Philosopher views

TECHNOLOGY IS A MALE-DOMINATED PROCESS

Cheris Kramarae, Professor of Speech Communication, University of Illinois, TECHNOLOGY AND WOMEN’S VOICES: KEEPING IN TOUCH, 1988, p.3.

Many others have declared that women have not been very ‘technological’ or inventive; that is, we have not created many of the items called technology. Women have not, it is true, designed the majority of devices which are used in homes (supposedly women’s most natural place) or in offices and factories where many women spend many hours. Rather than dismissing women as non-inventors, [that scholar] could be asking why men have considered women the ‘mere’ users, but not appropriate creators, shapers and producers, of technology.
2. TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS ADDRESS MALE NEEDS EXCLUSIVELY

Cheris Kramarae, Professor of Speech Communication, University of Illinois, TECHNOLOGY AND WOMEN’S VOICES: KEEPING IN TOUCH, 1988, p.4.

Western history of technology has been basically men’s history. In fact, one way of describing what has been traditionally considered as technology is to say it consists of the devices, machinery and processes which men are interested in. This is a reason why we do not find discussions of child care devices in men’s books on technology.
3. DEVELOPERS OF TECHNOLOGY ARE IGNORANT OF WOMEN’S NEEDS

Cheris Kramarae, Professor of Speech Communication, University of Illinois, TECHNOLOGY AND WOMEN’S VOICES: KEEPING IN TOUCH, 1988, p.5.

Technology, like all aspects of ‘progress,’ is usually thought of as a masculine invention and activity. In actuality we are all intensely involved in and affected by technology practices. Official and professional development and evaluation of technology has been done by men who have limited knowledge about women’s daily lives and problems, and very limited interest in expanding women’s economic and social freedom.

TECHNOLOGY DOES NOT IMPROVE WOMEN’S QUALITY OF LIFE

1. TECHNOLOGY HAS REDUCED FEMALE AUTONOMY

Cheris Kraniarae, Professor of Speech Communication, University of Illinois, TECHNOLOGY AND

WOMEN’S VOICES: KEEPING IN TOUCH, 1988, p.5.

New technological processes are usually considered a part of modernization which many think inevitably leads to the improvement of the status and well-being of the people involved. Actually, modernization has resulted in women losing traditional roles in agriculture and handicrafts production, and thus losing some of their autonomy, influence, and access to resources (Tiano, 1984). This erosion has not, however, ‘freed’

them to become full-time homemakers and child rearers; women typically have double work loads of familial and other, income-generating responsibilities. Because their domestic tasks are stressed and are considered to be insular activities, men do not consider women to be part of any important communication networks.

Cheris Kramarae, Professor of Speech Communication, University of Illinois, TECHNOLOGY AND WOMEN’S VOICES: KEEPING IN TOUCH, 1988, p.7.

But sexual divisions of labor in every institution established different contexts for the uses of the telephone by men and by women. New occupations—e.g. Switchboard operators, telephone repairers—were differentiated by gender. Stereotypes emerged of girls gabbing endlessly on the phone. As we have discovered through our 1970s and 1980s studies of gender and language, the stereotypes and jokes are misleading, making identification of actual gender-related differences more difficult.
3. WOMEN ARE JUDGED BY TECHNOLOGY

Cheris Kramarae, Professor of Speech Communication, University of Illinois, TECHNOLOGY AND WOMEN’S VOICES: KEEPING IN TOUCH, 1988, p. 11.

All women are judged by the processes and products of the middle-class machinery. For example, once washing machines are in middle-class homes, standards of cleanliness based on use of those machines are applied to everyone, whatever their access to washing machines. Further, once washing machines are in middle-class homes, developers are not likely to improve the more communal washing facilities. At this point almost any woman responsible for clothes washing will want a home machine -- regardless of whether home washing machines make for the best overall economic and social system.