Straddling between technology and gender boundaries: the identity negotiation of female programmers in China

ABSTRACT

Extending the theoretical framework of gender boundaries, this research investigates female programmers’ IT practices and identity negotiations in a Chinese context. Based on a one-and-half year fieldwork in Shenzhen, China, the article generates a typology of the different identities female programmers have employed in and out of their IT work performance. It is argued that female programmers strategically address diverse and sometimes contradictory identities in their negotiation with gender and technology boundaries. The fluid and shifting gender identities of female programmers may allow them to readjust the gender boundaries and to pose challenges to the patriarchal social arrangement, even if overall male-dominant situations persist.

KEYWORDS:

• Identity negotiation
• female programmers
• boundary
• gender

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Ping Sun is currently an Assistant Professor in the Institute of Journalism and Communication at The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Her research interests are ICTs, digital labour and gender. In particular, she is interested in how technology and digitalization affect the livelihood of digital labour.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the China India Scholar-Leaders Initiative (CISLI, India China Institite, The New School, supported by grant from Ford Foundation [grant number 125131]); The National Social Science Fund of China [grant number 15BXW072].