COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES AND GENDER

COMS 472/521
3 credits

Leslie Regan Shade

Department of Communication Studies
Concordia University
Winter Semester 2011
Wednesdays 8:45-11:30
CJ 5.301

Office:
CJ 4.407, Loyola
Office Hours: Wednesdays 11:30-12:30 and by appointment
Email: lshade@alcor.concordia.ca
Phone: 514-848-2424 x2550

Courseblog: http://techfem.blogspot.com/
The blog is used by the professor to post relevant material surrounding the
course and is not intended to be a blog that students contribute towards…

Calendar Description
Feminist theories of communication technologies are used to critique the impact
and meanings of these technologies in various spheres of cultural activity. Topics
include the mass media, technological mediations in organizations and
institutions, and the re-articulation of domestic and public spaces, such as the
Internet and the World Wide Web. Special attention is paid to these electronic
and digital technologies – or new media – and the communicational and
representational possibilities they enable or foreclose. The class is conducted as
an intensive seminar. Completion of a prior course in women’s studies or gender
studies at the university level is recommended.

Objectives
Communication Technologies and Gender provides an introduction to debates
surrounding gender and technology, including historical and theoretical
perspectives on feminism and technology from various perspectives – cultural
studies, political economy, feminist theory, new media studies, policy, and STS
(science & technology studies). Case studies of specific technologies will be
provided, with particular attention paid to information and communication
technologies (ICTs).

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BOOKS (available at Loyola Bookstore)

o Ursula Franklin, The Real World of Technology (Anansi, 1999). (required)

o Virginia Eubanks, Digital Dead End: Fighting for Social Justice in the
Information Age (MIT Press, 2011). Note: this book will be available in the
bookstore after the winter break. (required)

ASSIGNMENTS

Class Participation (10%)

Students are expected to attend all the classes unless there are particular
personal reasons why this is not possible. Please inform me ahead of time if you
will not be able to make a class, or e-mail me if you know that you won’t be able
to make the class (because of sickness or personal emergency). As this is a
seminar class, students are expected to come to class having completed all the
reading for that week – we will be discussing and debating the readings, so come
prepared!
Artifact presentation (15%)
Students will present in class (approx. 10 minutes each) a discussion of a
technological artifact and its gendered implications. Note that you do not have to
bring to class the particular artifact (this may be impossible!), however, you may
present this artifact in whatever creative way you deem necessary. While
extensive outside research on the artifact is not necessary, students will be
asked to give a brief history of the artifact and an idea of its social uses and
political ramifications. Students do not need to hand in a written paper. Dates for
the presentations will be decided in the first week of class.

Mini Reading Response Essays (3@ 20% each = 60%)

750 words (3 pages) each.

A reading response demonstrates a student’s knowledge of the texts and

provides a critical and formal reflection on the weekly theme, through individual
and comparative analysis of the readings. While the readings must be
summarized briefly, focus on the key arguments (thesis statements) of the
readings. Respond directly to the readings, either agreeing or disagreeing with
the arguments presented in the readings, and telling me why. Accurately quote
and cite, but do not over-quote. Provide examples from your personal
experience, or media examples to bolster your arguments, if you wish. Each
reading response will cover three discrete weekly sets of readings, including the
optional readings for that week. These include weeks 3-8, and weeks 10-12. A
reading response for Franklin and/or Eubanks can also form part of the trio of
responses. Students may skip ahead in the readings and write on any weekly
theme for the three essays. Due dates for the three essays are: February 9;
March 9; and March 30.

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Feminist Technology Design (15%)
Students will work in teams to design a feminist technology, which will presented
to the class on April 6. Details will be discussed in class. As a working definition,
an FTA “would be those tools plus knowledge that enhance women’s ability to
develop, expand, and express their capacities” (Linda L. Layne, Introduction,
Feminist Technology, ed. Layne, Vostral and Boyer, Univ. of Illinois Press, 2010,
p.3).

COMS 472 – WEEKLY SCHEDULE

Week 1: January 5
Introduction to Course

Week 2: January 12
Thinking About Technology
Readings
Franklin, Chapters 1-3

Hughie Mackay and Gareth Gillespie. (1992). Extending the Social Shaping of
Technology Approach: Ideology and Appropriation. Social Studies of Science 22:
585-718. (CLUES)

Week 3: January 19
Gender and Technology: Theoretical Perspectives
Readings
Franklin, Chapters 4-6.

Judy Wajcman. (2010). Feminist Theories of Technology. Cambridge Journal of

Economics 34: 142-152. (CLUES)

Optional readings
Francesca Bray. (2007). Gender and Technology. Annual Review of
Anthropology 36: 37-53. (CLUES)

Sally Wyatt. (2008, February). Feminism, Technology and the Information

Society: Learning from the Past, Imagining the Future. Information,
Communication & Society 11(1): 111-130. (CLUES)

Week 4: January 26
Cyberfeminism
Readings
Donna Haraway. A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-
Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century, in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The

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Reinvention of Nature (New York; Routledge), 1991: 149-181. URL:
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html

Jesse Daniels. Rethinking Cyberfeminisms(s): Race, Gender, and Embodiment.

WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly 37(1-2)(Spring/Summer 2009): 101-124.
(CLUES)

Week 5: February 2
Reclaiming Domesticity
Readings
Franklin, Chapters 7-10.

Ricia A. Chansky. (2010). A Stitch in Time: Third Wave Feminist Reclamation of

Needled Imagery. The Journal of Popular Culture 43(4): 681-700. (CLUES)

Elizabeth Groeneveld. (2010). “Join the Knitting Revolution”: Third-Wave

Feminist Magazines and the Politics of Domesticity. Canadian Review of
American Studies/Revue canadienne d’études américaines 40(2): 259-277.
(CLUES)

Week 6: February 9
Technology, Design and Gender
Readings
Elizabeth F. Churchill. (March/April 2010). Sugared Puppy-Dog Tails: Gender
and Design. Interactions: 52-56. (CLUES)

Nelly Oudshoorn, Els Rommes and Marcelle Stienstra. (Winter 2004).

Configuring the User as Everybody: Gender and Design Cultures in Information
and Communication. Science, Technology & Human Values 29(1): 30-63.
(CLUES)

Rachel Maines. (June 1989). Socially Camouflaged Technologies: The Case of

the Electromechanical Vibrator. IEEE Technology and Society Magazine: 3-23.
(CLUES)

Optional readings
Marianne van den Boomen,. 2009. Hacking Barbie in Gendered Computer
Culture. In Doing Gender in Media, Art and Culture, ed. Rosemarie Buikema and
Iris van der Tuin, 193-206. New York: Routledge.
http://metamapping.net/blog/up/Boomen_barbie_drukproef.pdf

Week 7: February 16
Rocking Robins

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Readings
Mary Celeste Kearney. Pink Technology: Mediamaking Gear for Girls. Camera
Obscura 74 (25) (2)(2010): 1-39. (CLUES)

Optional readings
Monique Bourdage. ‘A Young Girl’s Dream’: Examining the Barriers Facing
Female Electric Guitarists. Journal of the International Association for the Study
of Popular Music 1(1)(2010): 1-16. http://www.iaspmjournal.net

WINTER BREAK FEBRUARY 21-25

Week 8: March 2
What’s Labor Got To Do With It?
Readings
Lisa McLaughlin. Looking for Labor in Feminist Media Studies. Television New
Media 10)(1)(January 2009) 110-113. (CLUES)

Nina B. Huntemann. Irreconcilable Differences: Gender and Labor in the Video

Game Workplace. Flow TV. (January 22, 2010).
http://flowtv.org/2010/01/irreconcilable-differences-gender-and-labor-in-the-video-
game-workplace-nina-b-huntemann-suffolk-university/

Rhiannon Bury. Women, Work and Web 2.0: A Case Study. New Technology,
Work and Employment 25(3)(2010): 223-237. (CLUES)

Optional readings
Rosalind Gill. Technobohemians or the New Cybertariat? New Media Work in
Amsterdam a Decade After the Web. Amsterdam: Network of Institute Cultures,
2007. URL: http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/portal/publications/network-
notebooks/technobohemians-or-the-new-cybertariat/

Week 9: March 9
Hacker Culture
Readings
E. Gabriella Coleman and Alex Golub. (2008). Hacker Practice: Moral Genres
and the Cultural Articulation of Liberalism. Anthropological Theory 2008; 8(3)
255-277. (CLUES)

Week 10: March 16

Activism
Readings
Eubanks, Chapters 1-3 (Four Beginnings; The Real World of Information
Technology; Trapped in the Digital Divide)

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Optional readings
Ariel Dougherty. The Intersections of Women Centered Media: Funding and the
Struggle for Our Human Rights. Global Media Journal 7(13)(Fall 2008): Article
10. http://lass.calumet.purdue.edu/cca/gmj/fa08/gmj-fa08-dougherty.htm

Christina Dunbar-Hester. Beyond ‘‘Dudecore’’? Challenging Gendered and

‘‘Raced’’ Technologies Through Media Activism. Journal of Broadcasting &
Electronic Media 54(1), 2010, pp. 121–135. (CLUES)

Week 11: March 23

Surveillance & Gender
Readings
Eubanks, Chapters 4-5 (Drowning in the Sink-or-Swim Economy, Technologies
of Citizenship)

Torin Monahan. Dreams of Control at a Distance: Gender, Surveillance and

Social Control. Cultural Studies / Critical Methodologies 9 (2)(2009, April): 286-
305. (CLUES)

Optional readings
Jane Bailey. Life in the Fishbowl: Feminist Interrogations of Webcamming in On
the Identity Trail: Anonymity, Privacy and Identity in a Networked Society, edited
by Ian Kerr, Carole Lucock and Valerie Steeves (Oxford University Press, 2009):
283-301

Week 12: March 30

Gendering Mobilities
Readings
Eubanks, Chapter 6-7 (Popular Technology, Cognitive Justice and Critical
Technological Citizenship)

Larissa Hjorth. Imaging Communities: Gendered Mobile Media in the Asia-

Pacific. Asia-Pacific Journal (2009), http://japanfocus.org/-Larissa-Hjorth/3064

Optional readings
Michelle Rodino-Colocino. (December 2006). Selling Women on PDAs from
‘Simply Palm’ to “Audrey” How Moore’s Law Met Parkinson’s Law in the Kitchen.
Critical Studies in Media Communication 23(5): 375-390. (CLUES)

Molly Wright Steenson. (2006). Mobile Space is Women’s Space: Reframing

Mobile Phones and Gender in an Urban Context. www.girlwonder.com/steenson-
mobile-women-city-2.pdf

Week 13: April 6

Last class - Feminist Technology Design Pitches

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RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Please acquaint yourself with Concordia University’s Academic Code of

Conduct at http://provost.concordia.ca/academicintegrity/plagiarism/

The most common offense under the Academic Code of Conduct is plagiarism
which the Code defines as "the presentation of the work of another person
as one's own or without proper acknowledgement" (Article 16a). This could
be material copied word for word from books, journals, internet sites, professor's
course notes, etc. It could be material that is paraphrased but closely resembles
the original source. It could be the work of a fellow student, for example, an
answer on a quiz, data for a lab report, a paper or assignment completed by
another student. It might be a paper purchased through one of the many
available sources. Plagiarism does not refer to words alone - it can also refer to
copying images, graphs, tables, and ideas. "Presentation" is not limited to written
work. It also includes oral presentations, computer assignments and artistic
works. If you translate the work of another person into French or English and do
not cite the source, this is also plagiarism. If you cite your own work without the
correct citation, this too is plagiarism.
IN SIMPLE WORDS:
DO NOT COPY, PARAPHRASE OR TRANSLATE ANYTHING FROM
ANYWHERE WITHOUT SAYING FROM WHERE YOU GOT IT! DON'T
FORGET TO USE QUOTATION MARKS!

GRADING SCALE

NUMERICAL GRADE LETTER GRADE OFFICIAL GRADE

POINT
95-100 A+ 4.33
90-94 A 4.0
85-89 A- 3.67
82-84 B+ 3.3
78-81 B 3.0
75-77 B- 2.67
72-74 C+ 2.33
68-71 C 2.0
65-67 C- 1.67
60-64 D+ 1.33
55-59 D 1.0
50-54 D- 0.67
0-49 F 0.0

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ATTENDANCE AND LATENESS POLICY
There is no excuse for a late assignment; medical or family emergencies are the
only exception. Assignments later than 24 hours will be docked 5 grade points.
Students missing 3 or more classes will receive a 0 for their participation grade.

TECH IN THE CLASSROOM

Laptops, PDAs are not allowed in the classroom unless there is a medical note
provided