Conceptual and Practical Transformation of Gender through Mediation of Technology

“Gender” has a transformative nature in both its conceptual and practical aspects. As a result of changes in the material conditions of human life and social contracts, gender issues vary over time and across cultures and societies. In recent centuries, “technology” has been one of the major sources of change in human life, that mutually has affected gender issues and is affected by them. Exploring the mutual relation between technology and gender is a field of research that places in the overlap area of Technology Studies and Gender Studies. This paper focuses on the technology’s impact on the transformation of gender in both its conceptual and practical aspects. To this end, Verbeek’s post-phenomenological theory of “Mediation of Technology” from Philosophy of Technology, and Stoljar’s “Cluster Paradigms of Womanhood” from Metaphysics of Gender are appealed. It is suggested that using these theories provides a comprehensive and subtle theoretical framework for analyzing and exploring varieties of technology’s mediation in gender transformation.