#29112
Sex Differences in Technical Communication: A Perspective from Social Role Theory 
This article interprets technical communication research about sex differences according to social role theory, which argues that sex differences are enculturated through experiences associated with social positions in the family and the workplace. It reevaluates technical communication research about sex differences in communicative and collaborative styles in the classroom and the workplace and about the effects of the double bind that women experience in the workplace. The article concludes with a recommendation that theoretical frameworks explaining sex differences remain flexible and able to account for social change.
Thompson, Isabelle. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2004). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing>Gender
#20003
The Struggle for Gender-Free Language: Is It Over Yet? 
All current style manuals address in one form or another the need for bias-free, inclusive language. Most writers and editors deal with this issue regularly — we've installed mental alarm systems that go off when we sense bias or something that can be construed as bias. In fact, some commentators say we've gone too far toward what social commentator Christopher Cerf calls, with grave facetiousness, 'content-free writing,' lest language offend anyone, anywhere. Does gender-free writing still present problems, and if so, how are most of us resolving them? After all these years of practice at being evenhanded, consider several litmus tests.
Rea, Jane. Editorial Eye, The (2003). Articles>Style Guides>Discrimination>Gender
#29999
Technical Writing and the Pronoun Problem
Take the time to avoid gender-specific language in your business and technical writing. Given the consequences of being misunderstood, it is well worth the extra effort. Remember, anything that distracts the reader, detracts from your message.
Herron, Scott. Article Alley (1997). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing>Gender
#24538
Toward a Feminist Rhetoric of Technology
This article extends current thinking about the rhetoric of technology by making a preliminary inquiry into what a feminist rhetoric of technology might look like. On the basis of feminist critiques of technology in various disciplines, the author suggests three ways in which feminist approaches to building a rhetoric of technology might differ from current nonfeminist approaches to this task. First, feminist scholars should adopt a more expansive definition of technology than that which informs current rhetoric of technology research. Second, feminist scholars should ask different research questions than those being asked by current rhetoric-of-technology researchers. Third, feminist scholars should move beyond the design and development phases of technology, which most of the current research on the rhetoric of technology emphasizes.
Koerber, Amy. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (1999). Articles>Rhetoric>Technology>Gender
#29099
Using New Technology to Assess the Academic Writing Styles of Male and Female Pairs and Individuals
Background: Previous research suggests that there are advantages to writing in groups or in pairs compared with writing individually, and that men write differently from women. However, as far as we know, no one has yet used new technology to assess published academic articles written in these different modes. Method: We assembled 80 papers from recent issues of the Journal of Educational Psychology as follows: 21 authored by individual men, 21 by individual women, 19 by pairs of men, and 19 by pairs of women. We then used two computer-based measures to assess various textual features of the Abstracts, the Introductions, and the Discussion sections of these 80 papers. Results: Several differences were found between these various parts of the journal articles (e.g., the Discussions were more readable than the Introductions and these in turn were more readable than the Abstracts). However, there were few differences between the writing of pairs or individuals, or between that of men and women. Conclusions: There was no real evidence to support the notion that writing in pairs would lead to better quality articles or that there would be differences between the readability of papers produced by men and women. Such differences may occur, however, before peer review.
Hartley, James, James W. Pennebaker and Claire Fox. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2003). Articles>Writing>Assessment>Gender
#13925
The first books and the first technical books published by English women during the 1475-1700 period can be useful in teaching students about the emergence of technical style or 'plain style.' If we examine the style of these women writers, long ignored by canonical studies, we can see that plain English existed before Bacon and received its impetus not from science, but from the utilitarian attitude that pervaded the 1475-1700 period. These women writers provide a microcosm for studying the rise of modern English prose and what we now call technical (or plain) style. They also provide an efficient way to expose students to early published works by women and their contribution to the history of technical writing. Examining style from such a perspective helps students see that technical communication was a prevalent kind of writing before Bacon and the Royal Society. Thus, technical communication--and the style of technical communication--studied from this unique historical perspective deepens students' awareness of the roots of technical communication as it contributed to the history of English discourse.
Tebeaux, Elizabeth. Technical Communication Quarterly (1998). Articles>History>TC>Gender
#20698
Spawned by recent conversations with friends, I’ve been thinking about people who are known for designing and working with web standards. Specifically those who have a strong interest in CSS or are already using style sheets to compliment or construct beautiful design. In these conversations, we’ve noted that this space seems heavily dominated by men. This concerns me.
Stop Design (2003). Articles>Web Design>Standards>Gender
#25355
Wise-Women is a world-wide, online community of web designers, developers and programmers.
Wise-Women (2005). Organizations>Web Design>Information Design>Gender
#29141
Women and Feminism in Technical Communication--An Update
The purposes of this study are to determine the current status of scholarship published in five major technical communication journals about women and feminism and to identify changes in focus that may have occurred over the last five years. We begin with a discussion of the frequency of publication for articles whose titles have keywords relating to women and feminism. After identifying 21 articles, we consider the thematic patterns in the narrowed corpus. We conclude that scholarly publication about women and feminism in technical communication has moved from a moderate or radical concern for inclusion to a postmodern concern for critique of visual, verbal, and mechanical "technologies," which previously were not considered political.
Thompson, Isabelle and Elizabeth Overman Smith. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2006). Articles>Research>Publishing>Gender
#24505
This qualitative content analysis identifies 40 articles about women and feminism published in five technical communication journals in a period of nine years, beginning with the publication of Mary Lay's award-winning "Interpersonal Conflict in Collaborative Writing" in 1989. Along with numeric trends about the frequency of articles about women and feminism in technical communication journals, this study also identifies major themes, all of which concern inclusion: through eliminating sexist language, providing equal opportunity in the workplace, valuing gender differences, recovering women's historical contributions to technical communication, and critiquing previously uncontested terms and concepts. The study concludes that although research about women and feminism has been accepted as part of the scholarly purview of technical communication, the ways in which this research has influenced workplace or classroom practice are unclear.
Thompson, Isabelle. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (1999). Articles>Publishing>Technical Writing>Gender
#29058
Women's Technologies, Women's Literacies: Sewing and Computing Across the Years
This article compares the historical and contemporary clothing industry with the current microelectronics industry. It argues that the development of paper patterns, along with the perfection of the sewing machine as a technology in the 1870s, democratized fashion for lower and middle class women just as the development of the World Wide Web and Web-making software has democratized publishing for authors before unable to gain access to an audience for their writing. Comparing the businesses of three groups of women using the World Wide Web, this article finally problematizes these historical and contemporary democratizing technologies the sewing machine and the computer by pointing out both obvious and more subtle socioeconomic realities which undercut some utopian promises of publishing in Cyberspace.
Rohan, Liz. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2001). Articles>Computing>History>Gender
#25488
Women's Technologies, Women's Literacies: Sewing and Computing Across the Years
This article compares the historical and contemporary clothing industry with the current microelectronics industry. It argues that the development of paper patterns, along with the perfection of the sewing machine as a technology in the 1870s, democratized fashion for lower and middle class women just as the development of the World Wide Web and Web-making software has democratized publishing for authors before unable to gain access to an audience for their writing. Comparing the businesses of three groups of women using the World Wide Web, this article finally problematizes these historical and contemporary democratizing technologies the sewing machine and the computer by pointing out both obvious and more subtle socioeconomic realities which undercut some utopian promises of publishing in Cyberspace.
Rohan, Liz. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2001). Articles>Knowledge Management>Collaboration>Gender
#32290
Generation Gaps in Attitudes Toward Sexist/Nonsexist Language
This study of attitudes toward sexist/nonsexist language reveals generation gaps in a sample of 18- to 87-year-olds (N = 370). On average, participants are undecided about the merits of inclusive language, but older participants are more supportive than 18- to 22-year-olds. Attitudes toward women are a significant predictor of attitudes toward sexist/nonsexist language in all age—gender groups. Education is a stronger predictor than age; perspective-taking ability and gender self-esteem are each significant predictors for one age—gender group.
Parks, Janet B. and Mary Ann Robertson. Journal of Language and Social Psychology (2008). Articles>Business Communication>Discrimination>Gender
#32359
An Empirical Investigation of Color Temperature and Gender Effects on Web Aesthetics
Limited research exists on the relevance of hedonic dimensions of human-computer interaction to usability, with only a small set of this research being empirical in nature. Furthermore, previous research has obtained mixed support for gender differences regarding perceptions of attractiveness and usability in Web site design. This empirical research addresses the above gap by studying the effects of color temperature and gender on perceptions of Web site aesthetics.
Coursaris, Constantinos K., Sarah J. Sweirenga and Ethan Watrall. Journal of Usability Studies (2008). Articles>Web Design>Aesthetics>Gender
#33580
Feminist Theory and the Redefinition of Technical Communication
To study the possible impact of feminist theory on technical communication, this article discusses six common characteristics of feminist theory: (a) celebration of difference, (b) impact on social change, (c) acknowledgment of scholars' backgrounds and values, (d) inclusion of women's experience, (e) study of gaps and silences in traditional scholarship, and (f) new female sources of knowledge. Three debates within feminist theory spring out of these common characteristics: whether to stress similarity or difference between the sexes, whether differences come from biological or social forces, and whether feminist scholars can avoid reinforcing binary opposition. The article then traces the impact of these characteristics of feminist theory and debates within feminist theory on the redefinition of technical communication in terms of the myth of scientific objectivity, the new interest in ethnographic studies of workplace communication, and the recent focus on collaborative writing.
Lay, Mary M. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (1991). Articles>TC>Cultural Theory>Gender
#34837
Much of the theory guiding career development research is grounded in studies of men's careers in professional positions. In addition to largely ignoring the career experiences of women, the career literature pays little attention to overcoming barriers to career advancement in organizations—a challenge many women and men both face over the course of their career development. Using survey data, analyses of in-depth interviews, and a focus group discussion with female executives in the high-tech industry, this study finds variations of three responses: exit, voice, and rationalizing to remain are used by women in response to career barriers. These responses form the foundation of a career barrier sensemaking and response framework presented in the study. Findings indicate that perceived organizational sanctioning of career barriers and the organization's commitment to the career advancement of other women also influence participants' responses to barriers and their strategies for sensemaking, respectively.
Hamel, Stephanie A. JBC (2009). Careers>Business Communication>Collaboration>Gender
#35720
Five Reasons Why Women Are Better Technical Writers Than Men? 
Maybe I’ve been very lucky but I believe women are far better as technical writers than men. Here are five areas where I think they have the edge of the guys.
Walsh, Ivan. I Heart Tech Docs (2009). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing>Gender
