History of Women in Technology

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• History of Women in Technology
• Technology in the domestic sphere

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History of Women in Technology (McGaw)

• feminist study of technology different from study
  of technologys internal development (evolution
  of tools, machines, and techniques)
• feminist study focuses on social, cultural and
  political dimensions but looking closely at
  technology itself (example Plants 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)

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History of Women in Technology (McGaw)

• 4 areas of concern for feminist history of
  technology (Cowan 1976)
• technology and womens activities as bearers and
  rearers of children
• technologys relationship to the (segregated and
  exploitative) world of womens employment
• technology in the womans place, the home
• technologys 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

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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, Haraways work)
• development of specialized medical technology for
  women (activism, public policy, feminist critique
  of technological development)
• technologys relationship to womens industrial,
  commercial, and domestic labor (womens
  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

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History of Women in Technology (McGaw)

• technology of the nondomestic work place (womens
  work outside of home)
• technology of homemaking
• technology and womens 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

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History of Women in Technology (McGaw)

• technological preconditions for and consequences
  of womens 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

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History of Women in Technology (McGaw)

• technology of the nondomestic work place
• 1790-1850 manufacturing moved from household and
  workshop to factory (womens 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

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History of Women in Technology (McGaw)

• technology of the nondomestic work place
• 1940s married womens labor force participation
  grows dramatically
• 1960s domestic labor industrialized, women
  capture lost positions in a mans world (forces
  of science and technology, wars, education) but
  the same patterns continue in which womens work
  designated as unskilled (see constants)

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History of Women in Technology (McGaw)

• technology of the nondomestic work place
• constants in womens conditions of work in all
  periods (Cowan)
• women paid less than men for same work
• women did not perform the same tasks as men
  (mens work became mechanized / womens work
  didnt 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, womens protective labor
  legislation

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History of Women in Technology (McGaw)

• technology of homemaking
• 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

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History of Women in Technology (McGaw)

• technology of homemaking
• 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
  womens workday but to raise American living
  standards

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History of Women in Technology (McGaw)

• technology of homemaking
• But what has been achieved?
• home economics sought to professionalize,
  industrialize, and standardize Americas 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

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History of Women in Technology (McGaw)

• technology of homemaking
• But what has been achieved?
• achievements of successful alternative societies
  and communaritarians (Shakers, Oneida) created
  commitment to eliminating conventional families
  and overcoming womens isolation from other
  women high innovation in domestic technology has
  shown better results than the domestic efficiency
  movement

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History of Women in Technology (McGaw)

• technology of homemaking
• 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

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History of Women in Technology (McGaw)

• technology and womens 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 womens
  traditional isolation

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History of Women in Technology (McGaw)

• technology and womens 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)

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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