Smart Technologies and Gender: A Never-Ending Story

Abstract

In this chapter, we explore gender issues in/of so-called smart technologies, drawing on analytical tools provided by the field of feminist technoscience. We begin by discussing some major approaches of this area of study, including the work of Cynthia Cockburn, Wendy Faulkner and Donna Haraway. Our review continues by addressing the issue of gendering of smart technologies and how the gendering has harmful consequences. The we investigate the sources of gender bias, exploring computer science and engineering as a world of and for men. We conclude by describing the gendering of smart technologies as the result of a co-production of the lack of women in the communities developing these technologies and the lack of concern of these communities with the interests and needs of women. This co-production appears to be stabilised to the extent that harmful gendering will continue to characterise smart technologies.