Gender and Technology

Questions about admittance and similar, please contact kursexp@abe.kth.se Questions about content, please contact: Sonali Huria This course is a social, cultural, philosophical, and historical investigation of gender and technology. Starting with the assumption that technologies are never gender neutral, neither in their design nor in their use, the course explores the co-construction of gender and technology in critical theories and technological practices alike. Drawing on feminist Science and Technology Studies (STS) and feminist media studies, the course provides critical perspectives on connections between gender and technology. The course also aims at provinding a basic understandning of the interplay between gender and technology during history, for example in fields of organization of labor and introduction of new technologies. At the same time, the course aims to not only analyze technologies, but to incorporate critical gender awareness in ways of envisioning development of new technologies. The course encourages thinking technologies in ways that make use of critical perspectives to make a difference to the technological practices that are being addressed. The examination consists in active participation in seminars, short reaction papers, and a final essay. Part of this work is related to ways of thinking, modeling or prototyping technologies differently, to spell out implications for design from a critical gender perspective.