Women and Immaterial Labour: Unveiling the Unseen Dynamics. Editorial preface (original) (raw)
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WOMEN AND IMMATERIAL LABOUR: UNVEILING THE UNSEEN DYNAMICS: THE EDITORIAL PREFACE
Topos No 2 (2023): GENDER AND IM/MATERIAL LABOUR, 2023
This thematic volume of the journal Topos sprang from the international conference entitled Gender and Im/Material Labour, which was organized by the Center for Gender Studies at the the European Humanities University and held in Vilnius on June 15–16, 2023. The con- ference was part of the Women in Tech educational and research project, the project was launched by the EHU Center for Gender Studies and is funded by the European Union. Apart of the articles, submitted by the participants of the given conference, the volume also features the outcomes of the Women in Tech research grant program (held in 2022–2023), that was aimed specifically at the young female scholars, whose research has been focused on various gender-related issues of the IT industry in Belarus and in the region in the period of 2020–2023.
Topos , 2023
With the rise of post-industrial society, an ever bigger share of work takes the form of immaterial labour. While organizations of post-industrial economy continue to be gendered, the mechanisms for reproducing gender disparities are different than those in the traditional career path of the industrial era. Gender, which is the anchoring of a certain group of individuals in a specific sphere of social activities, gets reproduced as the segregation into 'more' and 'less' efficient workers takes place: quite often this is segregation into women and men.
Old News from the "New Economy": Women's Work in ICT
Canadian Woman Studies, 2004
Cet article se penche sur le travail des Canadiennes attirbes par les TIC (Technologies de li'nformation et des communications) auec une attention particulikre sur trois points : h skgrhgation industrielle et occupationnelle, et les disparitks Jconomiques. Oublieuses despromesses des TIC qui deuaient transfomer le travail, les Canadiennes en TIC continuent d2tre moins bienpayPes, connaissent unesigrPgation dessexes persistante et travaillent dans un milieu stratiJiJselon L e sexe, l'ethnie, le statut d'emigrante et 12ge.
GENDER DYNAMICS AND COLONIAL DEPENDENCIES IN THE BELARUSIAN IT SECTOR
Topos No 2 (2023): GENDER AND IM/MATERIAL LABOUR, 2023
This article delves into the complex relationship between colonial dependencies and gender representation in Belarus’s IT industry. It highlights how, on the basis of colonialism/modernity, the standard of gender equality in Belarusian IT becomes not the equal representation of men and women, but the performance of first-world countries in the field of gender equality in IT. The study emphasizes how outsourcing, a significant component of the IT sector in Belarus, perpetuates gender discrimination by removing decision-making power and agency, particularly impacting women’s ability to advocate for gender equality. Additionally, the article explores the intersectionality of these issues, examining how the commodification of human capital in IT, influenced by past Soviet policies, creates a network of dependencies that hinders the promotion of gender equality in Belarus’s IT landscape.
A Plea to Reflect on the Entanglements of Gendered Work Patterns and Digital Technologies
2021
Just like the First Industrial Revolution, digitalisation is found to be profoundly shaking up the world of work and it has therefore been called 'the Fourth Industrial Revolution', 'Economy 4.0', or 'Industry 4.0'. The rapidly increased implementation of smart technologies, automation, robotics, cyber-physical systems, and digital labour (cloud-and crowd work) in many occupational areas, including the service sector and industry, has sparked a variety of fundamental transformations in the organisation of professions, work, working conditions, and the structure of the labour market. In addition, the widespread use of mobile phones, computers, and data clouds has been challenging the traditional boundaries between private and professional life. Technological innovations have always been discussed as catalysts for social innovation. However, digitalisation is not a one-way-street. It has to be regarded in the context of its multiple facets and consequences. On the one hand, it creates new possibilitiesfor example, to reconcile work and private life or to create less hierarchical industrial relations; on the other, it fosters new possible ways for employers to control employees and gives rise to less secure jobs, of which women are historically more often disadvantaged then men. And since technology is a human creation, historically grown social inequalities between genders, ethnicities, and classes are partly implied or transferred into algorithm decision-making, big data sources, and many other areas, and this has large-scale consequences (Eubanks 2018, Lischka, Klingel 2018). It is striking that the current debate on digitalisation in the world of work and its EDITORIAL GENDER AND RESEARCH | 4 | consequences is dominated by gender-blind perspectives, especially in economics, labour research, computer science, and technology research (Rosenblat, Stark 2016; Scholz 2017; Vallas, Kovalainen 2019). This makes all the more important the studies and theories that introduce a perspective that systematically integrates gender and feminist theory into science and technology studies and into economic and labour research. It is not enough to just include a gender perspective in this research area, and it is instead necessary to take into account feminist theory, since many studies on artificial intelligence (AI) claim to use 'gender' perspectives, but actually incorporate or even undermine professional knowledge from gender studies and feminist research. This is evident, for example, in the debates on the controversial 'Gay Faces Study', which examines the extent to which a person's sexual orientation can be determined solely from their face (see Wang, Kosinski 2017; Leuner 2018). Conversely, in Gender Studies and Feminist Technoscience, there is a long tradition of exploring the relationship between gender, work, and technology (Haraway 1991b; Wajcman 1994; Ernst, Horwath 2014), which unfortunately has not yet received attention in the ongoing debate about digital workplaces and the social construction of digital industrial relations, data sets, and algorithms. With reference to technology, one of the pioneers of Science and Technology Studies (STS) is undoubtedly Donna Haraway (1991a), who, in the 1990s, started a discussion on the disruptive and transformative potential of the upcoming 'virtual world' or emerging 'cyberspace' for traditional gender orders and for the dualistic divisions between humans and animals, and things and creatures. Since then, gender researchers in STS have assumed (and hoped) that individuals would be able to reinvent themselves in the virtual world beyond conventional dualisms and gender identities, which might challenge gendered, stereotypical, and restrictive notions of human abilities and interests. This vision culminated in the image of the 'cyborg' (Haraway 1991a). Some researchers even believed that the new technologies opened new job opportunities, particularly for women, because they perceived that completely new professions were emerging that initially had no gender connotations (Wajcman 2004: 108-109). The figure of the cyborg also serves to deconstruct the humantechnology-relationship within industrial relations (Halford et al. 2015). Indeed, women have become more and more powerful and more interested in technology, and they are entering the halls of engineering and computational science. Women are, even if only slightly, more involved in the construction of technology, in the smart industries, and in data science (O'Neil 2017). However, the tech industry remains merely white, male, middle class, and able-bodied (Rommeveit et al. 2017; Reinhardt 2015), and research about the digital divide indicates that globally women have less access to the world wide web, that they face cyber-bullying and-mobbing, and that their technical skills are disregarded (OECD 2018).
THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND TECHNOLOGIES IN SERBIA
The rapid development of information systems and technologies calls for establishment of gender equality at all levels. The issue of women’s underrepresentation in information technology is recognized, but the numbers of women are still disappointing. The study is implemented through online survey, where the link was distributed via email to women who work at jobs related to IT, in the IT sector or other organizations. The first results indicate that women are outnumbered in Serbia and they face certain challenges and obstacles that men do not. The aim of the paper is to point out the necessity of declining gender gap in information systems and technology in Serbia, in order to use the whole potential of fast growing market.
WP 96 - An overview of women's work and employment in Belarus
*Management Summary* This report provides information on Belarus on behalf of the implementation of the DECISIONS FOR LIFE project in that country. The DECISIONS FOR LIFE project aims to raise awareness amongst young female workers about their employment opportunities and career possibilities, family building and the work-family balance. This report is part of the Inventories, to be made by the University of Amsterdam, for all 14 countries involved. It focuses on a gender analysis of work and employment. History (2.1.1). Belarus, severely hit by the German occupation, after the second 1945 emerged as emerged as one of the major manufacturing centres of the Soviet. It suffered heavily from the Chernobyl disaster. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, from 1994 on under president Lukashenko the country kept a command economy, though central planning disappeared. Its growth rates have been considerably throughout the 2000s, though the economy continues to be dependent on heavy discou...