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SOC3061- Lecture 04

SOC3061- Lecture 04. Gender and Technology. Domestic technologies / Reproductive technologies. Early feminist writings on reproductive technologies (1970s): endorse a form of Technological Determinism

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SOC3061- Lecture 04

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  1. SOC3061- Lecture 04 Gender and Technology

  2. Domestic technologies / Reproductive technologies Early feminist writings on reproductive technologies (1970s): endorse a form of Technological Determinism New Technologies  free women from the tyranny of the household. Towards women’s equality E.g. the contraceptive pill  sexual revolution, sexual equality

  3. Domestic technologies • Ruth Schwartz Cowan Critique of Talcott Parson’s model for the crisis of the modern family. Case-study. The mechanization of the household in the US (1920s-1930s): - Middle-class wives do not get jobs - Mechanized housework is equally time-consuming - Isolated household: technology is not shared - New ideology of the perfect housewife-mother

  4. Gender relations shape the design of domestic technologies. • E.g. white good /black goods • Cockburn-Ormod: case-study on the microwave • Ann Jorum Berg: case-study on the “smart house” Which priorities can be found in our domestic technologies? Alternative domestic technologies: Moyra Doorly on Victorian feminists and their project for cooperative residential neighbourhoods

  5. Reproductive technologies • IVF, egg donation, artificial insemination, surrogacy, cloning, etc. (changes in the notion of parenthood and family) • In fact, our choices are highly constrained by economic and social factors. Many roads are not taken (e.g. delay in studying a male pill) • History of fertility control are essentially technological determinist in their approach

  6. Nelly Oudshoorn on ideologies of gender as shaping medical technologies, and human bodies as well. • Male/female bodies as essentially different • Gynaecology/ sex endocrinology: contraception research focuses on woman’s body until the 1980s • Contraceptive campaigns in Africa (hormonal implants) • E.g. the gender discourse shaped the pill the pill shaped women’s bodies

  7. Society and culture (priorities, agendas for research and design technologies) Domestic and reproductive technologies, and ways of using them A “social shaping” perspective 

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