SWE - Spring 2008 - (Page 68) BOOK REVIEWS Gender Designs IT Construction and Deconstruction of Information Society Technology Edited by Isabel Zorn, Susanne Maass, Els Rommes, Carola Schirmer, and Heidi Schelhowe VS Verlag, the Netherlands (2007) ISBN-10: 3531148184 ISBN-13: 978-3-531-14818-2 REVIEW BY GLORIA MONTANO, SWE Gender Designs IT is a must-read book for anyone seeking a practical understanding and realworld examples of what it means to take a gendered approach to designing technology. Published in the Netherlands, the book reflects international perspectives regarding gender influences on shaping the global information society and includes a chapter devoted to the women’s influence at the United Nations-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society. Gender Designs IT is based on contributions to the international symposium “Gender Perspectives Increasing Diversity for the Information Society Technology” (GIST, www.e-gist.net) that took place in June 2004 in Bremen, Germany. The symposium brought together researchers from around the world under the common goal of applying gender research to the information technology sector and supporting women’s projects with adequate technology. The authors present new starting points for criticism of technology and provide real examples for ways to influence actively the development of information society technology. Although the book focuses on information and communications technology, its fundamental concepts invite consideration in other fields such as engineering. For those who are uninitiated into the formal arena of gender studies, the editors provide a practical primer on three approaches to gender research: the liberal tradition, standpoint theory, and post-structuralism. They situate the discussion in the context of socially oriented software design, which they define as a subfield of computer science that blends easily with gendered perspectives. The liberal tradition is the most prevalent approach among policymakers and likely the most common perspective involving discussions on women and men in engineering. Assuming that men and women are equal, the liberal tradition is based on a deficit model of inclusion, which means that women need support to overcome exclusion and discrimination. For computer science and engineering, this translates to focus on the removal of barriers, such as improving technical and professional skills, or such discriminatory practices as admissions criteria that screen out more women than men. aken to its logical end, the liberal tradition means that once all barriers are removed, women engineers and computer scientists become involved in the same way as men engineers and computer scientists. Standpoint theory draws attention not to women and men but to femininities and masculinities, and emphasizes the need to revalue and regard femininities as equally or even more highly valued than masculinities. This approach opens the door for diversity of thinking. However, this approach also relies on the reinforcement of femininity and masculinity stereotypes and could lead to separate masculine and feminine worlds. Post-structuralism, the current domain of most researchers in gender and information society technology, looks at how gender and technology are co-constructed or mutually shape each other. Put differently, post-structuralism researchers ask “what gendered subjects are being (re)produced in work situations, through (in)formal teaching situations or by becoming a user or designer of technologies” (p. 16). As an engineer who likes to believe that her efforts improve lives and make new things possible, this writer finds the post-structuralism approach enlightening. Each of the case studies that follow, grouped into three parts, makes clear the connections between gender and the topic at hand. In part one, Analysis and Deconstruction, Jutta Weber and Corinna Bath apply reverse engineering to social robots and software agents, and Cecile K.M. Crutzen discusses ambient intelligence, a measure of the ubiquitous smart technologies that permeate activities of daily life. Christina Björkman, Pirjo Elovaara, and Lena Trojer talk about their position at the boundaries between science, technology, politics, and society. he second part, Construction of Information Society Technology, delves into how gender research takes form in software products. Maass and Rommes analyze call center software; Tanja Carstensen and Gabriele Winker examine use of the Internet by women’s organizations; and Tanja Paulitz looks at the construction of two virtual networks. The last grouping, Education and Empowerment for the Information Society, covers educational aspects of software design and technical aspects of teaching. Ruth Meßmer and Sigrid Schmitz write about teaching a technology course for mixed groups of computer science and gender studies students, and Edeltraud HanappiEgger and Bettina Munk discuss two types of computer games. Susanne Hartmann, Heike Wiesner, and Andreas Wiesner-Steiner explore how robotics can provide children with technology design experience. The editors’ goal was to introduce explicitly gender as a factor to bridge the digital divide and improve information society technology and its creation process. They accomplish that goal and it remains for the rest of us to use the discussion and examples provided to find ways to apply a gendered approach in our own technical fields. Gloria Montano is a past president of the Society of Women Engineers and former member of the SWE Magazine editorial board. An electrical engineer, she had a successful career in Silicon Valley before shifting focus. She is currently in St. Johns, New Foundland, working on her master’s. T T 68 SWE SPRING 2008 http://www.e-gist.net
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