Gendered Spaces

When I was in high school, my mother and I went to visit my great uncle St. John. A year had passed since he had lost his wife, my great Aunt Betty. She had always done all the cooking in the family. As we would discover, my great Uncle still did not know how to cook. My great uncle today, is ninety-five years old, so he came not only comes from a more antiquated generation, but also, a family where they had a cook. His mother never knew how to cook either.

The day we arrived at his home, he announced that he was planning to fix us dinner. He had some chicken that he was going to warm up. For the past year, his widow friends had been supplying his meals. That evening when we were gathered in the kitchen, he got out the chicken, wrapped in tinfoil and proceeded to place it in the microwave. Of course, my mother and I both jumped up and stopped the microwave before sparks began. As I remember the conversation went something like this:
“You can’t put metal in the microwave!” exclaimed my mother.
“Oh, um…I didn’t know that. I never use it,” replied St. John.
“You don’t ever use the microwave?” I said shocked.
“Why did you decide to use it tonight?” my mom inquired.
“I thought it would be faster, but I don’t really know how to use the microwave. I am so glad ya’ll are here. You can teach me.”

During our stay we taught my great uncle St. John how to use the microwave, toaster oven, and cook a few basic things. When we returned two years later, his son had moved in with him. Apparently his son, Tom helped him learn to cook. St. John took such a liking to it, that on this visit he made fig marmalade fresh from his fig trees in the backyard. I must say that I was very impressed. He had certainly surpassed me and my cooking skills.

Thus, when I read “The Gender-Technology Relation: An Introduction,” I couldn’t help but think of him. I found the argument about identity compelling and could not help but raise the question: to what extent does technology engender space and our identities? My memory helped me to relate technology to class, age, and gender. We deal with all three in our everyday world. I believe that technology is not just tied to gender, which is just one part of a person’s identity. Keith Grint and Rosalind Gill try to touch on this fact, but their discussion is limited to how most feminist research says that technology is masculine.

This is a problem because in my case the technology would be “feminine.” Is this because it is in a “feminine” space? Grint and Gill would say that feminine theorists believe that the technology is male but the space is female. Thus, men are imposing their power onto women. They state that feminine researchers “have shown that the technical has been defined in such a way as to exclude both those technologies which women invented and those which are primarily used by women. The link between masculinity and technology is thus an ideological link,” (4). I agree with Grint and Gill that there is a tension between gender and technology, where women are usually left on the outside. I would also agree that feminist theorists are over-reaching with their connection between masculinity and technology. Our language is problem in talking about gender; thus, we need “to develop a new language for talking about gender-technology relations,” (25). Grint and Gill would probably say that feminine versus masculine space is an issue, but that we have created these dividers. Therefore, in concurrence with the article, we need to move on from this binary thinking, in order to have better gender-technology relations.

It seems to me, that there are certain spaces and spheres that are gendered. Along with how we think about gender’s relation to technology, we also must consider how we gender spaces in our lives. For example, in my story the kitchen was a dual space for the woman and for a paid worker. Today, the space is still seen as feminine, but the newer technology such as the microwave is seen as an invention that youth know how to use. The technology within the room is thus, feminized and also, placed in a certain time. Most advances in technology are being utilized by both males and females, but the gendered spaces do not seem to be changing.

Although more women are entering the science field today, they are still out numbered by men. Grint and Gill use Wajcman’s theory that women are not entering these fields because they are afraid of losing there feminine identities. I think this could be a valid argument that women unconsciously, do not want to lose their socially constructed feminine identity. To make their argument stronger, Grint and Gill could have dealt more with how our identities are created and why women are afraid to loose them. It seems that men and women are both afraid to leave their assigned “spaces,” for there are few men nurses and few women computer scientists. Class, race, and gender all contribute to our identities, creating binary spaces and technology. Perhaps, as Grint and Gill have said, “we need to develop a new language” and once we do our thoughts will change and so will our gender-technology relations.

We seem to gender technology, not the other way around. I feel that it is more of the space that engenders technology. Our backgrounds, which have contributed to our identities, seem to have a large affect on gender-technology relations. I think there is more to this divide than gender alone. I think that class and age are large factors in our relationship with technology, but the clearest one we see is gender.