SEARCHING FOR METHODOLOGY

Abstract

This paper introduces a systematic feminist approach to conceptualizing and building computational artefacts. The main objective is to provide methods for technological design that avoid a perpetuation of the existing structuralsymbolic gender order. This, however, presupposes a thorough theorizing and analysis of gendering processes. Based on a review of existing research on ‘gender in information technology’ I will describe four mechanisms that often lead to gendered computational artefacts: 1.) the ‘I-methodology’ that assumes technology as neutral, 2.) implicit gendered assumptions and the gendered distribution of labour, which are inscribed into computational artefacts, 3.) gender stereotypes of human bodies and behaviour reflected in technology and 4.) decontextualization and disputable epistemological and ontological assumptions. For each of these mechanisms I will propose technology design methods adopted from the field of ‘critical computing’ and discus their potentials and limits to de-gender computational artefacts on the basis of feminist theory.

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