This discussion spans 4 days and is due before midnight on Thursday of week 8.

Learning outcomes

Students will be able to 1) discuss feminist theory, women's choices, race and cultural issues, and barriers related to gender and technology, 2) research current trends of women and technology of different cultures/countries, 3) analyze relationships among science, technology, and society using critical perspectives or examples from historical, political, or economic disciplines, 4) analyze the role of science and technology in shaping diverse fields of study over time, 5) articulate in writing a critical perspective on issues involving science, technology, and society using evidence as support.

Introduction

The USA Amputee Coalition predicts that by 2050, 3.6 million people will lose a limb due to diabetes, war, and other traumas. Many of those people will seek out prosthetics to improve their mobility and productivity. Rapid prototyping via 3-D printers has become affordable for many small businesses that specialize in adaptive technologies, which will increase the number of people who will stay active following a trauma.

Regardless of physical able-ness, many humans supplement their bodies with vaccines, hair implants, hearing aids, eyeglasses and contacts, ear-buds and headphones, botox, pacemakers, RFID implants, reconstructive metal rods and balls, piercings, tattoos, breast augmentation, birth control, transplanted tissue, braces, shoes, watches, bands, clothing, and virtual reality gear!

And because that is just not enough, we replicate and roboticize the body because we seek out answers to how it became the greatest machine on earth.

Many new technologies are possible and compatible with the body and the human imagination will go to great lengths to play around with the possibilities. How do physical augmentations affect you personally? What does it feel like when scientists create robots that look and sound like women? And how do these issues affect society as a whole?

On Monday, start reading and viewing.

After viewing the video, read/view a variety of scholarly articles and movies:

A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century (updated link).

Donna Haraway, Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York; Routledge, 1991), pp.149-181.

Why wearables could be a breakthrough for women in Tech

By Daniela Velazquez. Google and PBS spotlight the emerging market where women are taking the lead.

Why do we give robots female names? Because we don't want to consider their feelings.

Laurie Penny. New Statesman Magazine. 2016.

Google Scholar

Articles related to body, technology, and cyborg

Then search for and listen to/read a few popular or other scholarly articles, podcasts, and videos. In a new tab, add various search phrases to a Google, Bing, or Yahoo search bar to locate articles. Switch to the Scholar, News, Videos, and Images channels to see different results.

cyborg

cybernetics and prosthetics

wearables, wearable technology, wearable tech

high-tech fashion

digital tattoos, implants, piercings

medical devices, fitness devices

3d printing for the body

robots, female robots

bodyhacker

and your own search phrases

2. By Wednesday, start discussing the readings. (4 points)

In the Canvas forum for week 4:

1. Make a new thread titled with a question from the weeks' readings that you found most intriguing.
2. In 400 words or more, recap the scholarly and popular articles you read.
   1. Write in a text editor like Word or Google Docs.
   2. ONLY ONE thread may be about the meaning of the word feminism. If someone posted this already, please choose another topic related to education.
   3. Cite sources using embedded hyperlinks in the Titles of Articles you mention so that readers can quickly open them in a new browser tab.
   4. Mention support for your ideas, provide solutions, and note personal experiences.
      • Keep personal anecdotes to a minimum; the reading recap is key here.
      • I want to hear what you learned, not necessarily what you already know.

3. By midnight on Thursday, reply to three others' threads. (4 points)

1. Glance through all the responses.
2. Respond to at least three others' threads (but not more than 5).
   • Challenge the opinions of others but back them up with research.
     • Research means you searched for and found other articles that support your ideas.
     • Writing means you wrote in your own words. Do not paste in large passages of others' writings.
   • Note which sources you found that support or contradict the ideas presented.
   • Cite sources using embedded hyperlinks in the Titles of Articles.

This second section of the Gender Lens project spans 7 days and is due before midnight on Sunday of week 8.

Introduction

Last week you viewed the timeline of a product through a Gender Lens. This week you'll view that product's social factors to discover how it disrupted societies both positively (benefits) and negatively (consequences). Disruptive technology refers to innovations that have replaced traditional methods. For example, a smart mobile phone replaced wired landline phones which has modified the way humans interact.

Instructions

8.1 Research the product's Social Factors.

1. Organize sources using your chosen bibliography tool from the previous project.
2. Focus on these factors and questions:

   Biological

   How do the materials and process affect human biology? Was the design primarily for women or men? Do men and women use the product differently?

   Social

   What studies have noted changes in society due to the product? Has this technology been dubbed 'disruptive' and why?

   Cultural

   What studies have noted cultural influences? How does its country/class/gender of origin change its function or peoples' perceptions?

   Economic

   How much profit does the product generate and how does that affect international economies? Are those effects gender-specific?

   Political

   What studies note political problems/solutions that resulted from use of the product? Or what laws affect its production, marketing, and sales?

   Educational

   How is the education industry affected by use or no use of this product?

8.2 Consult librarians as needed.

local_library

Formulate specific questions that describe the area of research you're trying to locate so that the human will be able to provide a targeted response. Choose more than one method of contact to ask very specific questions (but do not ask two different librarians to answer the same question). If you don't know how to use the Library's databases, then consult with librarians to learn how! Or start at Library Do It Yourself DIY.

1. Chat with Oregon Librarians, Answerland 24/7.
2. Email Women Studies Librarian, Jane Nichols.
3. Email Ecampus Librarian, Stefanie Buck. View her page.
4. Ask Engineering Librarian, Margaret Mellinger.
5. Ask Anthropology Librarian, Ruth Vondracek.
6. Ask Oregon Multicultural Archives Librarian, Natalia Fernandez.
7. Text 66746: Start with the word BEAVS the very first time you text us. Example: BEAVS what time does the library close?
8. In person with an OSU Reference Librarian or your local librarian any day of the week.
9. Telephone (541) 737–7293

Evaluating Sources

"Between June 2015 and August 2017, millions of Americans were exposed to Facebook ads and posts generated by Russian operatives who sought to influence voter behavior and exploit divisions in American society on hot-button issues." The Facebook ads Russians targeted at different groups By Dan Keating, Kevin Schaul and Leslie Shapiro. Nov. 1, 2017

In Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Reasoning (2013), Stanford University scholars determined that most college, high school, and middle school students lack the ability to differentiate between advertisements, opinion pieces, and news articles. This problem tends to encourage citizens to base important opinions on untrue, incomplete, and unfair articles and ads, which many call fake or alternative news.

Our ability to differentiate fact from fiction gets harder as new sources of varying quality crop up overnight and fill our news feeds with headlines meant to attract attention rather than educate. Overuse of sensational headlines, uncited 'facts', and unrelated photos bombard our senses and distract us from reading carefully.

In addition, political parties from around the world overfill news feeds with fake information to push their agenda, which can persuade large groups of voters one way or another, as we have seen with Facebook and Instagram posts by Russian government officials.

To help us navigate factual, analysis, and opinion articles, refer to Vanessa Otero's Media Bias Chart, Edition 3 (below). To place a news source in the X axis (conservative versus liberal) and the Y axis (factual, analytical, unfair), Otero uses a metric that involves three main categories: Veracity, Expression, and Fairness. For a detailed analysis of her method, read related blog posts at All Generalizations are False as well as an expert review of her work (Media Quality and Bias) by Professor Max Stearns of University of Maryland Carey School of Law.

8.3 Write the research.

1. Login to your Wordpress site and click the My Site button to get to the Dashboard.
2. Click on the Pages button.
3. Click on the — 2. Social Factors Page link to edit it.

   Under the 'Biological' subheadline:

   type your original writing about how the materials and process affect human biology and how women and men might use the product differently.

   Under the 'Social' subheadline:

   type your original writing about studies that note changes in society due to the product. Has this technology been dubbed 'disruptive' and why?

   Under the 'Cultural' subheadline:

   type your original writing about studies noting cultural influences and changes in perception.

   Under the 'Economics' subheadline:

   type your original writing about how much profit the product generates and how that affects international economies. Are those effects gender-specific?

   Under the 'Political' subheadline:

   type your original writing noting political problems and solutions that resulted from its use. What laws affect its production, marketing, and sales?

   Under the 'Education' subheadline:

   type your original writing about how the education industry is affected by use (or lack thereof).

   • Cite research and statistics. Plagiarism will not be tolerated.
   • Embed links to inline citations so that the author's last name is hyperlinked, like this: (Smith 2016).
   • Click the Update button.
   • Click the green View button to see the page in a new tab. Check for grammar and spelling errors.
   • Ctrl-P (Win) or ⌘-P (Mac) to print the page as a .PDF file. Close this viewing tab.
   • Click the ← Back button from the Editing tab.
4. Click on the — 3. Bibliography Page link to edit it.
   • For each source used in the project, list the author, title, publisher, date, and URL.
   • Either embed the URL of the source in the Title, OR paste it after the date. If it isn't hyperlinked, then add the hyperlink. If the source is a book then you can leave off a URL.
   • Click the Update button.
   • Click the green View button to see the page in a new tab. Check for grammar and spelling errors.
   • Ctrl-P (Win) or ⌘-P (Mac) to print the page as a .PDF file. Close this viewing tab.
   • Click the ← Back button from the Editing tab.

8.4 Get the writing reviewed.

Consult one or more of these resource for a review of the structure of your writing, grammar, and spelling. Provide the tutor with a link to the instructions as well as your project online.

• NetTutor's Paper Center
• OSU Online Writing Lab
• OSU on-campus Writing Center

8.5 Blog about your progress on the research (5 points).

1. Write a paragraph that notes your successes and problems with research for this project.
2. Compare your work so far to one or more of the sample projects provided in Chapter 7's Example projects.
3. Check grammar and spelling.
4. Click the Category button and choose the Gender & Technology.
5. Click the Publish button.

8.6 Submit the URL to your new post.

1. View your site live (not from the Dashboard).
2. Select the URL for your home page or your new Post.
3. Paste the URL into the Canvas assignment link for Chapter 7.