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Bringing Gender Issues to Technology Design

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Feminist Challenges in the Information Age

Abstract

This chapter discusses gender issues in design of information technology: are there gender issues, and what could they be? It is relatively easy to apply a gender perspective to the result of design: the artifact. Artifacts are designed to communicate with gender stereotypes in contemporary society (including stereotypes of work). Applying gender perspectives to artifacts is not very different from other kinds of social analysis of use activities or artifacts in context. Applying a gender perspective to the design process is more difficult. Some aspects of design can, however, benefit from such analysis: the ideas and visions that guide the design process come from someone who has gender. I do not claim that women software designers always design different software from their male colleagues. However, the design process will benefit from having different sets of experiences as a basis for ideas and visions. These ideas were presented in a plenary lecture at ifu.

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Christiane Floyd

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© 2002 Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden

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Bratteteig, T. (2002). Bringing Gender Issues to Technology Design. In: Floyd, C. (eds) Feminist Challenges in the Information Age. Schriftenreihe der internationalen Frauenuniversität »Technik und Kultur«, vol 5. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-322-94954-7_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-322-94954-7_8

  • Publisher Name: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-8100-3255-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-322-94954-7

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