Gender, power and technology

Fear of technology

   Fear of technology takes two major forms-fear of using the technology itself, and fear of the effects of technology. This section addresses the fear of using technology-technological reluctance. A fear such as this may be visible in the (non-)use of a number of technologies (e.g., VCRs, computers), and is commonly identified as a female trait. People may fear technology for a variety of reasons-for example, because they feel inadequate and incompetent when faced with technology. For these technophobes, fear of technology can lead to a sense of helplessness and hopelessness. In contrast, men may be reluctant to use irons, vacuum cleaners, food processors or microwaves (Gray 1989), but they are Unlikely to see this as a problem of personal inadequacy, rather as an issue of gender-such technologies are female ones.

   Underlining the gendered nature of technology, Morley (1986) argues in Family Television that patterns of television viewing reflect existing power relationships in the home, with males (sons deputising in their father's absence) taking over the remote control, and being the deciders in any conflict over which program to watch. Male dominance is visible in a variety of technocultural contexts. For instance, over many years, female participation rates on the Net greatly lagged behind those of males although this ratio has been changing fast recently. Men are more likely to be at home on the Net, and have been well positioned historically to keep out unwanted visitors and interlopers. Nonetheless, as Internet technoculture becomes more pervasive in the postindustrial world, women are increasingly present On the Internet and are able to remodel some aspects of the environment to suit their uses as well as those of the men.

   By the mid-1990s, estimates generally indicated that women were participating online in a ratio of male: female, 2:1. WaUace reports that 'the proportion of women online shot up from 31% to 38% between 1997 and 1998, and for the 10- to 18-year-olds, the sex ratio is even closer to even (46% to 54%). 'The Internet can be positioned as a site of gendered struggle-not necessarily on all occasions, for all users, but sufficiently often to tell us about ourselves, our society and about our constructions) gender and communication.

   Fear of the effects of technology (rather than its use) is essentially a fear of the intentions of the elites who sponsor the development and adoption of that technology. Thus 'computers' have been constructed as i surveillance machine, as undermining the democratic system, as having he potential to cause war-through malfunction or through control - and as 'deciding wrongly'-for example where sales of shares are automatically triggered by stock falling to a specific price. Critical American scholar Theodore Roszak wears his heart plainly on his sleeve when he says: 'No doubt principled hackers, who are still with us, will continue to find valuable political applications for computers; their efforts deserve to be supported'. He goes on to sum up his concerns about computers in apocalyptic terms:

   No matter how high the promise of that age [the information age] is pitched, the price we pay for its benefits will never outweigh the costs. The violation of privacy is the loss of freedom. The degradation of electoral politics is the loss of democracy. The creation of the computerized war machine is a direct threat to the survival of our species. It would be some comfort to conclude that these liabilities result from the abuse of computer power. But these are the goals long since selected by those who invented information technology, who have guided it and financed it at every point along the way in its development. The computer is their machine; its mystique is their validation.

   Roszak here addresses the A, B and C elites identified earlier and in discussing the armed forces, bureaucracies (and political systems) and corporate power he has described a very masculine world. The 'principled hackers' praised by Roszak for continuing 'to find valuable political applications for computers' also constitute a very masculine group.

Menu

Partners

© Opabo.com /Design by Felicia Mehl/