-329.
MILLER, L. (2004). Those Naughty Teenage Girls: Japanese Kogals, Slang, and Media Assessments. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 14(2), pp.225-247.
Oldenziel, R., de la Bruhèze, A. and de Wit, O. (2005). Europe’s mediation junction: technology and consumer society in the 20th century. History and Technology, 21(1), pp.107-139.
Wyatt, S. (2003). Non-users also matter: The construction of users and non-users of the Internet. [online] Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254769192_Non-users_also_matter_The_construction_of_users_and_non-users_of_the_Internet [Accessed 3 Jan. 2016].