WGS.115 | Spring 2013 | Undergraduate

Gender and Technology

Readings

SES # TOPICS READINGS
1 Introduction: What is technology? How do we think about technology in relationship to history? What does a feminist analysis bring to technology studies?  
2 History of Gendered Technology, Household Technologies

Barber, Elizabeth Wayland. “Preface”, “Introduction”, and “A Tradition With a Reason.” In Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times. Norton, 1994, pp. 11–41.

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

Wajcman, Judy. “From Women and Technology to Gendered Technoscience.” Information, Communication & Society 10, no. 3 (2007): 287–98.

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.

Special Session Readings and Paper

Faulkner, Wendy. “The Power and the Pleasure? A Research Agenda for ‘Making Gender Stick’ to Engineers.” Science, Technology, & Human Values 25, no. 1 (2000): 87–119

Kelan, Elisabeth. “Tools and Toys: Communicating gendered positions towards technology.” Information, Communication & Society 10, no. 3 (2007): 358–83.

Wajcman, Judy. “The Feminization of Work in the Information Age.” In Women, Gender, and Technology. Edited by Johnson, Fox and Rosser. University of Illinois Press, 2006, pp. 80–97. ISBN: 9780252073366. [Preview with Google Books]

3 Gender and Biomedical Technologies

Haraway, Donna. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” In Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. Free Association Books, 1991, pp. 149–81. ISBN: 9781853431388.

Parens, Erik. “Thinking About Surgically Shaping Children.” In Surgically Shaping Children: Technology, Ethics, and the Pursuit of Normality. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008, pp. 23–30. ISBN: 9780801890901.

Hausman, Bernice. “Introduction.” In Changing Sex: Transsexualism, Technology, and the Idea of Gender. Duke University Press, 1995, pp. 1–19. ISBN: 9780822316923. [Preview with Google Books]

Turkle, Sherry. “Tinysex and Gender Trouble.” In Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. Simon & Schuster, 1997, pp. 210–32. ISBN: 9780684833484.

Dull, Diana, and Candace West. “Accounting for Cosmetic Surgery: The Accomplishment of Gender.” Social Problems 38, no. 1 (1991): 54–70.

4 Surgical Interventions

Sciolino, Elaine, and Souad Mekhennet. “In Europe, Debate Over Islam and Virginity,” New York Times, June 11, 2008.

Dull, Diana, and Candace West. “Accounting for Cosmetic Surgery: The Accomplishment of Gender.” Social Problems 38, no. 1 (1991): 54–70.

Bañales, Victoria. ““The Face Value of Dreams”: Gender, Race, Class, and the Politics of Cosmetic Surgery.” Beyond the Frame: Women of Color and Visual Representation. Edited by Neferti X. M. Tadiar and Angela Y. Davis. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, pp. 131–52. ISBN: 9781403965332.

5 Library Session: Doing Research

Layne, Linda. “Introduction.” In Feminist Technology. Edited by Linda Layne, Sharra Vostral, & Kate Boyer. University of Illinois Press, 2010, pp. 1–35. ISBN: 9780252077203.

Johnson, Deborah. “Sorting out the Question of Feminist Technology.” In Feminist Technology. Edited by Linda Layne, Sharra Vostral, & Kate Boyer. University of Illinois Press, 2010, pp. 36–54. ISBN: 9780252077203.

Vostral, Sharra L. “Tampons.” In Feminist Technology. Edited by Linda Layne, Sharra Vostral, & Kate Boyer. University of Illinois Press, 2010, pp. 136–53. ISBN: 9780252077203.

Boyer, Kate, and Maia Boswell-Penc. “Breast Pumps.” In Feminist Technology. Edited by Linda Layne, Sharra Vostral, & Kate Boyer. University of Illinois Press, 2010, pp. 119–35. ISBN: 9780252077203.

6 Reproductive Technologies

Buy at MIT Press Thompson, Charis. “Fertile Ground: Feminists Theorize Reproductive Technologies.” In Making Parents: The Ontological Choreography of Reproductive Technologies. MIT Press, 2005, pp. 56–75. ISBN: 9780262201568.

Murphy, Julien S. “Is Pregnancy Necessary?” In Sex/Machine: Readings in Culture, Gender, and Technology. Edited by Patrick D. Hopkins. Indiana University Press, 1998, pp. 184–200. ISBN: 9780253212306. [Preview with Google Books]

Woodward, Kathleen. “From Virtual Cyborgs to Biological Time Bombs.” In Cybersexualities. Edited by Wolmark. Edinburg University Press, 1999.

7 Gender, Technology, and Representation of Indigenous Knowledge

Appleton, Fernandez, Hill, and Quiroz. “Gender and Indigenous Knowledge.” In The Postcolonial Science and Technology Studies Reader. Edited by Sandra Harding. Duke University Press Books, 2011. ISBN: 9780822349570.

Shapshay, Sandra, ed. “Lifting the Genetic Veil of Ignorance: Is There Anything Really Unjust About Gattacan Society?” In Bioethics at the Movies. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009, pp. 87–101. ISBN: 9780801890789.

Matrix, Sidney Eve. “GATTACA, Gender and Genoism.” In Cyberpop: Digital Lifestyles and Commodity Culture. Routledge, pp. 85–102. ISBN: 9780415649018.

Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. Scholastic Press, 2010. ISBN: 9788184771695.

8 Ecofeminism, Technology and Development

Wallis, Victor. “Vision and Strategy: Questioning the Subsistence Perspective.” Capitalism, Nature, Socialism 17, no. 4 (2006): 38–43.

Mies, Maria. “Questioning Needs: A Rejoinder to Victor Wallis.” Capitalism, Nature, Socialism 17, no. 4 (2006): 44–7.

Mies, Maria, and Joel Kovel. “An Interview with Maria Mies.” Capitalism, Nature, Socialism 15, no. 4 (2004): 41–51.

Shiva, Vandana. “Bioprospecting as Sophisticated Biopiracy.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 32, no. 2 (2007): 323–31.

Isla, Ana. “An Ecofeminist Perspective on Biopiracy in Latin America.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 32, no. 2 (2007).

9 Surveillance, Cell Phones, and the Sex Trade

Andrijasevic, Rutvica. “Beautiful Dead Bodies: Gender, Migration and Representation in Anti-Trafficking Campaigns.” Feminist Review 86 (2007): 24–44.

Qu, Hong. “Social Media and the Boston Bombings: When Citizens and Journalists Cover the Same Story.” Nieman Journalism Lab, April 17, 2013.

Gray, Mitchell. “Urban Surveillance and Panopticism: Will We Recognize the Facial Recognition Society?Surveillance & Society 1, no. 3 (2003): 314–30.

Hoffman, Jan. “A Girl’s Nude Photo, and Altered Lives,” New York Times, March 26, 2011.

10 Alone Together Turkle, Sherry. Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. Basic Books, 2012. ISBN: 9780465031467.
11 Mobile Technology, Networks, and the “Connected Presence” of Gaming/Telephony

Ito, Mizuko. “Intimate Visual Co-Presence.” (PDF)

Licoppe, Christian. “Connected’ Presence: The Emergence of a New Repertoire for Managing Social Relationships in a Changing Communication Technoscape.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 22 (2004): 135–56.

Schroeder, Ralph. “Being There Together and the Future of Connected Presence.” Presence 15, no. 4 (2006): 438–54.

12 Globalization & Technology of Militarization

Cohn, Carol. “Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 12, no. 4 (1987): 687–718.

Enloe, Cynthia. Excerpt from Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women’s Lives. University of California Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780520220713.

Silver, David, and Alice Marwick, eds. “Internet Studies in Times of Terror.” In Critical Cyberculture Studies. New York University Press, 2006, pp. 47–54. ISBN: 9780814740248.

Course Info

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Spring 2013
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