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Feminist HCI: Taking Stock and Outlining an Agenda for Design

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Feminist HCI: Taking Stock and Outlining an Agenda for Design CHI 2010: HCI For All April 10–15, 2010, Atlanta, GA, USA Feminist HCI: Taking Stock and Outlining an Agenda for Design Shaowen Bardzell Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing 919 E 10th Street, Rm 237, Bloomington, IN 47408 [email protected] ABSTRACT ing moral and intellectual complexity of our professional Feminism is a natural ally to interaction design, due to its activities. central commitments to issues such as agency, fulfillment, identity, equity, empowerment, and social justice. In this This topic is hardly new to computing: science and technol- paper, I summarize the state of the art of feminism in HCI ogy studies (STS) and social informatics have long empha- and propose ways to build on existing successes to more sized these sorts of issues. Yet when it comes to interaction robustly integrate feminism into interaction design research design—HCI proper—these concerns come up in a much and practice. I explore the productive role of feminism in more piecemeal and ad hoc way. For the purpose of this analogous fields, such as industrial design, architecture, and paper, I therefore confine my focus to the relationships be- game design. I introduce examples of feminist interaction tween feminism and interaction design (as opposed to design already in the field. Finally, I propose a set of femi- “computing” or “technology” more generally). nist interaction design qualities intended to support design Specifically, I am concerned with the design and evaluation and evaluation processes directly as they unfold. of interactive systems that are imbued with sensitivity to the Author Keywords central commitments of feminism—agency, fulfillment, HCI, Feminist HCI, feminism, design, feminist standpoint identity and the self, equity, empowerment, diversity, and theory, gender, interaction design, feminist design qualities social justice. I also seek to improve understanding of how gender identities and relations shape both the use of interac- ACM Classification Keywords tive technologies and their design. Additionally, feminist H5.m. Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI): HCI entails critical perspectives that could help reveal un- Miscellaneous. spoken values within HCI’s dominant research and design General Terms paradigms and underpin the development of new ap- Theory proaches, methods and design variations. INTRODUCTION Likely outcomes of this agenda include contributions such As a movement and an academic discipline, feminism has as the following: been prominent for over half a century. Infused throughout many aspects of everyday life, it is hardly a surprise that • A comprehensive introduction to issues of gender and feminist concerns also touch on the topic of interaction. feminism as they pertain specifically to the professional And indeed, as I argue later in this paper, it has already practice and theorization of interaction design affected HCI in positive ways. Yet as a field, even when we • A generative integration of specific feminist perspectives are pursuing goals that can be called “feminist,” we tend in HCI and interaction design, that is, ways that femi- not to engage explicitly with feminism. As computers in- nism can support creative activity and novel problem- creasingly become a part of everyday life for ever- solving approaches increasing populations in the world—from the rise of do- mestic computing in the West to the rise of ICTs for devel- • Examinations of how technologies construct and per- oping countries—the stakes have never been higher. Digital petuate gender and the ensuing implications for the prac- interactions mediate people’s relationships with friends and tice of design loved ones, with society, and with culture itself. As we as- • Attempts to move beyond the piecemeal use of feminist pire to develop more pervasive, ubiquitous, and universal ideas in HCI, so as to integrate feminism in a more intel- technologies, we inevitably also must engage in the increas- lectually rigorous way Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for • Contributions toward the development and legitimization personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are of a Feminist HCI research agenda that encompasses not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies both theory and design practice bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior While feminism is generally known as a critical strategy, specific permission and/or a fee. which too often suggests that feminism is only applicable CHI 2010, April 10–15, 2010, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Copyright 2010 ACM 978-1-60558-929-09/10/04....$10.00. 1301 CHI 2010: HCI For All April 10–15, 2010, Atlanta, GA, USA after the fact, in these bullets and the rest of the paper, I By making visible the manifold ways that gender is con- stress the potential for feminism to contribute to an action- structed in everyday life, contemporary feminism seeks to based design agenda. That is, feminist approaches can inte- generate opportunities for intervention, making it a natural grate seamless and productively in all stages of the design ally to design. process, including user research, prototyping, and evalua- tion. Feminist Epistemologies The transition to third-wave HCI [16,45] represents not To clarify the goals, intentions, and resources for such an only a turn to a different sort of computing, but also to new agenda, I provide in the ensuing sections a brief overview epistemologies better suited to our changing design practice of feminism as an intellectual discipline; an introduction to needs. Thus we have the continued exploration of Heideg- feminism in cognate fields, including STS, industrial de- gerian phenomenology [34] and computer scientists appro- sign, and game design; a summary of the state of the art of priating literary theory and pragmatist philosophy to offer feminism in HCI today; and I then propose a set of feminist new ways of accounting for experience [59]. One of femi- interaction design qualities to clarify and solidify the femi- nism’s primary intellectual achievements has been the con- nist HCI agenda. struction of a critical strategy for developing epistemolo- gies: feminist standpoint theory. REINTRODUCING FEMINISM Portrayals of feminism, in politics, the media, and even in Feminist standpoint theory [46,43] begins with the supposi- HCI conferences, suggest that this household word is not tion that all knowledge attempts are socially situated and always well understood. In this section, I offer a brief sum- that some are better than others as starting points for mary of the ways feminism, as an academic field, construes knowledge. Knowledge production is inevitably enmeshed itself. Academically, feminism is often seen as a domain of in acts of power, and in patriarchal societies, women’s critical theory that examines “the ways in which literature knowledge is suppressed. Accordingly, feminist standpoint (and other cultural productions) reinforces or undermines theory advocates for the use of women’s viewpoints and the economic, political, social, and psychological oppres- experiences as an alternative point of departure for social sion of women.” [72]. Feminism integrates a collection of science research. This theory holds that cultural expecta- theories, analytical and interpretative methodologies, ethi- tions and conventions in patriarchal societies limit women cal values, and political positions, which have evolved over to certain roles with differential access to resources. The the past two centuries. result is that women hold and produce different types of knowledge from their male counterparts, and that these dif- A Summary History of Feminism ferent types of knowledge should be recognized and utilized Summarizing historically, feminism has gone through three as a resource, rather than marginalized. Feminist standpoint major phases [76]: theory thus attempts to reconfigure the epistemic terrain and valorize the marginal perspectives of knowledge, so as to • First-wave feminism (1830s-1920s) refers to the suffra- expose the unexamined assumptions of dominant epistemo- gette movement in the late 19th century/early 20th cen- logical paradigms, avoid distorted or one-sided accounts of tury in the US and UK that focuses on women’s rights to social life, and generate new and critical questions [2]. vote and participate in democratic government. Feminist standpoint theory’s privileging of alternative epis- • The second wave of feminism (1960s-1980s) corre- temologies simultaneously introduces a new domain of user sponds with the intellectual movement of liberal human- research—the “marginal” user, which forces us to think ism and is concerned with the emancipation of women through what that would mean—and implies a new set of from patriarchal structures and argues against the oppres- strategies and methods for user research. sion of women. It includes liberal feminism, radical feminism, and black feminism among others. FEMINISM IN COGNATE FIELDS • The third and present wave of feminism achieved critical Interaction design is increasingly positioning itself as a de- mass in the early 1990s and confronts the second wave’s sign discipline, comparable to product design, information essentialist position on femininity. It includes postmod- design, graphic design, fashion, and architecture. At the ern feminism, post-colonial feminism, and eco-feminism, same time,
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