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2015 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

10. Gender-Technology Relations in the Various Ages of Information Societies

Author : Delphine Gardey

Published in: Connecting Women

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

From “domination” to empowerment, gendered uses of information technologies appear in a variety of situations and interpretations. What is added to the history of technology by their social studies, and what is offered otherwise by the critical input of feminism on this field, is the idea that relations between humans and technologies (gender relations among them) are never set in advance but instead the object, as much as the end game of the analysis, as shown by Judy Wajcman. Yet the “seamless fabric” (with reference to Hughes’ work) interweaving the social and the technological and tying together gender and power relations is enduring; the role of historians is to acknowledge its lasting existence.

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previous chapter Breaking the “Glass Slipper”: What Diversity Interventions Can Learn from the Historical Evolution of Occupational Identity in ICT and Commercial Aviation

A comparative European history of the transitions from the field of “communication” to that of “information” and then of “the digital” is still to be written. The creation of a research unit on “TIC et société” (“ICT and Society”) at the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) can be seen as evidence of such institutionalization (Brousseau, Eric, and Frédéric Moatty. 2002. La création du Groupe de recherche ‘TIC et société’ au CNRS. Réseaux 2(112–113): 395–398).

Gardey, Delphine. 2008. Ecrire, calculer, classer. Comment une révolution de papier a transformé les sociétés contemporaines (1800–1940). Paris: La Découverte.

See in particular Chap. 7, “Traiter l’information : de l’économie au gouvernement”: 243–278.

Cockburn, Cynthia. 1983. Brothers: male dominance and technological change. London: Pluto Press; Wajcman, Judy. 1991. Feminism confronts technology. Cambridge: Polity Press; Oldenziel, Ruth. 1996. Objections: technology, culture and gender. In Learning from things. Method and theory of material culture studies, ed. David Kingery, 55–69. Washington, DC: Smithonian Institution Press.

Mounier-Kuhn, Pierre-Eric. 2010. L’informatique en France de la seconde guerre mondiale au Plan Calcul. L’émergence d’une science. Paris: Presses universitaires de la Sorbonne.

In the French context, an interesting contribution to that acknowledgment in the perspective of an essentially technical and industrial history of technologies is that of Pierre-Eric Mounier-Kuhn.

Krige, John, and Eda Kranakis. eds. 1994. Information technologies and socio-technical systems. History and Technology, 1(1). New York: Routledge.

Cortada, James (ed.). 1998. Rise of the knowledge worker. London: Routledge.

Chandler, Alfred, and James Cortada (eds.). 2000. A nation transformed by information. How information has shaped the United States from colonial times to present. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.

Akrich, Madeleine. 1992. The de-scription of technical objects. In Shaping technology-building society: studies in sociotechnical change, ed. Wiebe E. Bijker and John Law, 205–224. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

My work on the movement of mechanization of writing before and after the invention, production, and penetration as an office tool of Sholes’s typewriter by Remington aims to recapture forgotten intentions, usefulness, and scripts. One aspect of usefulness is here the intention to help teach writing to the blind, an effort carried on by several generations of inventors and users (Gardey, Delphine. 2001. Mechanizing writing and photographing the word: utopias, office work, and histories of gender and technology. History and Technology 17: 319–335).

De Certeau, Michel. 1990. L’invention du quotidien. 1. Arts de faire. Paris: Gallimard.

Gardey 2008.

Gardey, Delphine. 2006. Culture of gender, culture of technology: the gendering of things in France’s office spaces between 1890 and 1930. In Cultures of technology, ed. Helga Novotny, 73–94. New York: Berghahn Books.

Campbell-Kelly, Martin. 1992. Large scale data processing in the prudential 1850–1930. Accounting Business and Financial History 2(2): 117–139.

On this approach, and a discussion of elements of path dependency theory and the role played for this model by the case of the typewriter keyboard, see Gardey, Delphine. 1999. The standardization of a technical practice: typing (1883–1930). History and Technology 15: 313–343.

Gardey 2008; Anderson, Gregory (ed.). 1989. The white blouse revolution. Female office workers since 1870. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Gardey 2008.

Yates, Joan. 1989. Control through communication. The rise of system in American management. Baltimore/London: John Hopkins University Press.

Akrich, Madeleine, Michel Callon, and Bruno Latour (eds.). 2006. Sociologie de la traduction: textes fondateurs. Paris: Mines ParisTech/Les Presses; Latour, Bruno. 1996. Aramis or the love of technology. Boston: Harvard University Press.

Bernasconi, Gianenrico, and Stephan Nellen. eds. 2015 (Forthcoming). The office as interior (1880-1960). Bielefeld: Transcript.

Light, Jennifer. 1999. When computers where women. Technology and Culture 40(3): 455–483.

Abbate, Janet. 2012. Recoding gender. Women’s changing participation in computing. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

One important point made in this volume (Ashcraft, Karen Lee and Catherine Ashcraft. 2015. Breaking the “glass slipper”: What diversity interventions can learn from the historical evolution of occupational identity in ICT and commercial aviation. In Connecting women, ed. V. Schafer and B.G. Thierry, 137–156. Dordrecht: Springer) based on “Occupational Identity,” is in contrast with older discussions on the social construction of skill.

For a proposed material and “corporeal” reading of democratic institutions, and in particular of the French Assemblée Nationale since the Revolution, see Gardey, Delphine. 2015. Le linge du Palais-Bourbon. Corps, matérialité et genre du politique à l’ère démocratique. Bordeaux: Le Bord de l’Eau.

Fisher, Claude. 1992. America calling. A social history of the telephone to 1940. Berkeley: University of California Press; Green, Venus. 1995. Race and technology: African American women in the bell system, 1945–1980, technology and culture. Technology and Culture 36(2): 101–143.

Green 1995.

Lipartito, Kenneth. 1994. When women were switches: technology, work and gender in the telephone industry (1890–1930). American Historical Review 99(4): 1075–1111.

Hoskyns, Teresa. 2005. Designing the Agon: questions on architecture, space, democracy and “the political”. In Making things public: atmospheres of democracy, ed. Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel, 798–803. Cambridge/Karlsruhe: The MIT Press/ZKM Center for Art and Media.

Gardey, Delphine. 2009. Au cœur à corps avec le Manifeste Cyborg de Donna Haraway. Esprit: 208–217.

Huws, Ursula. 2003. The making of cybertariat. Virtual work in real world. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Haraway, Donna. 1992. The promises of monsters: a regenerative politics for inappropriate/d others. In Cultural studies, ed. Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, and Paula A. Treichler, 295–337. New York: Routledge.

Reinhold, Martin. 2009. Unpublished paper. Von Herrmann, Hans-Christian and Sven Spieker (org.). The office in the studio. The administration of modernism. International conference, 23–24 January 2009. Medien Wissenschaft, Friedrich-Schiller Universität Jena.

Edgerton, David. 1998. De l’innovation aux usages. Dix thèses éclectiques sur l’histoire des techniques. Annales Histoire, Sciences Sociales 53(4–5): 815–837.

Edgerton, David. 2007. The shock of the old. Technology and global history since 1900. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Woolgar, Steve. 2000. Virtual technologies and social theory: a technographic approach. In Preferred placement. Knowledge politics on the web, ed. Richard Rogers. Maastricht: Jan Van Eyck Akademie Editions.

Kirkup, Gill, et al. 2000. The gendered cyborg: a reader. London: Routledge.

Wajcman, Judy. 2007. From women & technology to gendered technoscience. Information, Commnication & Society 10(3): 287–298.

Haraway, Donna. 1985. (Reed. 2003). A cyborg manifesto: science, technology and socialist-feminism in the 1980s. In The Haraway Reader, 7–40 London/New York: Routledge; Gardey, Delphine. 2014. The reading of an Oeuvre. Donna Haraway: the poetics and politics of life. Feministische Studien, Zeitschrift für interdisziplinäre Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung 32(1): 86–100.

Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender trouble. Feminism and the subversion of identity. 2nd ed. 1999. New York: Routledge.

These are discussed in our soon-to-be-published volume: Gardey, Delphine, and Cynthia Kraus (eds.) 2015 (Forthcoming). Politics of coalition. thinking collective action with Judith Butler. Geneva and Zürich: Seismo Verlag.

Wajcman, Judy. 2006. New connections: social studies of science and technology and studies of work. Work, Employment and Society 20(4): 773–786.

Gardey, Delphine. 2003. De la domination à l’action: quel genre d’usage des technologies de l’information? Réseaux Communication, technologie, sociétés 21: 87–117.

Wajcman 2007.

Hughes, Thomas P. 1983. Networks of power. Electrification in Western Society, 1880–1930. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press.

Lie, Merete. 2003. Gender and ICT – new connections. In He, she and IT revisited: new perspectives on gender and information society, ed. Merete Lie. Oslo: Gylendal Akademish.

Turkle, Sherry. 1984. The second self: computers and the human spirit. London: Granada.

Abbate, Janet. 2012. Recoding gender. Women’s changing participation in computing. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Akrich, Madeleine, Michel Callon, and Bruno Latour (eds.). 2006. Sociologie de la traduction: textes fondateurs. Paris: Mines ParisTech/Les Presses.

Anderson, Gregory (ed.). 1989. The white blouse revolution. Female office workers since 1870. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Ashcraft, Karen Lee and Catherine Ashcraft. 2015. Breaking the “glass slipper”: What diversity interventions can learn from the historical evolution of occupational identity in ICT and commercial aviation. In Connecting women, ed. V. Schafer and B.G. Thierry, 137–156. Dordrecht: Springer.

Bernasconi, Gianenrico, and Stephan Nellen. eds. 2015 (Forthcoming). The office as interior (1880-1960). Bielefeld: Transcript.

Brousseau, Eric, and Frédéric Moatty. 2002. La création du Groupe de recherche ‘TIC et société’ au CNRS. Réseaux 2(112–113): 395–398.CrossRef

Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender trouble. Feminism and the subversion of identity. 2nd ed. 1999. New York: Routledge.

Campbell-Kelly, Martin. 1992. Large scale data processing in the prudential 1850–1930. Accounting Business and Financial History 2(2): 117–139.CrossRef

Cockburn, Cynthia. 1983. Brothers: male dominance and technological change. London: Pluto Press.

Cortada, James (ed.). 1998. Rise of the knowledge worker. London: Routledge.

De Certeau, Michel. 1990. L’invention du quotidien. 1. Arts de faire. Paris: Gallimard.

Edgerton, David. 1998. De l’innovation aux usages. Dix thèses éclectiques sur l’histoire des techniques. Annales Histoire, Sciences Sociales 53(4–5): 815–837.CrossRef

Edgerton, David. 2007. The shock of the old. Technology and global history since 1900. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Fisher, Claude. 1992. America calling. A social history of the telephone to 1940. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Gardey, Delphine. 1999. The standardization of a technical practice: typing (1883–1930). History and Technology 15: 313–343.CrossRef

Gardey, Delphine. 2001. Mechanizing writing and photographing the word: utopias, office work, and histories of gender and technology. History and Technology 17: 319–335.CrossRef

Gardey, Delphine. 2003. De la domination à l’action: quel genre d’usage des technologies de l’information? Réseaux Communication, technologie, sociétés 21: 87–117.

Gardey, Delphine. 2008. Ecrire, calculer, classer. Comment une révolution de papier a transformé les sociétés contemporaines (1800–1940). Paris: La Découverte.

Gardey, Delphine. 2009. Au cœur à corps avec le Manifeste Cyborg de Donna Haraway. Esprit: 208–217

Gardey, Delphine. 2014. The reading of an Oeuvre. Donna Haraway: the poetics and politics of life. Feministische Studien, Zeitschrift für interdisziplinäre Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung 32(1): 86–100.

Gardey, Delphine. 2015. Le linge du Palais-Bourbon. Corps, matérialité et genre du politique à l’ère démocratique. Bordeaux: Le Bord de l’Eau.

Gardey, Delphine, and Cynthia Kraus (eds.) 2015 (Forthcoming). Politics of coalition. thinking collective action with Judith Butler. Geneva and Zürich: Seismo Verlag.

Green, Venus. 1995. Race and technology: African American women in the bell system, 1945–1980, technology and culture. Technology and Culture 36(2): 101–143.CrossRef

Haraway, Donna. 1985. (Reed. 2003). A cyborg manifesto: science, technology and socialist-feminism in the 1980s. In The Haraway Reader, 7–40 London/New York: Routledge.

Hughes, Thomas P. 1983. Networks of power. Electrification in Western Society, 1880–1930. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press.

Huws, Ursula. 2003. The making of cybertariat. Virtual work in real world. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Kirkup, Gill, et al. 2000. The gendered cyborg: a reader. London: Routledge.

Krige, John, and Eda Kranakis. eds. 1994. Information technologies and socio-technical systems. History and Technology, 1(1). New York: Routledge.

Latour, Bruno. 1996. Aramis or the love of technology. Boston: Harvard University Press.

Lie, Merete. 2003. Gender and ICT – new connections. In He, she and IT revisited: new perspectives on gender and information society, ed. Merete Lie. Oslo: Gylendal Akademish.

Light, Jennifer. 1999. When computers where women. Technology and Culture 40(3): 455–483.MathSciNet

Lipartito, Kenneth. 1994. When women were switches: technology, work and gender in the telephone industry (1890–1930). American Historical Review 99(4): 1075–1111.CrossRef

Mounier-Kuhn, Pierre-Eric. 2010. L’informatique en France de la seconde guerre mondiale au Plan Calcul. L’émergence d’une science. Paris: Presses universitaires de la Sorbonne.

Oldenziel, Ruth. 1996. Objections: technology, culture and gender. In Learning from things. Method and theory of material culture studies, ed. David Kingery, 55–69. Washington, DC: Smithonian Institution Press.

Turkle, Sherry. 1984. The second self: computers and the human spirit. London: Granada.

Wajcman, Judy. 1991. Feminism confronts technology. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Wajcman, Judy. 2006. New connections: social studies of science and technology and studies of work. Work, Employment and Society 20(4): 773–786.CrossRef

Wajcman, Judy. 2007. From women & technology to gendered technoscience. Information, Commnication & Society 10(3): 287–298.CrossRef

Yates, Joan. 1989. Control through communication. The rise of system in American management. Baltimore/London: John Hopkins University Press.

Title: Gender-Technology Relations in the Various Ages of Information Societies
Author: Delphine Gardey
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Book: Connecting Women
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-20836-7

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-20837-4

Copyright Year: 2015
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20837-4_10

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