Shaping Women's Work

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Juliet Webster: Shaping Women s Work: Gender, Employment and Information Technology General Editor: Robert Burgess, Professor of Sociology, University of WarwickEditorial Advisors: Joe Bailey, Kingston University, Angela Glasner, Oxford Brookes University, Claire Wallace, Central European University, Prague. The Longman Sociology Series provides a range of comparative undegraduate texts for the 1990s and beyond. Forward-looking and innovative in its treatment of both traditional and new subjects, the series brings together conceptual and empirical material in a way which is not only useful for students, but which makes established teachers think again about how they have approached the subject in the past. Shaping Women s Work is an important new book which provides a broad overview of the debates about technologies and gender relations at work in a range of occupational areas. It gives comprehensive yet accessible coverage of the complex array of issues relating to gender and technology in the workplace and, uniquely, brings together in one source the varied conceptual and empirical material. It adopts an innovative approach by considering gender relations both in terms of the ways in which they influence the design and development of technologies, and in terms of the ways in which relations themselves are in turn shaped by technologies. Drawing heavily on the social shaping of technologies theoretical perspective, the text explores the ways in which sexual divisions of labour and gender relations in the workplace profoundly affect the direction and pace of technological change and traces the development of certain technologies, showing how, throughout their evolution, they embody these social relations. It also examines the efficacy of feminist systems and work design initiatives which attempt to involve women in the construction of the computer systems they use, and which aim to foster recognition of the skills and expertise they commonly use in the course of their work. Shaping Women s Work is essential reading for undergraduate students taking courses in industrial sociology, technological change, work and employment, women s studies and social policy. It will also prove an invaluable resource to lecturers and to those directly involved in formulating and implementing policy initiatives around technology and women s work. Juliet Webster s book is a remarkable achievement in the field of women s paid work and information technologies. ... It is both an empirically enriching, and politically inspiring book. Swatsi Mitter, Deputy Director of United Nations University Institute for New Technologies, Maastricht, The Netherlands. Juliet Webster is currently on secondment to DG5 (Employment, Industrial Relations and Social Affairs) of the European Commission, from the Department of Innovation Studies at the University of East London.