Title (100 characters): Gender & Identity: Understanding the Cultural and Natural Constructs Description (500 character

1. MIDTERM REVIEW

2. Organization of the Course Module I - Gender as Cultural and Natural Construct Module II - Women, Information Technology, Education, and Employment Module III - Social context and policy: Global and international perspectives of women's work

3. Organization of the Course Module I - Gender as Cultural and Natural Construct 1. Gender and Identity 2. Gender preferences in the use of technology 3. Cybertechnologies 4. Technocriticism

4. Organization of the Course Module II - Women, Information Technology, Education, and Employment 1. Female achievements in Technoscience 2. History of Women in Technology 3. Information technology in the workplace 4. Technology in the domestic sphere

5. Gender & Identity MIDTERM REVIEW

6. Gender / Sex • Male / Female distinction is biological but gender is culturally constructed (learned) • Masculinity / Femininity traits are related to gender • just another social category (~ eye-color, skin color, caste, class, income) but other categories not necessarily organizing a cognitive schema • Children become aware of their gender by the age of 5

7. Gender schema theory • How and why sex-typed individuals develop a readiness to organize information and self-concepts in terms of gender? • GST explains the process by which children are socialized into a gender schematic reasoning • GST gives recommendations on how to achieve gender-neutral upbringing

8. Gender schema theory • society is aware of negative images based on particular attributes of f / m, but continues to exaggerate sexual distinctions and the functional importance of the gender dichotomy • gender schematic associative network is reinforced by: toys, clothing, occupations, hobbies, domestic division of labor, all vary as a function of sex

9. Gender schema theory • Gender schema theory proposes that a category will become a schema if: • Social context makes it the nucleus of a large associative network (if ideology and/or practices of the culture construct an association bw that category and a wide range of other attributes, behaviors, concepts, and categories • Social context assigns the category broad functional significance, that is, if a broad array of social institutions, norms, and taboos distinguishesbw persons, behaviors, and attributes on the basis of this category

10. Gender schema theory • Passive network of associations are transformed into an active and readily available schema for interpreting reality • Functional importance assigned by society to particular categories and distinctions animates their associated networks and gives these schemata priority and availability over others • Problem: negative sex-stereotypes, dichotomizing society based on gender

11. Gender schema theory • gender schema theory as explanation of sex typing is acceptable because it is tied to socialization (reversible) vs. • ‘anatomy is destiny’ view: associated with conservative conclusions regarding the inevitability of sex typing

12. Gender Schema Theory (cont.) Teaching Children about Sex Differences • Cultural correlates of sex • Biological correlates of sex Providing Alternative Schemata • Individual Differences Schema • Cultural Relativism Schema • Sexism Schema

13. Gender Schema Theory (cont.) • Problems with psychological androgyny from the point of view of gender schema theory • gender schema theory does not recognize masculine & feminine as content (something inherent in us, that has reality in itself) but as process of socialization (cognitive constructs)

14. Gender Schema Theory (cont.) • From the point of view of GST, androgyny as approach is fatalistic because does not embrace transformation of a schema; it locks individuals further into schemata • GST is political because it shows that human behaviors and personality attributes should no longer be linked with gender, and society should stop projecting gender into situations irrelevant to biological sex

15. Gender Preferences in the Use of Technology MIDTERM REVIEW

16. computer has no gender bias but computer culture is not gender neutral

17. Computational Reticence • analysis of how social construction of the computer as a male domain affects how women relate to computers (part of broader issue of how women are socialized traditionally into relationships with technical objects) • computer culture traditionally dominated by images of competition, sports and violence

18. Computational Reticence • Turkle concludes: problem with women in computing is not computerphobia, but computer reticence • computerphobia:needing to stay away because of fear and panic; lack of ability • computer reticence: deciding / wanting to stay away because the computer becomes a personal and cultural symbol of what a woman is not; reticence to become more deeply involved with an object experienced as threatening

19. Computational Reticence Computational reticence explained by Turkle (1988) as women’s behaviors of: • Rejecting the intimate machine (microworlds) • (rejecting) The negative image of the hacker (industry, educational institutions, media, lifestyle required for success)

20. Computational Reticence Computational reticence explained by Turkle (1988) as women’s behaviors of: • Fighting against computer holding power • (restraint from) Romantic reactions to the anthropomorphized machine • Reticence about formal systems

21. Computational Reticence solutions • create computer-rich environments, supported by flexible and powerful programming languages • encourage use of computers as expressive material • provide venues for different forms of relating (technical and mathematical thinking as well as the process of creation, allowing computational objects to be experienced as tactile and physical)

22. Readings: The Rise of Western Science • the history of Western science left out the contributions of women and much of the science of the non-Western world • a gender-sensitive approach to the role of women in science works with a broadened definition of science

23. Readings: The Rise of Western Science Reading A: Magic (Gordon) • What are the ‘scientific’ properties of magic and how is it related to knowledge we now label technology? • Give institutional reasons for the persecution of witches in early modern Europe? How are witches related to women’s knowledge worlds and why were these worlds dangerous for the Christian Church?

24. Readings: The Rise of Western Science Reading B: Feminist Approaches to Technology (Rowbotham) • Discuss women’s contributions to scientific and technological innovation presented by the author in this ‘gendered’ account of scientific innovation.

25. Readings: The Rise of Western Science Reading B: Feminist Approaches to Technology (Rowbotham) • The professionalization of science brought about even larger exclusion of women from the field of scientific innovation after the 16th century. Explain how institutional ways of exclusion functioned then and now.

26. Readings: The Rise of Western Science Reading B: Feminist Approaches to Technology (Rowbotham) • Explain how the domestic sphere in which women operated could bring about innovation in science and technology. • Give examples to show the distinction between professional and alternative spheres in which knowledge may be produced.

27. Readings: The Rise of Western Science Reading C: The Biological Connection (Fausto-Sterling) • If science claims objectivity, and access to truth, how do you explain the author’s statement that it is based on personal opinions of researchers. • Why does the author say that science is culturally constructed?

28. Readings: The Rise of Western Science Reading C: The Biological Connection (Fausto-Sterling) • List some of the scientific errors that negatively affected the representation of women in scientific studies. • What are the solutions that authors propose to avoid sexist science.

29. Readings: The Rise of Western Science Reading D: Women’s Brains (Gould) • Describe the pitfalls of craniometry, a popular ‘scientific’ explanation of gender differences that was practiced by Paul Broca in early 19th century France. • Why does the author say that these studies were inspired by the social concerns of the day?

30. Readings: The Rise of Western Science Reading D: Women’s Brains (Gould) • How is craniometry related to theory of social distinctiveness as biologically ordained? • Can you think of contemporary equivalents of studies that promote biological determinism. Why is there a potential for them to be racist, sexist, or homophobic?

31. Readings: The Rise of Western Science Reading E: The Ethics of Genetic Research on Sexual Orientation (Schuklenk, Stein, Kerin, Byne) • Sexual orientation is determined by choice. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? • Use the article to discuss why the search for the ‘gay gene’ if tied to policy has a potential to promote homophobia.

32. ‘Girls’ Games Movement’ MIDTERM REVIEW

33. Girls’ Games Movement • This movement emerged out of the realization that girls do not get socialized with technology in the same way as as boys and that they are in fact excluded from that participation : gaming is one area in which this early socialization with technology occurs • girls make 15-17% of the computer games market • 1997 MIT conference explores girls lesser and later access to computer games than boys which initiates a vicious circle, with fewer women working in computer science and technology fields • Girls’ Games Movement combines the efforts of feminist scholars and industry leaders in evaluating (and developing) the new resources that will promote the socialization of girls to technology through play

34. Girls’ Games Movement • The arguments pro- and against- designing software for girls, and how that software should look, are still integral to the debates initiated by the Girls’ Games Movement • What is your own take on these debates?

35. Bodies + Machines MIDTERM REVIEW

36. Cyborg Representations • Grotesque images that involve imagining the relationships bw people and things that are interpenetrated • Bad science fiction or crucial notion for understanding technoscience, and how the knowledge (of science and technology) is shaping lived experience

37. Cyborg Representations: Gonzáles • Organic cyborg (monster of multiple species) • Mechanical cyborg (techno-human amalgamation) • Cyborg consciousness (abstract, amalgamated, hybrid) • Cyborg body politics? -- Gendered cyborg? (social control over woman’s/man’s body) • Why are robots not cyborgs?

38. Cyborg Representations: Gonzáles • Cyborg images appear when the current model of a human being does not fit a new paradigm -- a hybrid model of existence is required to encompass a new, complex and contradictory lived experience -- the cyborg body becomes the historical record of change in human perception in the realm of fantasy • How is the cyborg body reflecting modern experience in each of the cases that are discussed by González? • What is the habitat of each of these beings?

39. Cyborg Representations • Cyborgs are the iconography of modern experience (not natural, but mediated through technology) • Why do they reflect a process of rethinking human nature? (use examples from your own search)

40. Cyborg Representations • pre-industrial consciousness (18th century engraving Mechanical Mistress: L’Horlogère: body of a woman merged with an automaton; ideology of order, precision, and mechanisation) • 19th century preoccupation with mechanization and possibility that people’s identities and emotional lives become like machines • early 20th century experience of modernism: a body in pieces (Hannah Höch: Das schöne Mädchen (1920) collage)

41. Cyborg Representations • early 20th century experience ofmodernism: a mechanical mind (Raoul Hausmann: Tête Méchanique. L’ésprit de notre temps (ca. 1921) assemblage of found objects) • late 20th century experience of modernism: manifestation of the body at war in the theater of politics; hybrid body male/female (Robert Longo: All You Zombies: Truth Before God (1990)

42. pre-industrial industrial post-industrial

43. autonomous automaton simulacrum

44. Technologies of beauty Technologies of health: women and medical technology; technologies of reproduction MIDTERM REVIEW

45. Anne Balsamo • On the Cutting Edge • Cyborg Assignment

46. History of Women in Technology History of Women in Technology History of Women in Technology Technology in the Domestic Sphere MIDTERM REVIEW

47. History of Women in Technology (McGaw) • feminist study of technology vs. study of technology’s internal development (evolution of tools, machines, and techniques) • feminist study vs. social history of technology (choice of central topics and specific technologies such as history of contraceptive technology vs. general view of technology) • 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)

48. 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 • women’s acquisition of mathematical and technological literacy through systematic training

49. History of Women in Technology historical & sociological approach • technology and the division of labor vs. technological determinism • labor process analysis: social groups have different interests and resources :: conflict bw different views of the technical requirements of the technological artefacts • technological determinism: changes in technology are the most important cause of social change (technologies are neutral and affect society from the outside :: social location of scientists and technologists is irrelevant)

50. History of Women in Technology historical & sociological approach • women’s exclusion from technology is the consequence of the gender division of labor and male domination of skilled trades during the industrial revolution • machinery was designed by men in mind • women had no access to formal technical knowledge and resources to participate in invention of new technologies (domestic sphere) • masculine culture of technology & gender division of labor perpetuated with new technologies (integral to the nature of innovation)