A critical analysis of the study of gender and technology in government

Abstract

Research at the intersection of feminist organizational theory and techno-science scholarship notes the importance of gender in technology design, adoption, implementation, and use within organizations and how technology in the workplace shapes and is shaped by gender. While governments are committed to advancing gender equity in the workplace, feminist theory is rarely applied to the analysis of the use, adoption, and implementation of technology in government settings from the perspective of public managers and employees. In this paper, we argue that e-government research and practice can benefit from drawing from three streams of feminist research: 1) studying gender as a social construct, 2) researching gender bias in data, technology use, and design, and 3) assessing gendered representation in technology management. Drawing from feminist research, we offer six propositions and several research questions for advancing research on e-government and gender in public sector workplaces.