Channels, Fall 2016

Page 72 Duffus • Feminist Theory and Technical Communication Liberal Liberal feminists, according to Flynn (1997), claim that women “have been excluded from histories of technology because historians have been guilty of sex-role stereotyping” (315). Similarly, Gurak and Bayer (1994) claim that liberal feminists view actual technologies as gender-neutral but targeted towards a male-dominated audience. They aim to integrate women into culture and naturally reconstruct social norms. Radical Radical feminists, making their first appearance during the civil rights movements, view society and institutions as gender-biased, and they are determined to expand various fields in order to include women’s contributions. They do not believe that women need to conform to societal standards created predominately by and for man (Flynn 1997). They specifically analyze the differences between men and women and their social/business spheres. Lastly, they view the female population as having identical characteristics and desires; unlike postmodern feminists, these feminists group all women into the same box. History of Feminism in Technical Communication Durack (2004), Flynn (1997), Hallenback (2004), and White (2016) agree that women have been largely excluded from technical communication’s history because many domestic technologies, like the sewing machine, are not really considered technical. However, some individuals are rewriting history to include women as key contributors to technology (Gurak and Bayer 1994; Wajcman 1991). Women now receive at least some credit for contributing to technologies like the cotton gin and the small electric motor, among others. In the past, most technologies catered to a male-dominated culture, largely because the majority of scientists and engineers were (and still are) men. Sewing machine manuals, for example, were written to engage men, even though it was women who primarily used them (Durack 2004). Manuals took on demanding and strict tones and avoided mentioning byproducts that women might produce. Cunningham (2015), Selfe, and Selfe (2004) argue that many technologies still favor males over females, especially in the workplace. These technologies include documentation that categorizes women as technologically incapable. This trait is evident in many product designs, such as companies disguising a women’s razor as lipstick to make it seem less complicated and eliminating visible screws from women’s products (Cunningham 2015). Gurack and Bayer (1994) add to these arguments by claiming that many documents even contain language that have a higher potential of offending women, such as “abort” or “kill” (258). Socially Constructed Norms Many researchers agreed that gender differences and biases are socially constructed and not biologically determined (see, for example, White et al 2016; Gurak and Bayer 1994; Hallenback 2004; Sullivan 2011). This implies that both masculinity and femininity are subject to change, depending on how society constructs them. Hallenback (2004) provides extended examples to support this idea. In the late 1880s, women shaped social norms