I appreciated Kline and Pinch’s recognition of women’s role in the social construction of the automobile. The capacity that women had to “flexibly interpret” the automobile as an emerging technology empowered them with freedom of mobility to an unprecedented extent. In addition to its significance as an indicator of social change, I also saw the gendered interactions with the automobile during the early-mid 20th century as being influenced by technological determinism. While Kline and Pinch are largely concerned with the social construction of technology (SCOT), I thought that their discussion of the role of women illuminated the converse: that technology has the tremendous power to catalyze social change, in this case, women's quality of life.
In its argument that people had a significant role
in directing the uses of the automobile, the authors introduce the idea that by
adapting the automobile to their needs, women influenced the way that the technology
was implemented. Despite the fact that women were largely confined to their “supporting”
roles on the farm and that their manipulation of new technology was more limited
than men’s, the article offers examples of women using the family car to go
into town on her own, accomplish more in one day, and expand the “sphere of
women’s work” (782). The article went as far as to say that some women could
take jobs in towns, helping to contribute to the family’s income. I think that
this newly-achieved mobility to travel, however briefly, independently from the home was a
tremendous step towards equality for rural women and that this social shift can
be attributed to the arrival of a new technology, the automobile. Prior to the
automobile, women living in rural areas had few opportunities to travel independently,
even short distances. Even though women in the 1920s were not necessarily using
the automobile intentionally as a means of “escaping” the farmstead, having the
autonomy to leave an area without accompaniment was an improvement toward true
freedom that was made possible by the car.
As the automobile became increasingly ingrained in
women’s lives, the industry adjusted itself to meet those demands. In this way,
the alterations to the car made by the automobile manufacturers reflect
cultural determinism, an idea that closely mirrors the concept of SCOT that
Kline and Pinch present in their article. By 1920, car companies initiated
gendered advertising strategies. This is exemplified in this Chevrolet advertisement.
Manufacturers took notice of women’s acceptance of this technology and its role
in their lives as a liberator and embraced its capacity to offer mobility to a
population whose travel had been strictly confined. The ad does, however, serve
as a reminder that men were still considered to be the “technically competent”
gender (779). By describing the woman’s car as “easier,” the ad is recognizing
that the automobile had a distinctly different role in women’s lives than in
men’s.
Women’s evolving relationship with the automobile
through the 20th century, and perhaps into the present, accents the interconnectedness
of technological determinism and SCOT. The two concepts cannot be separated
without creating a gap in understanding of the other. This is exemplified
through the ways that automobiles changed the character of a rural woman’s life
while, simultaneously, women influenced the character of the automobile. The
gendered approach to the study of technology’s role in society elucidates the
mutual effect that tech and gender has on the other. While it may not have been
their intention, Kline and Pinch’s article clarified how SCOT cannot be deemed
the sole proprietor of technological change. Do you think that this holds true in our current society? Does a gendered approach reveal anything about how technology is continuing to evolve?
I think that gender plays a role in the evolution of technology in the sense that as we continue developing more and more technology, men and women will continue to find different uses for the technology. In the instance of the car, as you pointed out it had a liberating effect for rural women and brought about change in the way they could live their lives. Although they weren't using the cars as frequently as men, it still offered them an avenue to do something like go into town and get food, a task that may have normally been done by the male.
ReplyDeleteOnce the car companies started realizing how women were using the cars, they saw the opportunity from a marketing standpoint that made them change the way they were advertising these cars in hopes to get more business. And in today's society, we continue to see technology that is marketed to men, women, and children. Take the Ipad for example, where a man could use it to do work at home, a women could use it to read a book electronically, and a child could use it to play games. This is part of the "uses and gratifications" theory that says people will find their own individual uses for technology. However, I think it definitely important to consider gender in the evolution of technology, as women and men may have different uses for the way they operate the technology, and this then impacts the way these products are marketed to society.
For clarification, are you saying in your modern example that Ipad's are marketed differently to men and women? Have you seen any examples of this? I would hope that our society has evolved enough that this technology is not marketed in a way that suggests that men are more likely to be doing work at home while women are at home reading, but deeply-ingrained sexism in marketing is still very much prevalent. I agree with your point that women still influence and adapt new technologies and that the ways that they do this may be different than men's.
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