Communicating to who? Configuring the

gendered user in science communication

Georgina VossHelen Hamlyn Centre for Design, Royal College of Art

Institute of Physics, June 21st 2013

Overview• Many factors restrict the professional aspirations of girls

and young women, causing them to avoid high-status careers in mathematics and science.o …and what about the women who are already working professionally in STEM?

• Notion of ‘configuring the user’ provides insights into which people are seen as using STEM workplaces, and how.o Which ‘users’ is STEM communication designed around?

• Problem of configuring the user according to stereotypes and normative expectations of gender.

• Instead, consider configuring communication around lived experience.

Context: Self-confidence and

efficacy• A confidence gap between male and female STEM students.• Self-confidence: strength of belief in one’s abilities, and plays

important role in academic experience of STEM.o Positively associated with likelyhood of entry and later success.

• Women exhibit lower confidence in their skills and knowledge (despite higher academic achievement!).o Downplay their educational and work experiences. o Present themselves as ‘ready to work hard and learn’, eventually

becoming a valuable asset.

• Men see themselves as already equipped and valuable in their own right (Chachra and Kilgore 2009).

• How are these factors designed (or not) into STEM communication?

Configuring the user• Design cultures conceputualise the user sociologically

and semiotically (Oudshoorn et al 2004).o Specific image of who the users are (or are not).

• Technologies become scripted to certain groups of users, even if they are not involved in the design process (Akrich 1992, Woolgar 1991).o Preferences, motivations, tastes, competencies.o May create new identities, or transform/reinforce existing ones.

• Problem of configuring user as ‘everyone’ – flattens out real difference (and power).o ‘Neutral’ and‘male’ often default to each other.

‘Neutral’ users and technologies

• Not recognizing that how users are often configured, by default, as male is problematic.o Makes female an ‘add-on’, different.

• “Not knowing” why fewer women participate in STEM is a form of ignorance; gender and sexual politics typically work through practices of invisibility (Franzway et al 2009).o Gender roles gain their power by appearing natural and

eternal.

• ‘Critical Mass’ thesis is useless if it only allows for a mass of female users who ‘fit’ into the designed system (Knights and Murray 1994).o Assimilation can be survival.

Stereotypes and hyperfemininity

• Targeting a stereotyped notion of ‘women’ and girls’ often results in a demeaning ‘dumbing down’ of the system so that women can participate (Sommers 2008).o Gender stereotypes remain present in many elements of education reform.

• Media analysis:o Shifts from attractive junior women in romantic relationships…to attractive

hardworking women in senior positions (and rarely working mothers)… o …but still presents women being underestimated, objects of desire and

harassed by men (Bergman 2012, Steinke 2005).

Technologists vs workplaces

• Increased focus away from women as site of solutions, to addressing workplace culture (Mills et al 2006)

• STEM workplaces can be seen as ‘value neutral’ – once barriers and discrimination removed, women free to compete on equal terms.o Outcome is emphasis on introduction and ‘remediation’ of women,

not change in working practices (Blickenstaff 2005, Rosser 1998).

• ‘Family friendly’ policies can stigmatise women as ‘different’, alienating women whose acceptance is conditional on adapting to masculine norms within a ‘gender neutral’ workplace.

Adaptation vs difference• Women can align – or reject! – masculine values and

workplace norms (Bastalich et al 2007). • Alignment: emphasis on need to fit in, ignoring

sexism, depersonalize emotion, confront masculine modes of behaviour in direct and assertive manner, succeed within accepted workplace norms.o Depends on and recirculates ideas about women as

‘emotional’, ie.qualities associated with femininity and devalued within this workplace culture.

• Difference: Were aware of need to be ‘one of the boys’ and critical of female/tech contradictions. Strain of work, over-compensating “female-ness” outside, ignored if not conforming to male styles of communications.

The category of ‘female’

• Issue with associating masculinity with objectivity and scienceo Femininity mutually exclusive with science….o Science mutually exclusive within ‘feminine’ traits – subjectivity,

emotion…

• BUT also propagates normative ideas of gender!! Masculinity and femininity are cultural constructions, and not mutually exclusive.

• Problematic to lump women together as homogenous group (Brickhouse 2001, Gilbert and Calvert 2003).o Low-income; race; sexuality; culture; children.o Potential for different forms of exclusion, identity management.

Conclusions• STEM culture not neutral: embody masculine values and identities.• Critical awareness needed of which users are designed in – and out

– of STEM workplace and communication, and how..• Avoid stereotypes and normative ideas of ‘women’, and associations

with feminine tropes.o Also notion that ‘women’ are a homogenous group.

• Recognise STEM workplace culture, and which users are rewarded within it.o Recognise lived experience of women in STEM, especially around self-

confidence and efficacy.o Reflect on success, be clear about flexibility.

Any questions?