I think your suggestion is very interesting. I do worry a bit, however,
about confusing gender and biology. This may seem like linguistic
nit-picking, but I actually think it's very important: gender is a social
construct, it refers to how we are socialized, the rules and norms imposed
on us by our culture. Femininity is slightly different in different
cultures, though there are many overlapping notions throughout the world.
The words female and make usually refer to biological status, to our
primary
and secondary sex characteristics. I just want to make it very clear that I
know of NO biological differences relevant to this discussion. As far as
I'm
concerned, it's all about socialization and social norms rather than about
biology. I don't want us to fall into the pit of biological determinism.
That said, I think we have a lot of masculine technology, all our emphasis
on speed and power and efficiency is masculine. Communication by itself is
gender neutral - the masculine version is about being able to send messages
to the outer reaches of space and being able to have all the information in
the world instantly at your fingertips. The more feminine notion of
communication is about contact between people, sharing ideas rather than
broadcasting information.
The other thing I want to say here is that I understand the worry about
stereotyping - but I counter-pose to that the need to value traditionally
feminine skills and capabilities. The world needs them - and not just from
people with female biologies!
on 7/17/01 12:19 PM, Judith Abrahami at judith_a@macam.ac.il wrote:
As a feminist educator, involved in projects to increase female
participation in mathematics , science & engineering courses, I'm delighted
to follow the discussion on technology & equity .However, it seems about
time we rename the issue, & call it openly " gendered technology".
Technology neither offers nor promotes equity, & like other resources, is
never equally accessible or once accessible, cannot offer the same outcome
to different users.
The efforts described by Donna Milgram whose work I have the highest regard
for , & Cornelia Brunner's opening statement, made me think , sadly, that
perhaps we should think radically of reclaiming technology, & then
encourage whoever is so inclined, to devise male friendly technological
environments......
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Fri Apr 12 2002 - 15:16:50 EDT