History of Women in Technology Technology in the domestic sphere

1. History of Women in Technology Technology in the domestic sphere

2. History of Women in Technology (McGaw) • feminist study of technology different from study of technology’s internal development (evolution of tools, machines, and techniques) • feminist study focuses on social, cultural and political dimensions but looking closely at technology itself (example: Plant’s study of the Differential Machine & connection to weaving) • feminist study vs. social history of technology (choice of central topics and specific technologies such as history of contraceptive technology)

3. History of Women in Technology (McGaw) • 4 areas of concern for feminist history of technology (Cowan 1976) • technology and women’s activities as bearers and rearers of children • technology’s relationship to the (segregated and exploitative) world of women’s employment • technology in the woman’s place, the home • technology’s relationship to women in a society simultaneously celebrating ‘Yankee ingenuity’ and “systematically training more than half of our population to be ‘un-American’ by socializing women to be unskilled in mathematics and mechanics”

4. History of Women in Technology (McGaw) • existing feminist literature on the study of technology is diverse, scattered, and amorphous: • women as scientific technologists (history of science, history of medicine, Haraway’s work) • development of specialized medical technology for women (activism, public policy, feminist critique of technological development) • technology’s relationship to women’s industrial, commercial, and domestic labor (women’s historians) • qualitative research studying technological cultures ( computer science departments); studies of recruitment and retention in education (Unlocking the Clubhouse, 2002) • often scholarship tied to museum work (work-related technology, clothing) & construction of living historical villages

5. History of Women in Technology (McGaw) • technology of the nondomestic work place (women’s work outside of home) • technology of homemaking • technology and women’s work in predominantly agricultural communities (the colonial era, the American West, the South) • technology as a tool for enhancing sex differences and reinforcing sex-role stereotypes through clothing, cosmetics, and hairdressing

6. History of Women in Technology (McGaw) • technological preconditions for and consequences of women’s increasing importance as consumers • impact of women in technologies generally examined only from masculine perspective from which women were excluded: manufacturing technologies in industries, municipal technologies, and transportation and communication technologies

7. History of Women in Technology (McGaw) technology of the nondomestic work place • 1790-1850: manufacturing moved from household and workshop to factory (women’s movement outside the home to work) • 1870-1920: larger percentage of women sought and obtained employment outside home (percentage of women in white-collar work increased) • 1920s: clerical work sex-typed, women as domestic laborers

8. History of Women in Technology (McGaw) technology of the nondomestic work place • 1940s: married women’s labor force participation grows dramatically • 1960s: domestic labor industrialized, women capture lost positions in a man’s world (forces of science and technology, wars, education) but the same patterns continue in which women’s work designated as unskilled (see constants)

9. History of Women in Technology (McGaw) technology of the nondomestic work place • constants in women’s conditions of work in all periods (Cowan) • women paid less than men for same work • women did not perform the same tasks as men (men’s work became mechanized / women’s work didn’t become mechanized even when technology was available) • women considered to be transitory members of the labor force • neglected in research: colonial, rural, black, hispanic, native American women, women living outside the Northeast; nothing about management of female workers, women’s protective labor legislation

10. History of Women in Technology (McGaw) technology ofhomemaking • impact of industrialization on domestic environment • Giedion: history of technologies • Strasser: history of housework • origins, content and results of the movement to make housekeeping ‘scientific’(domestic efficiency movement) • 1870-1930s home economics becomes professionalized and involved scolarship and professional attention of architects, builders, reformers redesigning the housework

11. History of Women in Technology (McGaw) technology ofhomemaking • But what has been achieved? • domestic technology made housework less arduous but not less time-consuming (1870-1920) • interior and exterior spatial arrangements kept homemakers relatively isolated and inefficient • women encouraged to devote attention to childrearing, religious education, and consumption (reforms not intended to shorten women’s workday but to raise American living standards

12. History of Women in Technology (McGaw) technology ofhomemaking • But what has been achieved? • home economics sought to professionalize, industrialize, and standardize America’s domestic work but did not tackle the subject to change the hours, efficiency, status of the household worker • in the 20th century domestic work lost creativity and individuality as it continued to be time-consuming (proletarianized housework) • housewives and servants had to be generalists and limited in skill and efficiency • industrialization of the home retarded and technologies continue to require low skills to operate • existence of commercial models for baking, laundry, cooking did not allow development of home technologies

13. History of Women in Technology (McGaw) technology ofhomemaking • But what has been achieved? • achievements of successful alternative societies and communaritarians (Shakers, Oneida) created commitment to eliminating conventional families and overcoming women’s isolation from other women; high innovation in domestic technology has shown better results than the domestic efficiency movement

14. History of Women in Technology (McGaw) technology ofhomemaking • Further study needed: • of effects of informal educational activities (Chatauqua), World Fairs • of ties bw home economists and the food-processing industry • of the effect of domestic labor on the American diet • of technology of women as bearers and rearers of children and toy industry • of why there is persistence of psychological rather than technological appeals in product advertising

15. History of Women in Technology (McGaw) technology and women’s work in agricultural communities agricultural capital (machines and irrigation systems) took precedence over better houses and home appliances • farm women devoted long hours to housework (cooking and washing for hired hands) • larger farms promoted by mechanization and specialization increased rural women’s traditional isolation

16. History of Women in Technology (McGaw) technology and women’s work in agricultural communities • less known about subgroups of rural women (colonial women, southern women, female migrant laborers, technology used by black, hispanic, and native American women) • what kinds of manufacturing skills were posessed by rural women and what was the division of labor on the farm (how much were women involved with field labor)

17. History of Women in Technology (McGaw) • Further study needed: • of adverse social and environmental consequences of technology • of agriculture • of consumption • of clothing • of how technologies impact both sexes but differently