1. History of Women in Technology Technology in the domestic sphere

2. History of Women in Technology (McGaw)
feminist study of technology different from study of technology’s internal development (evolution of tools, machines, and techniques)
feminist study focuses on social, cultural and political dimensions but looking closely at technology itself (example: Plant’s study of the Differential Machine & connection to weaving)
feminist study vs. social history of technology (choice of central topics and specific technologies such as history of contraceptive technology)

3. History of Women in Technology (McGaw)
4 areas of concern for feminist history of technology (Cowan 1976)
technology and women’s activities as bearers and rearers of children
technology’s relationship to the (segregated and exploitative) world of women’s employment
technology in the woman’s place, the home
technology’s relationship to women in a society simultaneously celebrating ‘Yankee ingenuity’ and “systematically training more than half of our population to be ‘un-American’ by socializing women to be unskilled in mathematics and mechanics”

4. History of Women in Technology (McGaw)
existing feminist literature on the study of technology is diverse, scattered, and amorphous:
women as scientific technologists (history of science, history of medicine, Haraway’s work)
development of specialized medical technology for women (activism, public policy, feminist critique of technological development)
technology’s relationship to women’s industrial, commercial, and domestic labor (women’s historians)
qualitative research studying technological cultures ( computer science departments); studies of recruitment and retention in education (Unlocking the Clubhouse, 2002)
often scholarship tied to museum work (work-related technology, clothing) & construction of living historical villages

5. History of Women in Technology (McGaw)
technology of the nondomestic work place (women’s work outside of home)
technology of homemaking
technology and women’s work in predominantly agricultural communities (the colonial era, the American West, the South)
technology as a tool for enhancing sex differences and reinforcing sex-role stereotypes through clothing, cosmetics, and hairdressing

6. History of Women in Technology (McGaw)
technological preconditions for and consequences of women’s increasing importance as consumers
impact of women in technologies generally examined only from masculine perspective from which women were excluded: manufacturing technologies in industries, municipal technologies, and transportation and communication technologies

7. History of Women in Technology (McGaw)
technology of the nondomestic work place
: manufacturing moved from household and workshop to factory (women’s movement outside the home to work)
: larger percentage of women sought and obtained employment outside home (percentage of women in white-collar work increased)
1920s: clerical work sex-typed, women as domestic laborers
McGaw: Substantially lower female wagers allowed manufacturers to employ women to perform the numerous hand operations that persisted in American manufacturing despite mechanization, tasks which women had performed in mills or shops before the advent of machines. Men usually operated the new machines that fabricated products ,while women gave raw materials a preliminary screening and sorting, put finishing touches on the final product, scanned finished goods for flaws, sorted and graded them, washed them, folded them, labeled them, or packed them for shipping. Mechanization affected such women’s work indirectly. By speeding and multiplying the work of men in primary processing activities, machines created relatively more demand for female workers. For example, by 1900, American glass makers and nonferrous metal products each employed about 35 times as many women as they had in 1850
Women in sewing industries with low level of mechanization. Introduction of the sewing machine reduced the relative employment of women -- unlike in the mechanization in the glass, paper, and nonferrous metal industries.
: increased demand for low-level, dead-end but educated clerical employees; emergence of typewriting, a new and non sex-typed occupation; office technologies (paper clips, carbon paper, inventory controls and accounting standards, word processors and faxes, affected women and their work

8. History of Women in Technology (McGaw)
technology of the nondomestic work place
1940s: married women’s labor force participation grows dramatically
1960s: domestic labor industrialized, women capture lost positions in a man’s world (forces of science and technology, wars, education) but the same patterns continue in which women’s work designated as unskilled (see constants)
McGaw (p. 60+)
study of how women resisted and influenced office work
study of how women influenced modern war
WWI merely accelerated long-term employment trends that began in 1870; by that time most new industrial, transportation, and clerical workers had already been employed vut in lower-paying, feminized occupations such as domestic service; technical expertise required in most occupations opened to women was quite similar to that needed in the work they previously performed; sex and race dscrimination confined black women to tasks analogous to their pre-war work
WWII women’s wartime work (propaganda material) increased competence needed and potential novelty of work; but women were presented as merely extending their traditional maternal or supportive roles

9. History of Women in Technology (McGaw)
technology of the nondomestic work place
constants in women’s conditions of work in all periods (Cowan)
women paid less than men for same work
women did not perform the same tasks as men (men’s work became mechanized / women’s work didn’t become mechanized even when technology was available)
women considered to be transitory members of the labor force
neglected in research: colonial, rural, black, hispanic, native American women, women living outside the Northeast; nothing about management of female workers, women’s protective labor legislation
Management of female workers based on piecework systems systems in the late 19th and early 20th century
Hazardous work and assertions that Americans preferred to keep women in safe occupations do not hold (studies by Vilm R. Hunt)

10. History of Women in Technology (McGaw)
technology of homemaking
impact of industrialization on domestic environment
Giedion: history of technologies
Strasser: history of housework
origins, content and results of the movement to make housekeeping ‘scientific’(domestic efficiency movement)
s home economics becomes professionalized and involved scolarship and professional attention of architects, builders, reformers redesigning the housework

11. History of Women in Technology (McGaw)
technology of homemaking
But what has been achieved?
domestic technology made housework less arduous but not less time-consuming ( )
interior and exterior spatial arrangements kept homemakers relatively isolated and inefficient
women encouraged to devote attention to childrearing, religious education, and consumption (reforms not intended to shorten women’s workday but to raise American living standards
study of working-class householdds in late 19th century Pittsburgh

12. History of Women in Technology (McGaw)
technology of homemaking
But what has been achieved?
home economics sought to professionalize, industrialize, and standardize America’s domestic work but did not tackle the subject to change the hours, efficiency, status of the household worker
in the 20th century domestic work lost creativity and individuality as it continued to be time-consuming (proletarianized housework)
housewives and servants had to be generalists and limited in skill and efficiency
industrialization of the home retarded and technologies continue to require low skills to operate
existence of commercial models for baking, laundry, cooking did not allow development of home technologies

13. History of Women in Technology (McGaw)
technology of homemaking
But what has been achieved?
achievements of successful alternative societies and communaritarians (Shakers, Oneida) created commitment to eliminating conventional families and overcoming women’s isolation from other women; high innovation in domestic technology has shown better results than the domestic efficiency movement

14. History of Women in Technology (McGaw)
technology of homemaking
Further study needed:
of effects of informal educational activities (Chatauqua), World Fairs
of ties bw home economists and the food-processing industry
of the effect of domestic labor on the American diet
of technology of women as bearers and rearers of children and toy industry
of why there is persistence of psychological rather than technological appeals in product advertising

15. History of Women in Technology (McGaw)
technology and women’s work in agricultural communities
agricultural capital (machines and irrigation systems) took precedence over better houses and home appliances
farm women devoted long hours to housework (cooking and washing for hired hands)
larger farms promoted by mechanization and specialization increased rural women’s traditional isolation

16. History of Women in Technology (McGaw)
technology and women’s work in agricultural communities
less known about subgroups of rural women (colonial women, southern women, female migrant laborers, technology used by black, hispanic, and native American women)
what kinds of manufacturing skills were posessed by rural women and what was the division of labor on the farm (how much were women involved with field labor)

17. History of Women in Technology (McGaw)
Further study needed:
of adverse social and environmental consequences of technology
of agriculture
of consumption
of clothing
of how technologies impact both sexes but differently
McGaw (p. 67, 76+)case study: Pittsburgh end of the 19th century with mechanization of men’s work, women’s work becomes more difficult