Gender and Technology: Week 3: A Man's World

Recently, two of my friends (J and D) and I decided to start doing a course on Gender and Technology. We pick up readings for each week and then get together and discuss them. This is me turning this learning course into a blog opportunity.

Gender and Technology: Week 3

A Man's World

When I was teaching in a government school in India back in 2011, there was a classroom that was filled with wooden planks and other tools. It was mostly kept locked up. Occasionally, however, I’d see a group of teenage boys making their way in and out of that room.

When I asked the other teachers about it, they said that the boys would go there to learn carpentry. 

My first reaction was, “That’s pretty cool.”

My second reaction was, “What about the girls?”

The teacher responded, “Oh, they have sewing classes at that time.”

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This week’s reading of our gender and technology course went a little bit over my head, as it covered different schools of thought in feminism regarding technology. However, a few points hit home that I’d like to highlight.

Women have historically not been a part of technological spaces.

One reason for this is the mindset of the society, where we tend to associate technology with ‘masculinity’. 

• It’s for this reason that girls were taught to sew, while boys were taught to work with tools. 

• It’s for this reason that the ‘science’ batches usually had fewer girls than boys, as was the case with engineering. 

• And conversely, it’s for this reason that men struggled with the social stigma associated with taking on courses that were not masculine enough (a friend of mine faced a lot of backlash from his family when he opted to study ‘writing’ in college).

As a society, we’ve been programmed, and we’ve continued to program children with believing that science and technology are the domains of men, whereas arts and humanities are ‘soft subjects’, better suited for women.

Another reason, apart from the social beliefs and expectations and stereotypes, are the structural barriers in themselves.

• If a girl was able to break away from the belief that she was meant to learn sewing, she still could not take the carpentry class, since that was only available for boys. The reverse was equally true.

• If a woman managed to get the required education to enter the fields of science and technology, she would have a much lower probability of being hired compared to a man with similar qualifications.

I know I’m using the past tense here, but these aren’t necessarily issues of the past. They’re still relevant today, as generalizations based on gender and workspace discrimination continue to shape our beliefs of what careers are more ‘suitable’ for women.

J pointed out that we can actually extrapolate these same ideas out of science and technology into other fields, such as that of the army, where we continue to see similar debates raging.

I suppose things are changing, especially with the onset of digital technologies. But even as more women begin to enter the world of technology, are our mindsets really changing?

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Reading source for this week: Wajcman, Judy. "From Women and Technology to Gendered Technoscience." Information, Communication & Society 10, no. 3 (2007): 287–98.

Gender and Technology: Week 2: Work? What Work?

Recently, two of my friends (J and D) and I decided to start doing a course on Gender and Technology. We pick up readings for each week and then get together and discuss them. This is me turning this learning course into a blog opportunity.

Gender and Technology: Week 2

Work? What Work?

Well, we had our second week of discussion on the course, and the good news is that this time, we all did the correct reading (though J did have to make up by reading last week’s paper, which I’m happy to say she vented about as strongly as us). 

Apart from a few initial tech glitches (which only highlighted the irony of the course as J had to ask her husband for help every time her audio went off), we had a rather interesting discussion. This week’s paper was about the impact that the industrial revolution had on the home, and in the lives of women in particular.

Here’s an overview of the paper:

• There has been little study on the impact of industrialization on the home. Of this, the dominant belief has been the ‘traditional view’. As per this view, it was assumed that with the onset of new technologies and home appliances, the work of housewives reduced considerably, freeing up their time. However, ideologies did not shift, and as a result, women suffered from role anxiety, or entered the job market, or took to ‘burning their brassieres and demanding attention’. 

• The author of this paper (Cowan) challenges this view. As per her study, although new appliances might have eased the physical work involved in household work, it didn’t necessarily free up women’s time. Old tasks were replaced by new ones. Eg: As a mother, women had to prepare special infant formulas, sterilize their bottles, ensure they ate nutritionally balanced meals,  consult with their teachers frequently, chauffeur them to extra lessons (help was less frequently available, and new theories on child care was increasing their responsibilities and expectations). The discovery of the "household germ" led to almost fetishistic concern about the cleanliness of the home, and as a result, clothing and linen had to be washed a lot more frequently than before.

• However, it was not just the work that had changed / increased: it was the emotional expectation attached to this work. I’m going to use a screenshot of the paper here, because I think it conveys it best:

Excerpt from paper (yes, I had to highlight the entire para)

• Women who failed at these tasks were made to feel guilty or embarrassed: guilty of their sons go to school without a proper breakfast; guilt if their infants had not gained enough weight; guilty if the bathroom sink was slightly dirty; guilty if they failed to see the signs of an oncoming cold; guilty of their daughters are unpopular because of old-fashioned, or unironed or dirty dresses. Or embarrassed if their drains were clogged, embarrassed if accused of having body odour, and so on.

• A large role here in setting up these emotional expectations was played by advertisers, which sold this idea of what a good housewife had to be (few advertisements added below).

• In some ways, the impact that the industrial revolution had on women was the opposite of what you’d expect from a labour force: instead of their roles becoming more specialized, there were becoming jack of all trades; and instead of the emotional context associated with the work disappearing, it was getting enhanced.

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While the paper in itself was interesting, it led us down a path of discussion that was far more intriguing: on the role of the housewife, and the ‘value’ we associate with it.

I remember many years ago, asking a class of 8th grade students to raise their hands if their fathers worked. Everyone raised their hand. Then I asked them to raise their hands if their mothers worked. Very few of them did.

When prodding further, we eventually reached this question: Why do you think that the work your mother does at home isn’t work? 

There was no answer.

We’ve all been trained to think that ‘work’ is something that results in earning money: something that traditionally, the men of the house did. But the work that traditionally women did: cooking, cleaning, looking after the children, has never really been seen as work. We don’t think of it as work. The men don’t think of it as work. And sadly, the women doing it also don’t think of it as work.

Why is this important? Because when we don’t see something as an ‘economic activity’, we tend to de-value it. Never mind that it aids the other members in the house in partaking in the economic activity, it’s still something that’s largely been looked down upon. 

And in the recent decades, the complexity has only increased. 

Women across the world are entering the ‘economic workforce’. But even so, in many marriages, they are still seen as the primary person responsible for the home. This is further enhanced when they have children. It’s not uncommon for women to extend their maternity leaves and continue to be the person who stays at home and takes care of the child. 

But why is this a problem?

Because we as a society still don’t see this as work. 

As a result, many women in today’s world often find themselves caught between two conflicting forces: one telling them that they should put the home and family first, and that everything else can take a backseat; and the other telling them that taking care of the home and family aren’t valuable enough activities, and that they need to get back out to do the real work. 

As J put it, the expectations (from others and now ingrained into the self) are overwhelming: ‘To be a better mother, to be a better housewife, to be well read, to have hobbies, to be well informed, to get back to a career. Because the core part of the work isn’t valued enough, so you’re constantly feeling the expectation to push yourself to do more. And nothing feels enough.’

In some ways, the cycle is never ending. The bar just keeps getting raised time and time again. And so you have examples of these ‘superwomen’ who do it all and with a smile - home, family, career, hobbies. But the remaining majority find themselves feeling more and more like failures, because society constantly tells them that their lives have now become so easy compared to what it was many decades ago, and that they’ve got the option to do whatever they want, and if these women can do it all, then clearly something’s wrong with them for not being able to do it as well.

Cowan wrote this paper studying the lives of middle-class American women in the 1920s, but it could just as easily apply today. There’s an assumption that with the onset of technology, household work has become easier. It has, there’s no doubting that. But the time that got freed up by technology has been filled up with countless other small tasks, all coming with ever increasing levels of emotional baggage and guilt tripping (ask any new mother).

But still, we don’t think of it as ‘work’. 

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This week's paper:

Cowan, Ruth Schwartz. "The 'Industrial Revolution' in the Home: Household Technology and Social Change in the 20th Century." Technology and Culture 17, no. 1 (1976): 1–23.

For anyone interested, an amazing story titled, 'My Mother Never Worked'.

Some advertisements from 1920s:

(The next one is not directly connected with the theme, but couldn't stop myself from adding it).

Gender and Technology: Week 1: To Enthusiastic Beginnings

Recently, two of my friends (J and D) and I decided to start doing a course on Gender and Technology. We pick up readings for each week and then get together and discuss them. This is me turning this learning course into a blog opportunity.

Gender and Technology: Week 1

To Enthusiastic Beginnings

Around a few weeks back, J suggested we should do a course together. D responded enthusiastically, and I just shrugged, thinking, why not. And so began a series of decisions, which D automatically (and thankfully) took the lead on.

The first question was - what course do we do? Although all three of us have our common education background, our specific interests within that have been varied. However, there was one course in college that all of us elected to do (technically, I audited because my course load was full), and that was on Gender. It’s a topic all three of us were extremely passionate about, and continue to be even today. So when D suggested a course listed on MIT on ‘Gender and Technology’, we all jumped on board.

The course itself is I think an old one, but the site has a list of the course readings for each week. So we decided to pick up one paper a week, do our own reading, and get together every week to discuss the paper. Sort of like a self-led learning program. So D shared some of the readings and told us which one to read for the first week.

Finally, the last decision to be made was - when do we speak? It might seem like a minor task, but with one of us in India, another in Singapore, and a third in California, this was no small feat. After some back and forth, we were able to find a slot in the weekend that worked for all of us (it helps that J is only available during her night, which coincides with my morning: my most productive time).

So, armed with all these decisions, we kick-started our course. Enthusiastic, I opened up the paper to be read a few days ago. And just like that, my enthusiasm flushed away. I couldn’t understand anything in the paper. It was full of so much academic jargon that 80% of it went over my head (this, after I read each sentence 3 times). I might have spent more time complaining about the paper on our whatsapp group than actually reading it (it stirred up memories of similar issues i had back in college, and arguments with a professor on this that went over several weeks - a story for another time).

In any case, I read that paper. I highlighted sections (that I could understand and which made sense). In true college tradition, I also forgot everything I read a few minutes after reading it. On the other end, J hadn’t really complained much about the paper, and D had mentioned something about it once. So I was really curious to see if they had actually understood it. 

At first go, it seemed like J certainly had. She had a full page of hand-written notes, true to her first bencher college persona. I blurted out straight away on our call that I hadn’t understood this paper. D agreed. J just looked impassively.

We decided to begin by just sharing summaries of the paper, and then take the discussion forward. Before J could launch into her page-long summary, I decided to begin - mainly to show how little I had actually understood. In what might have been a 30 second summary, I blurted out the overview as I had understood it. D nodded. 

Then there was silence.

Finally, J said slowly, “Uh guys, I think I might have read the wrong paper.” 

It was as true a face-palm moment as any.

I suppose the silver lining here was that at least all of us had done our reading before coming to this call; the minor downside is that J had happened to do a different reading than us. (She had picked up the first paper that D shared, and missed the message saying which paper we had to begin with. And then also spent the last few days wondering why I was complaining and building memes about a paper that she had felt was quite straightforward).

Well, we had a good laugh, and then proceeded to share our own understanding of the papers we had read (which, understandably, was fairly short for D and me). 

We also used that time to decide on certain guidelines for the course going forward. So far, we only managed to add one point: Read the correct paper. 

So, what with all the confusion with the reading, and trying to figure out how to take notes together, and how to really go about the rest of the course, with some tidbits of actual learning, this was as real a first week class as any before.

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Insights / Takeaways / Food for Thought

Some early insights from the readings (direct or paraphrased):

• There exist many prevalent stereotypes about ‘women’ and ‘technology’, which often reflects in how men and women talk about their own aptitude with technology. Technology has largely been seen as the domain of men.

• The marketing of technologies often taps into existing beliefs that we have about the different desires of men and women. For example, cars are marketed to men as ‘powerful’ and to women as ‘reliable’.

• Technology has led to the promotion of two different definitions of masculinity: one, based on toughness and practical skills (like a mechanic), and the other on intellectual ability (like the software designer).

• “An electric iron is not technology when a woman is pressing clothes, but it becomes technology when her husband mends it.”

• In the 1970s, computers were thought of as ‘information technologies’ and associated with men; it was assumed that women would have problems with them. By the 1990s, computers were seen as ‘communication technologies’; and assumed that women could now engage with them enthusiastically.

• Many of us believe that the advancement of household technology made the lives of women easier; however, in some ways it only managed to “raise cultural standards of cleanliness”, instead of actually “freeing women from domestic drudgery”.

Source: Bray, Francesca. "Gender and Technology." Annual Reviews Anthropology 36 (2007): 37–53.

Appendix:

With all due respect to the author, sharing a sample of the paper we had to read, followed by the meme it inspired.

The author

Me