10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17531
This contribution takes shape from the conference track titled “Disentangling Digital Feminist Technoscience”, held in occasion of the VIII STS Italia Conference. The article discusses the main insights emerged from the research works presented in the track, identifying digital technologies as assemblages made up of relationships, cultural and social values, as well as imaginaries that can disambiguate, but also overturn, gender bias. The contributions presented reflect, and thus are summarized around, two central issues developed in the literature about feminist technoscience in digital domains, focusing on how digital technologies reproduce gender bias and power asymmetries, but can also generate responsible and conflictual interventions. Ultimately, the article reflects on the potential of technologies and design as important tools to develop a gender-sensitive reflexive stance towards cultures of technology, as well as to subvert gender clichés and create possibilities of transformations.
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Letizia Zampino
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Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
transformations
What if Siri and Alexa Unionize? Disentangling Digital Feminist Technoscience, between Gender Bias and Self-determination
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Conference Reflections
2022-03-26
2023-06-28
2022-03-26
2023-10-23
125-132
TS
Letizia Zampino
2021
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17531
125
Sapienza University of Rome
2038-3460
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transformations
en
132
What if Siri and Alexa Unionize? Disentangling Digital Feminist Technoscience, between Gender Bias and Self-determination
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                                                                     Conference Reflections
                                                                                                 125




What if Siri and Alexa Unionize?
Disentangling Digital Feminist Technoscience,
between Gender Bias and Self-determination

              Mariacristina                                     Letizia Zampino
              Sciannamblo                                       Sapienza University of Rome
           Sapienza University of Rome



     Abstract: This contribution takes shape from the conference track titled
     “Disentangling Digital Feminist Technoscience”, held in occasion of the VIII
     STS Italia Conference. The article discusses the main insights emerged from
     the research works presented in the track, identifying digital technologies
     as assemblages made up of relationships, cultural and social values, as well
     as imaginaries that can disambiguate, but also overturn, gender bias. The
     contributions presented reflect, and thus are summarized around, two cen-
     tral issues developed in the literature about feminist technoscience in digi-
     tal domains, focusing on how digital technologies reproduce gender bias
     and power asymmetries, but can also generate responsible and conflictual
     interventions. Ultimately, the article reflects on the potential of technolo-
     gies and design as important tools to develop a gender-sensitive reflexive
     stance towards cultures of technology, as well as to subvert gender clichés
     and create possibilities of transformations.

     Keywords: Feminist technoscience;                     digital    STS;   gender;   digital
     technologies; transformations.

     Submitted: November 19, 2021 – Accepted: January 31, 2022

     Corresponding author: Mariacristina Sciannamblo, Sapienza University
     of Rome, Department of Communication and Social Research, Via Salaria
     113, Roma, Italy. Email: mariacristina.sciannamblo@uniroma1.it.




TECNOSCIENZA
Italian Journal of Science and Technology Studies
12 (2) pp. 125-132 - ISSN 2038-3460
www.tecnoscienza.net                                2021
126                                                            Tecnoscienza – 12 (2)
                                       Feminism does not have to have gender as its
                                                 ground zero. I kind of want more.
                                                         (Susan Leigh Star, 2008)


1. Introduction

     In a recent interview with Ana Gross, Lucy Suchman found herself trac-
ing her encounter with feminism, claiming that one of the greatest reso-
nances between her work as STS scholar and feminist theory and politics
was the acknowledgement that social structures have to be reproduced,
“but that there are also slippages in that cycle of reproduction and that
those slippages are points of potential intervention for transformation”
(Gross and Suchman 2021, p. 183). Once again Suchman, in a recent con-
tribution to “Tecnoscienza”, returned to the question of the performativity
of knowledge, arguing that STS is fully implicated (as any body of scholar-
ship and research practice) in world-making practices through its own pe-
culiar figures (Suchman 2020). According to Suchman, the attention to-
wards boundary making practices that mark out differences and the trans-
formative reconceptualizations of the relations between research methods
and their objects are becoming, however contentiously, the linchpins of the
connections between STS and feminist theories.
     These reflections inspired the will and desire to develop a space dedi-
cated to feminist technoscience within the scope of the VIII STS Italia Con-
ference, whose title reads “Dis/Entangling Technoscience: Vulnerability,
Responsibility and Justice”. The focus on the complex and ambivalent role
of technoscience in constituting societies, between the emergence of new
opportunities and the creation of new vulnerabilities, has indeed naturally
evoked questions that have always characterized the core of feminist tech-
noscience, that is how to enact silence, give voice to the traditionally invis-
ible, interrogate boundaries, uncover local and marginal positions enacted
by technoscientific practices. In other words, the call of the last STS Italia
Conference has directly pointed to the inseparability of knowledge prac-
tices (entailed in the word “Dis/Entangling”) as well as to the commitment
to uncovering the unintended consequences of technoscientific enterprises
and to fostering interventions for transformations emerged from the slip-
pages of cycles of reproduction as underlined by Suchman (2020).
     Against this backdrop, the focus of the track titled “Disentangling Dig-
ital Feminist Technoscience” has been devoted to unpacking the relations
between humans and computational machines through feminist sensibili-
ties in the light of the growing body of literature exploring the intersection
of STS and digital technologies (Vertesi and Ribes 2019). The development
of the track grounded in those analyses concerning sites and practices
Sciannamblo and Zampino                                                    127
shaped by digital technologies, which uncover the ways through which they
are biased in terms of gender, sex, labor, class, ethnicity, (dis)ability. This
body of research addresses various issues, from the underrecognized or ne-
glected contribution of female work to the development of computing
(Hicks 2017) to the role of gender practices in shaping computing cultures
(Dunbar-Hester 2019); from the negative biases against women of color
embedded in search engine results and algorithms (Noble 2018) to the
ways through which digital platforms engage and exploit user labor (Jarrett
2015).
    Six research works have been presented in the track by scholars located
in different parts of the world, such as Canada, Austria, Japan, Israel, UK,
and Germany. The contributions presented reflect and thus are summa-
rized around two central issues developed in the literature about feminist
technoscience in digital domains, focusing on how digital technologies re-
produce gender bias and power asymmetries, but can also generate respon-
sible and conflictual interventions.


2. Digital Technologies, from Gender Discrimination and
Inclusion towards Reflexive Interventions

    Feminist Technoscience Studies (FTS) have been defined as a “trandis-
ciplinary field” (Åsberg and Lykke 2010) as it merges social studies of sci-
ence and technology and the multiple critical intellectual legacies of femi-
nist critique. As such, this field of study emerged as a “nodal point” (Lykke
2010), namely a discursive site that has historically gathered a plurality of
epistemological and political traditions. These are concerned with various
issues such as the analysis of disparities between men and women in science
and technology, the inequities of technoscientific systems as for the dis-
criminations of women, queer persons, people with disability and illness,
elders, people of color. On the other hand, FTS examines how science and
technology, in their plural forms (artifacts, places, infrastructures, stand-
ards, protocols, policies, etc.), are constructed through and entangled with
sexist, gendered, racialized, and political scripts. Far from any determinis-
tic assumption, research and reflections in this space have argued that sci-
ence and technology can produce and exacerbate forms of discriminations,
but also forms of critical deconstruction and reflexivity around gender bias
in technoscientific practices. These insights emerged from Yoshimi Ka-
kimoto (Nara Women’s University) contribution, which addressed the is-
sue of gender-equality, claiming that technologies should help to disrupt
gender stereotypes. The gendering of technological objects, among which
we find social networks that make us interconnected in any time and in any
128                                                          Tecnoscienza – 12 (2)

space could become a way to enact practices of self-awareness. Against this
background, Kakimoto argues that this interconnection of digital technol-
ogies shapes cyberspaces, which can be interpreted as spaces of self-deter-
mination aimed at disentangling gender bias with the aim of reconfiguring
a world based on gender equality.
    On the other hand, IT-related domains are marked by persistent gender
gaps and asymmetries. Therefore, women find themselves elaborating dif-
ferent strategies to cope with male-dominated environments. The contri-
bution by Annika Richterich (University of Sussex, UK) focused on these
aspects by investigating networks that support women’s access to STEM
disciplines. According to Richterich’s study, women respond to the dis-
comfort of living in highly masculine professional worlds by adopting indi-
vidualistic and pragmatic solutions, rather than allying and enacting collec-
tive strategies to bring about structural changes. These findings resonate
with those research endeavors that shed light on the controversial implica-
tions of “diversity in tech” advocacy, which seem to align with industry
goals and market values rather than being attached to structural issues con-
nected to power and inequality (Dunbar-Hester 2019).
    Nevertheless, initiatives aimed at bridging the gender gap in tech envi-
ronments are proliferating, including those devoted to shaping the gen-
dered character of widespread digital platforms, such as Wikipedia. This
is the case presented by Shlomit Lir (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev)
in her contribution focused on gender bias in the most popular “free ency-
clopedia”, by examining how different barriers are interlinked in a manner
that deters women and prevents them from editing in the website. Lir’s
research followed the steps of 27 Israeli women activists who participated
in editing workshops. According to the author, having the will to edit and
the knowledge of how to edit are necessary but insufficient conditions for
women to participate in Wikipedia. The research suggests, indeed, the
presence of a "vicious circle” mechanism (characterized by negative repu-
tation, anonymity, fear, alienation, and rejection) that discourages women
from contributing to the website. In order for more women to join Wik-
ipedia, the research suggests the model of a "virtuous circle”, which con-
sists of nonymity, connection to social media, inclusive policy, soft deletion,
and red-flagging harassment.
    Besides being places that can reproduce or tackle gender and power
asymmetries, digital technologies can play the role of interesting methodo-
logical tools to favor processes of reflexivity within practices of technology
development. With their contribution, Anna Gerhardus (Institute for Ad-
vanced Studies, Austria) and Julia Schmid (Institute for Advanced Studies
Austria) have indeed shown the potential of virtual reality (VR) as a learn-
ing tool for gender inclusiveness. In the project presented, an
Sciannamblo and Zampino                                                  129
interdisciplinary research group made up of potential users, employees,
manufacturing companies, sociologists and informatics adopted VR tools
to develop scenarios configuring potential cases of gender discriminations.
By developing and examining together the set of possible events and ac-
tions, the group was able to question and learn about power differentials,
intersectional positions and gendered practices that characterize work-
places and other daily environments.


3. Experimenting with Gender and Technological Design

    Adopting a feminist approach allows us to look at the heterogeneous
processes that shape materiality as effects of practices that oscillate be-
tween overturning the gender order and reinforcing discrimination prac-
tices. In this section we look at how researching with and about technology
can help to experiment with the design through which gender is con-
structed.
    Early work on the initial deployment of video games revealed how self-
representation and online identity were constrained by graphical interfaces
towards a binary choice of male/female gender (Reid 1996). Analyzing the
gender script is a way to understand how design adapts to specific user
groups due to the incorporation of specific images of future users
(Oudshoorn et al. 2004). Gradually STS and feminism studies developed
theoretical concepts and conducted empirical research with the aim of de-
constructing gender as a category, helping developers to produce more
gender equality-oriented technologies (see Rommes 2000). In digital
spaces, bodies can become symbolic artefacts through the concretization
of heteronormative models that reinforce gender inequalities, but also the
outcome of performative assemblages of gendered/gendering practices.
This is the direction in which the study by Ona Bantjes-Rafols (Carleton
University, Canada) and Chiara Del Gaudio (Carleton University, Canada)
moves. In their contribution, they developed an analysis of the video game
“The Sims'' to question the patriarchal culture embedded in gaming design
practices. The authors reflect on the role of designers in the construction
of an inclusive and plural script, aimed at challenging the heteronorma-
tivity often embedded in gaming design. They offered an analysis of The
Sims game and the changes it has undergone through updates and releases.
The Sims is a particularly suitable game for this analysis because it is a
sandbox game, i.e. it offers the player the possibility to customize charac-
ters by personalizing the clothes, the hair, the physical appearance of the
characters and to build family, relational and work stories. Because of these
features, The Sims became an interesting game for the Queer community,
130                                                          Tecnoscienza – 12 (2)

whose members feel free to play with their appearances, building digitized
bodies capable of representing fluid gender identities. The conclusions un-
derline the potential of video games to perform bodies by enacting visions
that can reconfigure the way we think about gender and make gaming cul-
ture sensitive to the challenges posed by feminist struggles against gender
binarism and patriarchal power structures. The user becomes an integral
part of the process of constructing a virtual reality in which gender identi-
ties are performed by game practices as a result of a process of negotiation
between the actual users and the users imagined by the developers in a
mutual adjustment (Akrich 1992).
     In ICT studies, challenging the gender dichotomies embedded in tech-
nological artifacts calls into question the gender of design. In this respect,
Natalie Sontopski (Komplexlabor Digitale Kultur, Germany) presented an
experiment showing how structures of inequality can be co-shaped with
technologies. The scholar returned to the transformative power of specu-
lation and creativity to overthrow gender roles and stereotypes like those
embedded in intelligent personal assistant (IPA) technologies (e.g. Siri,
Alexa). As Sontopski noted, most users choose to let IPAs speak with a
female voice and conceive their digital assistant as “she”. This perception
is emphasized by speech patterns as IPAs stereotypically speak very po-
litely, give affirmations, signs of listening and suggest instead of dictate,
thus playing a passive character that obediently takes orders and seeks
pleasure in care work. In order to change this narrative and start breaking
away from the gender clichés embedded in IPAs, Sontopski and colleagues
developed an experimental installation using speculative design methods
and a sociological theoretical approach. The experiment involved an ac-
tress who “played” the part of an IPA called “MiauMiau”, which inter-
acted with users, showing character traits not available for conventional
IPAs, like declining to answer questions, demanding fair pay for her work
and defending herself in cases of abuse. In doing so, “MiauMiau” showed
to act according to alternative embedded conversational patterns, aspiring
to be a kind of “Anti Alexa”. Users who had the chance to interact with
“MiauMiau” for a few minutes were invited to participate in a survey,
which (surprisingly) showed that over 60% of respondents liked the inter-
action, while (not surprisingly) most of them found the interaction not
helpful.
     This study has succeeded in creating a space for theoretical and political
discussion, in which STS feminists can connect with 'the sciences of the
artificial' (Suchman 2008). Within this feminist framework, AI can be ques-
tioned in its gendered configurations in order to bring out multiple posi-
tioning and emancipatory practices.
Sciannamblo and Zampino                                                   131
4. Conclusions

     The contributions briefly outlined above have allowed us to discuss dig-
ital technologies as assemblages made up of relationships, cultural and so-
cial values, as well as imaginaries that can disambiguate but also overturn
gender bias. Technology can be conceived as a political intervention to
transform social relations and the knowledge inscribed in technological ar-
tifacts. The research works presented have shown the potential of digital
technologies to disrupt gender stereotypes and patriarchal power struc-
tures, the different tactics undertaken by women to adapt male dominated
tech environments, but also to identify and implement virtuous cycles to
achieve gender balance in these domains. Moreover, we have acknowl-
edged the potential of technologies and design as important tools to de-
velop a gender-sensitive reflexive stance towards cultures of technology, as
well as to subvert gender clichés and create possibilities of transformations.
In these terms, digital technologies become an agonistic space to overturn
traditional and stereotypical gender imaginaries such as those embedded
in the design of personal assistants as an impersonation of typically femi-
nine caring roles. What if Siri and Alexa decided to join forces and claim
the rights of personal assistants?
     The discussion that followed individual presentations emphasized pre-
cisely the twofold character of feminist technoscience: the sharp critique of
patriarchal structures and practices as well as the seed of transformation
conveyed by such a critical stance. This generative tension between know-
ing and doing is by all means the central hallmark of feminism(s) and fem-
inist studies, being these transformative politics engaged with the question
of how to intervene on traditional ways of knowing (Ahmed et al. 2000). In
asking how we can reflect on changes in the current moment, Sara Ahmed
and colleagues argue that wondering about transformation is a task of
“thinking through feminism”. In this respect, Susan Leigh Star argued that
feminist theory needs to go beyond the “good reparative work” in ex-
pounding the invisibility of women and other marginal groups, in order to
look more ecologically at the implications and possibilities of technoscien-
tific pratices (Zachry 2008). This resonates with Suchman’s words that
open our reflections, underlining the possibilities to intervene in the slip-
pages that characterize any cycle of reproduction through transformative
reconceptualizations of the relations between research methods and their
objects. As the contributions presented are also demonstrating, this can
represent a fruitful path for the relationships between digital STS and fem-
inist theories to be cultivated.
132                                                              Tecnoscienza – 12 (2)

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