Gender and ICT: Are we making progress in CyberFeministisation?

The “gender digital divide” constitutes a prolific research program that compares the differences between women and men in access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Nevertheless, those using feminist socio-constructivist perspectives argue for the need to pay attention, not only to “access,” but also to “design,” in addition to considering social relations as something that is coded within technological artifacts. From this perspective, gender constitutes an integral part of technological production. This paper explores the co-constitution of gender and technology, considering a specific action-research experience. It is argued that the re-signification of gendered and technological codes drifts through: a) the opening of gendered and technological codes; b) the production of new cultural imaginaries that question hegemonic representations of gender; and c) the production of new subjectivities through the reorganization of socio-technical practices to develop performative acts that transform patriarchal relations.

STS working paper, 2005

Surprisingly often, ICTs like computers and mobile phones and ICT-based services like sms or the internet are characterised as either feminine or masculine. This occurs among academics as well as in everyday life conversations. How should we as analysts understand and cope with this issue. Is this kind of gendering unproblematic as long as it shifts between the ‘masculine’ and the ‘feminine’? What kind of work is performed through such gendering and with what kind of effects? This paper will approach this set of problems through a dialogue with so-called cyberfeminism. It represents an approach that argues a quite general change in the gendering of ICT, from masculine to feminine. For example, Sadie Plant claims that as the network features of ICT become dominant, ICT emerges as a deeply feminine technology. In many ways, this appears to be an optimistic view from a feminist standpoint since there is a promise that the gendered digital divide will disappear, perhaps to some extent reversed. Drawing on the extensive research into these issues performed through the large European SIGIS-study (Strategies of Inclusion: Gender in the Information Society), this paper will discuss some of the problems arising from the cyberfeminist perspective. A major weakness is related to the extensive employment of dualist binaries in the underlying understanding of gender. SIGIS research shows that often, these dualisms are translated into discourses that make claims about gender dualist practices related to ICT. SIGIS research also shows that when ICT practices are analysed in greater detail, the gendering turns out to be paradoxical, diverse and heterogeneous. However, the discourses may inject stereotypical norms and notions about what kind of artefacts and practices that are gender appropriate, thus producing a dualist force that may work to reproduce gender dualisms rather than dissolve them. Thus, while cyberfeminism may seem as a progressive countermove to a traditional assertion that computers are masculine, its discursive effects may not be that progressive in the longer term.

Information, Communication & Society, 2008

Rhizomes Issue Four–http://www. rhizomes. net, 2002

Communications, 2000

In the early 1990s, cyberfeminism surfaced as an arena for critical analyses of the inter-connections of gender and new technology Ϫ especially so in the context of the internet, which was then emerging as something of a "mass-medium". Scholars, activists and artists interested in media technology and its gendered underpinnings formed networks and groups. Consequently, they attached altering sets of meaning to the term cyberfeminism that ranged in their take on, and identifications with feminism. Cyberfeminist activities began to fade in the early 2000s and the term has since been used by some as synonymous with feminist studies of new media Ϫ yet much is also lost in such a conflation. This article investigates the histories of cyberfeminism from two interconnecting perspectives. First, it addresses the meanings of the prefix "cyber" in cyberfeminism. Second, it asks what kinds of critical and analytical positions cyberfeminist networks, events, projects and publications have entailed. Through these two perspectives, the article addresses the appeal and attraction of cyberfeminism and poses some tentative explanations for its appeal fading and for cyberfeminist activities being channelled into other networks and practiced under different names.

Research on gender and technology has traditionally focused on studying the exclusion of women in ICT. In contrast, technologist women's experiences and their strategies leading to their inclusion in ICT have received less attention. Motivated by our previous experience in technoactivism and the observation of a remarkable presence of women, within the Donestech Collective, we initiated a research project on the access, uses of and desires of women who had been involved in technology. For this we created a website, gathered information on women and technology, generated and participated in meetings and workshops and, especially, collected experiences of women technologists. A call was made through the Internet to answer a semi-qualitative questionnaire online and, besides that, several in-depth interviews and focus groups were conducted in different Spanish Regions. Our findings suggest a great diversity of women pathways to ICT as well as heterogeneous technological practices among women technologists where Internet plays a significant role. Moreover, our results show that women in ICT are curious and enthusiastic, want to be empowered, are willing to share the knowledge gained with others, distrust and dislike power relations existing in the technological environments and try to maintain a critical and creative attitude towards technology.

Women Philosophers on Economics, Technology, Environment, and Gender History. Shaping the Future, Rethinking the Past, 2023

In this essay, I analyze some of the relationships that have been historically articulated between feminisms and technologies – specifically, the positions of cyberfeminism and technofeminism. I am interested in recognizing some of the instrumentalist and political assumptions about technology, where technology is understood in the sense of particular and discrete objects that have a specific political use, namely, to enslave or liberate. I articulate a critique of these assumptions from an ontological view of technology, which attends to the becoming of technical objects, recognizing in them their technological potencies and what this implies for a political, specifically feminist perspective.

Elementa. Intersections between Philosophy, Epistemology and Empirical Perspectives, 2022

The current of cyberfeminism has been active for 30 years now, also referred to as the “third wave” of feminism. Despite being an ambiguous and multifaceted movement involving multiple instances, cyberfeminism is represented in the imagination by women with strong knowledge of media and digital technologies. The purpose of this article is to analyze the socially and culturally constructed value that the media assume in this movement. The very concept of identity is undergoing a phenomenon of control whereby it is redefined by “control grids” (D. Haraway) that prevent free access to participation in life on the web. The utopian theories of feminists actually alternate with fundamental gender analyses within cyberspace that determine the amount of access to resources. The last phase of this phenomenon is instead characterized by the intent to break down gender inequalities through a series of digital products that produce changes in common perceptions: online magazines, YouTube channe...