GENDER IN THE DESIGN OF THE DIGITAL CITY OF AMSTERDAM

Abstract

This article analyses the social shaping of the Digital City of Amsterdam (DDS) from a gender perspective. It aims to contribute to an understanding of the overwhelming dominance (more than 90 per cent) of male DDS users, a fact which is more than surprising given that the designers had high ideals about making the internet accessible to a wider public. The analysis is rooted in the social constructivist tradition in technology studies. As such, it analyses technology as a product of social, political, and cultural negotiations among designers, policymakers and other social groups. The concept of 'genderscript' is used to examine the gender relations embedded in the design of DDS. In our analysis we show that the design process was gendered at three levels: the structural, symbolical and identity level. As the design-process was highly informal and no conscious attempt was made to focus on specific user-groups, the designers unconsciously projected their own, masculine biased interests on the future user. Thus they affected the choices concerning the goals, content and interface of DDS, providing it with a masculine genderscript.

Keywords:

• Gender
• Information
• Communication Technology
• Internet
• Design
• Freenet Communities