Gender and Technology at Work
This book brings together the vast research literature about gender and technology to help designers understand what a gender perspective and a focus on intersectionality can contribute to designing information technology systems and artifacts, and to assist organizations as they work to develop work cultures that are supportive of women and marginalized genders and people. Drawing on empirical and analytical studies of women's work and technology in many parts of the world, the book addresses how to make invisible aspects of work visible; how to recognize women's skills without falling into the trap of gender stereotyping; how to engage in improving working conditions; and how to defend care of life situations and needs against a managerial logic. It addresses challenges for design, including many overlooked and undervalued aspects, such as the complexities involved in human–machine interactions, as well as the need to create safe spaces for research subjects.
- Explores how work in relation to technology is mediated in complex ways by ethnic, cultural, and class backgrounds as well as issues of sexuality
- Presents views about how to build pathways to gender equality in design, addressing wider structural issues that need to be addressed when working towards design justice
- Takes an interdisciplinary approach, including literature from the social sciences, ergonomics, health sciences, computer science, and design disciplines
Reviews & endorsements
'This expansive volume conveys how decades of feminist scholarship on women, work, and technology can inform artifact and system design in ways that promote social justice. It is enriched by the collaboration of a multidisciplinary, multinational team of authors who weave their own stories and those of other feminist technologists into the narrative.' Carol J. Haddad, Professor Emerita of Technology Studies, Eastern Michigan University
'A captivating deep dive into the intersection of gender, technology, and workplace culture. The authors masterfully integrate extensive research, providing essential guidance for designing user-centric IT systems and promoting inclusive workplaces. A pivotal guide for creating a more equitable tech world.' Nicola Marsden, Professor of Social Informatics, Heilbronn University, Author of Retaining Women in Tech: Shifting the Paradigm
'This book provides a very welcome and sensitive appraisal of the gender-technology relationship in an ever faster-paced era of change in both domains. It is conceptually comprehensive and politically engaged, restoring authority and agency to those conventionally overlooked and marginalised in technological design processes. A must-read for all those interested in the challenges of achieving social justice in technology design.' Juliet Webster, Work and Equality Research, London
'Balka, Wagner, Weibert & Wulf's expertise and established commitment to participatory design (PD) and computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) provides a rich history of feminist scholarship in gender and technology studies that has shaped this field. Interspersed with interviews from eleven feminist pioneers in PD, CSCW, HCI and STS, they offer provocations, ethical-political perspectives and inspiration for burgeoning intersectional and interdisciplinary research and practice in gender, work and system design, data feminism, critical data studies, and data justice and design justice.' Leslie Regan Shade, Faculty of Information, University of Toronto
Product details
April 2024Paperback
9781009243698
406 pages
228 × 151 × 21 mm
0.58kg
Available
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Part I. Gender and Technology – A Research Trajectory:
- 1. Gender and technology – a historical perspective
- 2. The ethical-political perspective
- 3. Pathways to a gendered and intersectional perspective
- Part II. Gender and Technology at the Workplace:
- 4. Women and machines in the factory
- 5. Office automation and the redesign of work
- 6. Beyond the office – from data work to the platform economy
- 7. AI-based technologies – new forms of invisibility and the 'ironies of automation'
- 8. The computerization of care work
- 9. The gendering of computer work
- Part III. Gender and Design:
- 10. Revisiting the ethical-political perspective in technology design
- 11. Contextualizing women's work
- 12. Pathways to gender equality in design
- Postscript
- References
- Index.