Shaping Women's Work: Gender, Employment and Information Technology

Shaping Women's Work is an important new book which provides a broad overview of the debates about technologies and gender relations at work in a range of occupational areas. It gives comprehensive yet accessible coverage of the complex array of issues relating to gender and technology in the workplace and, uniquely, brings together in one source the varied conceptual and empirical material. It adopts an innovative approach by considering gender relations both in terms of the ways in which they influence the design and development of technologies, and in terms of the ways in which relations themselves are in turn shaped by technologies. Drawing heavily on the social shaping of technologies theoretical perspective, the text explores the ways in which sexual divisions of labour and gender relations in the workplace profoundly affect the direction and pace of technological change and traces the development of certain technologies, showing how, throughout their evolution, they embody these social relations. It also examines the efficacy of feminist systems and work design initiatives which attempt to involve women in the construction of the computer systems they use, and which aim to foster recognition of the skills and expertise they commonly use in the course of their work. Shaping Women's Work is essential reading for undergraduate students taking courses in industrial sociology, technological change, work and employment, women's studies and social policy. It will also prove an invaluable resource to lecturers and to those directly involved in formulating and implementing policy initiatIves around technology and women's work.