Gender, Technology, and the Designer’s Work: A Feminist Review

Abstract

This article presents a critical review of the feminist design studies that have been concerned with women’s disadvantaged position in technology-related fields of design. It explores these studies under two main research strands, the first of which is focused on revealing the contributions of the “exceptional” women hidden from the history of design, and the second is based on the assumption that women designers have a unique perspective that would enable them to understand better and satisfy the needs and expectations of the woman user. Drawing on the limitations of both strands, this article argues for the necessity of establishing dialogues with feminist technology studies, and in seeking the solution in the construction of gender and technology relations, rather than in women designers themselves.

Keywords:

• gender
• design
• technology studies
• women designers

Acknowledgments

The author thanks the two anonymous reviewers for their careful reading of and the insightful and constructive comments on the previous version of this article, which helped improve it greatly.

Notes

1. In the introduction of Rothschild’s edited book, Design and Feminism: Re-visioning Spaces, Places, and Everyday Things (Rothschild and Cheng 1999), she points to the distinction between design and technology, arguing that gendering of professions such as architecture, graphic design, engineering, and computer electronics are closely linked to this distinction. Moreover, in the review essay by Rothschild and Rosner (1999) in the same book, the authors provide a brief review of feminist studies on technology in relation to industrial design. Even though theorizing technology and gender relations in the designer’s work, which constitutes the focus of this article, is not the central concern in the book, it is important in that it hinted at the relevance of feminist technology studies to understanding gender issues in design professions.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pınar Kaygan

Pınar Kaygan is Assistant Professor at the Department of Industrial Design, Middle East Technical University. After working as an industrial designer in various industries, she received her Ph.D. in Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield. Her research interests include gender issues in design and technology, critical aspects of design management, collaboration and interdisciplinary relations in design, and industrial designer’s work.[email protected]