Engendering Technology: Culture, Gender, and Work Jennifer L. Croissant Assistant professor, Program on Culture, Science, Technology, and Society, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Arizona Abstract In contemporary Western society, technological professions are gendered, and this differential attribution of meaning has implications for the composition of the professions, and the experiences of men and women in them. In this paper I briefly review a comparative framework which challenges conventional wisdom about the configurations of gender and technology. I consider examples which benefit from examination in this framework, and use them to point out avenues for change in cment contexts. Examinations of women’s traditional activities as technological opens the door to inviting women to think of themselves as contributors to technological life, since they already are in more traditional areas. Keywords: Gender, Technology, Professions, Tradition, Tools, Meaning, Culture, Education. 1. Introduction Most, if not all, of the problems with women and technological professions are rooted in perceptual problems caused by our culture. Women are not seen as capable of contributing to technical work, often by others, sometimes by themselves. Women’s contributions in the workplace are not perceived as valuable, often by others, sometimes by themselves. The work that women do is not seen as technological, o h by others, sometimes by themselves. To talk of perception is to talk of the cultural apparatus that shapes our interpretation of what we see. Interpretation is the attribution of meaning and value to experience. In the west we have the phenomenon that we perceive the technological professions as gendered masculine, and cross- culturally all kinds of work fit into gender schemes, by habit, tradition, and design. That is, we interpret work of various sorts, as more or less suited for different kinds of individuals based on whether or not we see that work fitting into current categories of masculinity and femininity. I will briefly review the idea of gendered professions, and the gendering of technology and technological work, looking at the implications for work, wages, meaning, and teaching about technology. I then discuss a framework for understanding gender and technology which challenges conventional wisdom about both, and has implications for teaching about technology and the world of work. 2. Gendered Professions Professions are gendered, that is associated with masculine and feminine role identities as determined by our culture. The professions are also gender-stratified. So while physicians, in general, are approaching gender parity, there are great differences in concentrations in subspecialties (consider pediatrics and thoracic surgery), and resulting differences in status and compensation that result. While at entry levels women in engineering receive equal compensation, it is well established that their later compensation and promotion rates lag si&icantly behind those of their male peers. What has been noted elsewhere as the process of the feminization of professions does not yet appear to be happening to engineering specialties, in part because wages across the board are so high, but it should not be ruled out. The professions are gendered by habit, tradition, and design. Others have noted this (Cockburn 1988, Witz 1992, Robinson and McIlwee 1992, Hacker 1990), and I will here draw on three examples, two outlined by Witz (1992), some consequences, in terms of work, compensation, and larger cultural meanings which emerge. Witz (1992:80-85) argues that women were not explicitly prevented fiom registering in British medical practice based on the 1858 law that established the framework for the profession. However, since they could not complete the link between education and occupation, they were effectively barred from practice. At that time, women were both formally and informally excluded from universities, medical schools, or qualifying examinations. The professionalization projects to gain access to schooling and qualification, in particular for nursing and midwifery are instructive in the role that cultural models of femininity had in defining the appropriate structure of the professions. Nursing was professionalized in process late nine-teenth and early twentieth century, where those inside and outside the profession had disagreements about the roles of women in professions. The “Nightingale” reforms argued for a greater authority of women to administer nursing, and yet were anti- registration, because that form of professionalization smacked of ‘mercantilism’ and against the perceived ‘true calling’ of gentlewomen of the middle class to serve the sick. Anti-professionalization forces 0-7803-5617-9/99/$10.00 IEEE 276