History of Feminist Approaches to Technology Studies

Abstract

While women have historically engaged with technological practices and processes as designers, producers, users and consumers, technology itself has been socially constructed as a masculine domain and inherent to male gender identity. As a result, women have not been recognized as technological participants, nor have they had their contributions validated. To understand this exclusion, different feminist approaches have been historically utilized to help situate the framing of technology as a masculine domain that is organized by the social structures of patriarchy, capitalism, and social stratification. Feminist approaches have been used to deconstruct the defining of technology as masculine, to illuminate the historical ways in which women have been part of technological fields, and to give evidence of the pleasure and empowerment women can feel with technology.