Message-ID: <199504292348.AA19760@orion.oac.uci.edu> Date: Sat, 29 Apr 1995 16:48:42 -0700 From: Jim Hess <mailto:jhess@ORION.OAC.UCI.EDU> Subject: Re: Women, technology To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L
> > processing, when technologies are developed, usually by men, in the
> > "developed world" and introduced to these countries, it is the developing
> > country males who take them over, and benefit at the expense of women.
>
>
> I think that the relationship is not quite as direct as implied here.
> I would describe a common pattern as increased need for capital and
increase profits attracting new investors with capital to invest, > and these new investors are mainly male. An example I would offer is fish
> been traditionally involved in processing the catch. The vast majority of the
> people who moved in were male.
>
> Doug Wilson
Hmm...I suspect a variety of influences in different cases. I have read, in the case of production technology, i.e. loans to purchase fertilizer and seed for farming in Africa, (the program developers seemingly either assumed that the farmers were men, or wanted to promote male control of women) that credit was only made available to men, or to women through men. In other words, the bias was not the natural, logical fallout of the situation, but was produced by ideologies of planners. Even if in the case cited above on fish processing, if the plan spoke not a word about male or female, in a gendered world it may have biased effects, and not considering these in advance shows dangerous naivate.
-Jim Hess-