Index
Table of Contents
Series Foreword XI
Preface XIII
Preview: Gendered Bodies and Identities in a
Technological Age 1
Understanding the Embodied Self as a Social Product 3
Why Gender is a Good Vantage Point for Inquiry 9
Making Sense of Identity 10
How Do Social Scripts Shape Selves? 11
How Are Social Scripts for Bodies and Identities Changing? 13
Gender 13
Gender is a Social Endeavor 14
Gender as Socially Constructed but Meaningful in Our Lives 17
Accounting for Gender Variation in Society 19
The Impact of Challenging Gender Norms 22
A New World Order: Life in a Technological Age 25
Information Technology as Mediator between Physical and
Mental Life 27
Biomedical Technology as Mediator between Physical and
Mental Life 29
Investigating the Impact of New Technologies 31
Case Study: Focus on Tattooing and Masculinity 33
Chapter 1 A Social History of Technology and
Gender 43
Why Focus on Technology? 45
Making Sense of Technology 46
A Brief History of Technology 47
Challenging Technological Progressivism 49
Theorizing Technology 51
Technology as Social 53
Technology and the Individual 54
Theorizing Gender and Technology Together 56
How Technology Has Shaped Gender and Gender
Non-Conformity 59
Technologies of Sex and Gender Formation 60
Technologies of Gender Conformity 63
Technologies of Gender Non-Conformity 66
New Technologies, New Genders 72
A Sociological Approach to Analyzing Gender and Technology 75
How Does a Sociological Approach Illuminate Gender
Identity Change? 77
Case Study: Focus on Bloomers and
Nineteenth-Century Womanhood 82
Chapter 2 Information Technologies and Gendered
Identity Work 87
What Is Going on in the Virtual World, Second Life? 88
Making Sense of Second Life 90
The Internet as New Technology 90
Evaluating Information Technologies 91
What Is Identity Work, and Is it Happening Online? 93
Bridging Online and Offline Identities 96
Narrative Identity, Discourses-in-Practice and Discursive Practices 97
Storying Ourselves into Being 99
Re-storying Ourselves into New Ways of Being 101
Narrative Identity Online 104
Does Online Activity Really Shape Who We Are? 104
Gender Identity Change and the Internet 106
Online Identity Development 107
Narrative Identity and Computer-Mediated Communication 109
When Identity Work Produces New Gender Identities 110
Collective Identity Work Online: Negotiating Social Scripts 112
Rewriting and Reproducing Social Scripts 119
Reproducing Inequality Online 121
Navigating Gendered Identities and Bodies Online 124
Case Study: Focus on Transgender Organizing 128
Chapter 3 New Biomedical Technologies, New Scripts,
New Genders 137
New Body Technologies 139
Somatechnics: Technologies and the Body 140
What Is a Social Body? 142
Somatechnics and Social Norms 144
Technology and Body Work 148
Gendered Selves, Gendered Bodies 150
How Are Biomedical Technologies Shaping Gendered and
Raced Bodies? 150
Hegemonic Race and Gender Norms Are Reproduced
Through Body Work 154
How Does a Sociological Perspective Illuminate the Meaning of
Body Work? 159
The Complexities of Body Work 161
Case Study: Focus on the `Treatment' of Intersex and
Transgender Individuals 167
Review: Sociological Analyses of Gender and
Technology 175
The Impact of Contemporary Biomedical and Information
Technologies 176
Have We Become Cyborgs? 177
A Sociological Analysis of Technology and Gender 178
What a Sociological Approach Illuminates 179
New Areas of Inquiry 180
Making Sense of the Technologically Saturated World Around Us 182
Transgender Pregnancy and Thomas Beatie 182
Making Sense of Transgender Pregnancy 185
Gender Circuits: Where Do We Go From Here? 188
Endnotes 191
References 203
Index 221
