Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Communication technology and psychological well-being: Yin, Yang, and the golden mean of media effects
- 2 Internet and well-being
- 3 Information, innovation, and society
- 4 Work-related technological change and psychological well-being
- 5 From ergonomics to hedonomics: trends in human factors and technology
- 6 “Good teleworking”: under what conditions does teleworking enhance employees' well-being?
- 7 Commuting and well-being
- 8 Technology and medicine
- 9 Mothers of invention? The myth-breaking history and planetary promise of women's key roles in subsistence technology
- 10 Technology and well-being: designing the future
- Index
- References
9 - Mothers of invention? The myth-breaking history and planetary promise of women's key roles in subsistence technology
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 December 2009
Edited by
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Communication technology and psychological well-being: Yin, Yang, and the golden mean of media effects
- 2 Internet and well-being
- 3 Information, innovation, and society
- 4 Work-related technological change and psychological well-being
- 5 From ergonomics to hedonomics: trends in human factors and technology
- 6 “Good teleworking”: under what conditions does teleworking enhance employees' well-being?
- 7 Commuting and well-being
- 8 Technology and medicine
- 9 Mothers of invention? The myth-breaking history and planetary promise of women's key roles in subsistence technology
- 10 Technology and well-being: designing the future
- Index
- References
Summary
Technology is usually depicted as masculine: from stone tools presumably made by men for men's pursuits to men building rockets that reach the moon and beyond. This overwhelming identification of men and technology is one of the reasons so few girls dream of or enter engineering, even today. Enduring a dream denied, or being treated like an outsider in one's chosen field, negatively affects one's psychological well-being. In this chapter, I suggest that the conventional wisdom that has helped deter many women from greater engagement with technology is misleading or wrong.
Instead, I argue that for almost all of human history – and among our nearest nonhuman relatives – we have been closer to equal opportunity in technology, indeed, to the “mothers of invention” model, than the stereotyped notion of “technology=male.” I further contend that this has contributed to human well-being, both material and psychological. To support my thesis, I will trace female/male contributions to what Gerhard Lenski has argued since 1966 is the most crucial of all forms of technology: subsistence technology, or how we make a living from our planet. This entails examining my version of Lenski's “modes of subsistence.” I call them “techno-economic bases” to highlight the linkage between technology and economy in our past, present, and future.
I posit that humans' “historical main line” has consisted of only four major bases and that a fifth may be emerging in today's globalized world: (1) foraging (hunting and gathering); (2) horticultural (hoe or digging stick cultivation); (3) agrarian (plow-based); then – following the rise of capitalism – (4) industrial.
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- Technology and Psychological Well-being , pp. 227 - 259Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009
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