An ethnographic examination of the relationship of gender & end-user programming

Authors:
Paul Dourish;Jennifer Ann Rode
Affiliations:
University of California, Irvine;University of California, Irvine
Venue:
An ethnographic examination of the relationship of gender & end-user programming
Year:
2008

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Abstract

My dissertation ethnographically investigates gendered patterns of use in domestic programming. I study the home as it is a critical environment in which we socialize children in socially approved attitudes towards gender and technology. I argue there is a masculine bias in usability and design processes. I examine the problematic relationship between femininity and technical mastery, in that it is a source of Gender Inauthencity for women who wish to participate in technology. My work seeks to understand this tension. I outline gendered usage patterns in everyday use of domestic technology. I draw from anthropology, gender studies, STS, design research, ubiquitous computing, and social informatics. In conducting this work I reframe the discussion of the role of gender in technology from something that merely needs to be controlled for, to something with inherent power imbalances that is socially constructed, which organizes everyday life. I argue technology is an object around which individuals negotiate their Gender and Technical Identities.