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The challenge of our thinking of women and the workplace is one of basic production and not one of technology. The concept of masculine and feminine labor are not the same. Historical writing of technological subjects are mostly of male figures and others with very few women. The biggest obstacle for women to overcome is this definition that has been placed on their work and workplace.
If we are to include the accomplishments of women in the history of technical communication, I believe we must challenge the dualisitic thinking that severs public and private, household and industry, and masculine and feminine labor
This article is explaining how gender and technology and technical communication is one sided with a preference to males. The values we place on women that are less technical and more production work oriented. Their traditional workplace is not one that is considered scientific. Women have been seen as child bearers historically. Our views of technology is more aligned with a man's world. Because of this women have a difficult time being recognized in the realm of science for their achievements.
Feminist critics of technology contend that women are excluded from that which we consider technological by definition: As Stanley puts it, technology is "what men do" rather than "what people do" ("Women" 5). The basis of this assertion lies in cultural views that:
Our cultural views of technology and women exclude them from being part of the story of technology. These views do not identify women as inventors or designers. It also understates women's skills in all different fields of technology. Traditional women's work is defined as "not technological". Women who have excelled in a traditional workplace have difficulty being recognized for their work in relation to technology. Cook book authors being an example of this.
Judy Wajcman, like Stanley, observes that "we tend to think about technology in terms of industrial machinery and cars .. . ignoring other technologies that affect most aspects of everyday life"
Gender and technological competence has always been seen as a masculine trait when defining the two genders. This gender division has placed women in a non technical role. They are seen as users of machines but not as innovators, the sewing machine being an example of this. Men are more defined as makers, repairers and designers. This puts women in an inferior role in the workplace because of the non technical activities of the work at hand.
As Joan Wallach Scott (Gender) and Autumn Stanley (Mothers and "Women") each point out, history in general, and the history of technology in particular have tended to omit the activities of women in part by locating significance primarily in public and political activities and innovations, the very "realm[s] of social, political, and economic interaction"
The history of women and technical communications is a difficult one because of the lack of contributions to the field and also because men have excluded or downplayed women's role in technology. Women, like men, have always tried to improve their work processes but we as a society have historically not viewed women as technical innovators.
Most histories, including the history of technical communication thus far, focus primarily on the works of great men —Aristotle, Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Albert Einstein—and the great works of men —space travel, nuclear power, medical miracles, and the computer revolution.
The history of technical writing has been mostly about great men like Einstein, Galileo, Aristotle, etc. The work of women in history has mostly gone unnoticed by historians. The significance of technical writing falls within two spheres, the public (allocated to men) and the private (allocated to women). Technical writings are more aligned with the public sphere as opposed to the private.
definition, by function, tells us what is and what is not technical writing
The definition of modern technical writings must first be defined and what constitutes these writings. There are no guidelines for these writings but it is understood that there are two important key points to this definition. 1) A subject matter or function about technology. 2) Technical writing is associated with the work and workplace. These terms about technology, work and workplace are gender neutral terms. Articles from the past that address technical writing and women are very scarce.
One possibility is that women have contributed only very rarely to technical and scientific work (and, consequently, to technical and scientific communication). Indeed, Elizabeth Wayland Barber suggests that women's contributions to technological innovation have been hampered by their own productive (and reproductive) responsibilities:
This article raises the point that most of the history on technology is written by men. The practice of writing is considered to be for men because of the predetermined definition of women's role with technology. There are not many female historians so this has led to "one sided" or male dominated points of view.
"cultural blinders
These "cultural blinders" have made it harder for women to be seen as a prominent force in the area of technology as opposed to their male counterparts. Women have an attached defenition to their controbution in regards to production of technology. The author offers a definition of this gender difference that can hopefully be used for the future. She also investigates problems within this definition of gender and technology in the workplace.
m e n are largely absent from our recorded disciplinary past, whether as technical writers, as scientists, or as inventors or users of technology.
Our recorded history is more focused on men when it comes to fields of science, technical writing and users and inventors of technology. History tells us that these fields are predominately male centered and the role of women is more restricted to the home and being mothers and bearing children. In almost no culture are these roles seen as male centered with the male responsible for child care. This creates a "locking in" effect that impacts women and their role in society. Because of these roles there has been less opportunities for to experiment with new ideas and tools.
With the first notion dispelled, that women do not contribute significantly to science and technology, we turn to the second assumption, that men's and women's experiences of technology are identical, thus relegating women to inferior technological roles. Addressing this second assum ption—that women's traditional work is not technological — involves a different strategy: departing from conventional history to challenge existing definition, seeking "a new narrative" that focuses "on the causal role played by women in their history and on the qualities of women's experience that sharply distinguish it from men's experience (Scott 20). Men's and women's experiences of technology are quite different.
We start to move from the idea that women's place is in the kitchen and taking care of children to women actually being users of technology. This relates to the Pimental article, because women like minorities are often left out of the technical world because of the lack of research.
While it is true that we have yet to agree upon what constitutes modern technical writing, popular definitions often exhibit either or both of two key characteristics: first, a close relationship (in subject matter or function) to technology; and second, an understanding that technical writing is associated with work and the workplace.
So far we have only looked at the definition of tech communication, as a type of communication that is lingusitic, visual, auditory, etc., with having the end users needs as the end goal. Technical writing is, at the end of the day, about work and workplace, two things that women have been excluded from which is another reason why women have been absent in the world of technical writing.
The problem with regard to adding women to our disciplinary history lies in the assumption that technology, work, and workplace are gender-neutral terms, and that addressing gender and the history of technical communication is a simple matter of searching the annals of science and industry and tacking on articles about a few women who have distinguished themselves in scientific, medical, and technical fields.
We should acknowledge the fact that technology, work and work place are not gender neutral terms because for so long it has excluded women.
An irony of our focus on workplace writing is that it comes at a time when the "workplace" itself is disappearing. To define technical writing by placing it strictly within the workplace denies the historical contributions of women, but in doing so it also denies a larger past—and future—where the household is a primary location for the economically productive activities of women and men. According to Shoshana Zuboff, "home and workshop continued to be the principal centers of production as late as 1850" (227); with the increase in computer technologies, the prevalence of two-income households, and the rise of an information economy, the separation of home space and work space blurs, and as Joan Greenbaum asserts, "the office of the future may be the home" (117). Many people (myself included) spend many of their productive hours working in a home office, connected to clients and coworkers by computer networks, fax, and phone.
This concludes the workplace's significance to women in modern and past life. It explains that is mandatory to reflect on the past to establish the significance of women's technical work, for most earlier days home and workplace were principal centers of production.In addition it raises lieu to the dynamics of the future home office where it makes business and child rearing more easily accessible and useful for both men and women considering technical work and technical business.
I believe there are significant instances of technical writing and the use of technical documentation that occur within the household. Many of the technologies produced by industry are targeted for home use; the associated documentation is used primarily within the household (by women and by men). Examples include instructions for computer hardware and software, but also those for vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers, blenders, and even coffee mills (note that Dobrin finds instructions for the coffee mill worthy of analysis; see "Do Not Grind"). Further examples of other types of technical communication that enter and are "consumed" within the household include credit card agreements, billing statements, and tax and insurance forms and documents. Daily life is not devoid of instances in which individuals might produce artifacts we would find worthy of study if they had originated within the "workplace" : there are any number of situations in which private individuals must interact by text with organizations. Surely correspondence challenging billing errors or notifying insurance carriers of changes to personal information are as "significant" as intercompany correspondence and job postings.
This raises significance in technical works and technical documentations that are used through the household. Some include billing statements, instruction manuals, card statements, and tax and insurance forms, and more. Although these are private matters these are still significant importance.Many of us depend heavily on such matters, and today these are still very much useful in many systems including medical, judicial, and economic activity. However since this is a woman's historical work it is seemed as insignificant and unprofound.
Historical studies find women are excluded from technology as a consequence of the gender division of labor (see Rothschild, Cockburn, and Wajcman). Men remain predominantly the makers, repairers, designers, and users of what we typically consider technology. Wajcman observes that "technical competence is central to the dominant cultural ideal of masculinity and its absence a key feature of stereotyped femininity" (159) and that "the work of women is often deemed inferior simply because it is women who do it" (37). Hence the remarks of anthropologist George Murdock:
Gives major reasons as to why women are excluded from technology including the gender division of labor, defining technical competence as male oriented, gender prejudices and stereotypes of women, and historical barriers that still exist in gender including behaviors, roles, and duties. Where men are the masters and behind the operations with the "knowledge", women are subjects of use, seen as the "Know-How". In addition it gives the perspective that competence is a male dominance subject. Competence is not related to skillful use, although it takes much competence to do much skill related work. It shows that women and women's work is devalued and under-appreciated.
The industrial revolution brought with it not only great technological innovation, but increasing differentiation between appropriate work roles for men and for women (see Kerber; Oakley). "One of the most profound effects of industrialization was, and is, the separation of 'work places' from 'home places' —and the attendant designation of the former as the 'place' for men and the latter as the 'domain' of women," asserts Cowan (More 18). During the rise of industrial society and capitalism, "the modern concept of work, as the expenditure of energy for financial gain" (Oakley 4) came to further distinguish the stereotyped expectations of productive activity done by men and women.
Gives historical evolutions of men and women's experiences through the work and the workplace. Moving toward the industrial revolution goals and duties of gender gradually started changing but women and men's main objective was financial gain, and that meant workplaces for women outside the usual household. For men work was still considered a "place" but for women there was much production that took place within the household, labeling it the "domain". Furthermore it delegated appropriate work roles for men and women in addition to establishing sexual division labor to society during the time.
Judy Wajcman, like Stanley, observes that "we tend to think about technology in terms of industrial machinery and cars .. . ignoring other technologies that affect most aspects of everyday life" (137). Ruth Schwartz Cowan notes in More Work for Mother, her history of household technology, that we "do not ordinarily associate 'tools' with 'women's w ork'—but household tools there nonetheless are and always have been" (9). Stoves and spinning wheels are two such examples; the sewing machine is one such tool used in the household and in industry.
This statement supports the claim of how the perspective of women's contributions has had insignificance even though their contributions have been all and useful in everyday households, work, and workplaces. It also suggests the normal perspective of the word "technology" seeing it as male suited are. Through this perspective it downplays women and their historical contributions in technical communications and dominance. Although the contributions may be quite different that does not make them insignificant.
Overcoming the assumption of agency first involves identifying women who have contributed significantly to science, technology, and medicine, then fitting their written works into our history: "gathering] evidence about women to demonstrate their essential likeness as historical subjects to men . . . [and] attem pting] to fit a new subject—w om en—into received historical categories" (Scott 18-19). The main difficulty facing the historian is the apparent lack of women's contribution to these fields. From the dawn of humanity, women, like men, have undoubtedly sought means for improving their work processes, yet we rarely conceive of women as technological innovators. Why is this the case?
To challenge assumptions for why their are exclusions of women and women's work one must give notification of women's identity, their works, and raise awareness of how their woks have fit into history. Most of the time there has been female contributions in technical works, and those names go unmentioned. To undo this formality we must give credit where it is due, and raise awareness to the trivia and issues.
This statement also acts to question why women's achievements to technical communication/writing have been far shunned.
As Joan Wallach Scott (Gender) and Autumn Stanley (Mothers and "Women") each point out, history in general, and the history of technology in particular have tended to omit the activities of women in part by locating significance primarily in public and political activities and innovations, the very "realm[s] of social, political, and economic interaction" of such great int
This statement makes claims that throughout history it has been mans objective to keep women inferior by excluding them from political and public matters. Some examples include right to vote, right to own property, equal pay, and overall social opportunities. Such public matters are considered to be of extreme importance, some of which we've fought for through civil rights movements.This is very important to note because it shows a historical background where men have opted women out, and the tradition is to follow for our present and future.
Including women and women's work in a history of technical writing requires that we contest two assumptions that lead to their exclusion from our disciplinary story: First, (the assumption of agency) that women are not significant originators of technical, scientific, or medical achievement; and second, (the assumption of technological significance) that women's tools are not sufficiently technical, nor their work sufficiently important, to warrant study of their supporting texts
This statement gives two assumptions to why women and womens work could be excluded. There is (1) Agency and (2) Products that the author takes into consideration. However significance within the two subjects relies heavily resulting in ways that men dominate in the public realms rather than the private realms. It also gives the perspective that women are inferior in the technical world and are not seen as significant agents and also suggests that women can not produce significant products within technical works.
The problem with regard to adding women to our disciplinary history lies in the assumption that technology, work, and workplace are gender-neutral terms, and that addressing gender and the history of technical communication is a simple matter of searching the annals of science and industry and tacking on articles about a few women who have distinguished themselves in scientific, medical, and technical fields. But as the work of feminist historians and scholars demonstrate, such terms represent contested ground, and such a simplistic view may be inadequate to fully address the elusive —and, as I suspect, frequently unintentional—biases that both define our past and govern our future.
This statement raises lieu to the idea of the problem. The problem of women's contributions being overlooked can not just be easily answered by numbers. The issue has to not just be studied but assessed and analyzed. Due to historical cultural and gender barriers between women and men issues have to be further examined through certain lenses to reflect and conclude.
Yet another possible reason why the history of technical communication is so barren of women is that (as feminist scholars have noted about histories of technology) "the absence of a female perspective . . . was a function of the historians who wrote them and not of historical reality" (Cowan, "From Virginia Dare" 248).
This claim gives another reason as to why women's contributions may have been shadowed or overlooked in technical and scientific work. Historians functioned to hide the female perspective due to male dominance. Even when there is female technical contributions of significance of the recognition will go unnoticed. But this was not at all historical reality where women did have great dominance in many writings and still to continue.
One possibility is that women have contributed only very rarely to technical and scientific work (and, consequently, to technical and scientific communication). Indeed, Elizabeth Wayland Barber suggests that women's contributions to technological innovation have been hampered by their own productive (and reproductive) responsibilities:
This claim gives one possibility into why women's contributions to technical and scientific work may have been blinded or overlooked. Women's primary role and duties as mother and household have not changed much from earlier days to today. However there are dynamics that exist amid in today's society, through this claim is still a primary reason for the absence of women's contributions.
Both Cockburn and Wajcman observe technological competence is involved in establishing masculine and feminine difference. According to Wajcman, "skilled status has . . . been traditionally identified with masculinity and as work that women don't do, while women's skills have been defined as non-technical and undervalued" (38). She illustrates her point with the example of sewing: "It is not possible for anybody to sit down at sewing machine and sew a garment without previous experience.. . . Although this is one area where women are at ease with machines, this is seen as women's supposed natural aptitude for sewing and thus this technical skill is devalued and underpaid" (49). Women are accepted as users of machines, particularly those, that are used for housework, but such knowledge is not considered as competence with technology
This suggests that competence is a male dominance subject. Competence is not related to skillful use. It shows that women ands women's work is devalued and underappreciated.
Furthermore, technologies that pertain specifically to women's biological functions and social roles have been essentially ignored by historians of technology.
Adds to the downplay of women and their historical contributions in technical communications and dominance.
Stanley contends that women's technological achievements have been routinely under-reported, at least in part, because "our sex-role stereotypes seek to confine that [feminine] creativity to such 'acceptable' areas as art, music, dance, writing, and cooking, whereas 'real' invention and technology have to do with weapons and machines and chemical compounds created in laboratories" (Mothers xx). Even when well-known women patent such "real" inventions of significance, they may not receive credit: screen actress Hedy Lamarr invented a secret communications system during World War II (and patented it, with composer George Antheil) yet "has never received either recompense . . . or due recognition," even though one of its key features — frequency hopping—"is the main anti-jamming technology used in today's billion-dollar defense systems" (Stanley, Mothers 383). Lamarr is far from the only woman to demonstrate that beauty and brains are not antithetical, but despite the fact that women have been receiving U.S. patents since 1809, as late as the 1970s librarians "did not even use Women inventors as a category for filing information" (Stanley, Mothers xviii)
This statement supports the claims that women and women's work has been obscured in historical technical achievements due to misclassified, trivialized, or attributions to men. In addition it gives lieu to the fact that women are not perceived to have as credible or significant inventions as men.
Women's work has long escaped the notice of historians, leading feminist critics to assert that his-story itself is "deeply gendered" and "presented as a universal human story exemplified by the lives of men" (Scott 18; see Barber, Cowan, and Stanley as well). Most histories, including the history of technical communication thus far, focus primarily on the works of great men —Aristotle, Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Albert Einstein—and the great works of men —space travel, nuclear power, medical miracles, and the computer revolution.
This supports the claim that history in subject is deeply gendered, leaning in a way that is mostly always favorable towards men.
Because there are almost no cultures in which men bear the primary responsibility for child care, this task typically has fallen to women and influenced the variety and type of work they do (Brown 1075). We might agree then, that as scientific inquiry and technological innovation have been primarily the work of men, the contributions of women have consequently been subsumed, lost, or overlooked
This adds to the support]of why women have been absent in technical and scientific work due to women's role and responsibilities, indifference with men.
Pointing toward cultural biases that have not valued thehousehold, and by extension, women's tools, she points out the "cultural blinders"that have made it difficult to see women's contributions in the past.
Great abstract, gives reader a good synopsis about further reading.
More important,she points out that, with the gradual disappearance of the "workplace, " it is quite possible that the home and workshop, what Zuboff calls “principal centers of productionas late as 1850" (p. 106), will again become such centers of production in the nearfuture.
Also great synopsis answering deeper context.