Gender and Technology at Work
From Workplace Studies to Social Justice in Design

Insights about how gender and technology interact at work framed from an ethical-political standpoint, aimed at achieving design justice.

Ellen Balka (Author), Ina Wagner (Author), Anne Weibert (Author), Volker Wulf (Author)

9781009243711, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 4 April 2024

406 pages
23.4 x 15.7 x 2.7 cm, 0.72 kg

'Balka, Wagner, Weibert & Wulf's expertise and established commitment to participatory design (PD) and computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) provides a rich history of feminist scholarship in gender and technology studies that has shaped this field. Interspersed with interviews from eleven feminist pioneers in PD, CSCW, HCI and STS, they offer provocations, ethical-political perspectives and inspiration for burgeoning intersectional and interdisciplinary research and practice in gender, work and system design, data feminism, critical data studies, and data justice and design justice.' Leslie Regan Shade, Faculty of Information, University of Toronto

This book brings together the vast research literature about gender and technology to help designers understand what a gender perspective and a focus on intersectionality can contribute to designing information technology systems and artifacts, and to assist organizations as they work to develop work cultures that are supportive of women and marginalized genders and people. Drawing on empirical and analytical studies of women's work and technology in many parts of the world, the book addresses how to make invisible aspects of work visible; how to recognize women's skills without falling into the trap of gender stereotyping; how to engage in improving working conditions; and how to defend care of life situations and needs against a managerial logic. It addresses challenges for design, including many overlooked and undervalued aspects, such as the complexities involved in human–machine interactions, as well as the need to create safe spaces for research subjects.

Introduction
Part I. Gender and Technology – A Research Trajectory: 1. Gender and technology – a historical perspective
2. The ethical-political perspective
3. Pathways to a gendered and intersectional perspective
Part II. Gender and Technology at the Workplace: 4. Women and machines in the factory
5. Office automation and the redesign of work
6. Beyond the office – from data work to the platform economy
7. AI-based technologies – new forms of invisibility and the 'ironies of automation'
8. The computerization of care work
9. The gendering of computer work
Part III. Gender and Design: 10. Revisiting the ethical-political perspective in technology design
11. Contextualizing women's work
12. Pathways to gender equality in design
Postscript
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Ethical & social aspects of IT [UBJ]