Man-machine-interface, no woman

Abstract

The main thesis is that scientific paradigmes must be understood gender specific, that is within the frames of a masculine univers of understanding, and that a computerization of science may lead to a further polarization in the masculine respectively feminine univers of understanding, hence to a furtherrepression of female cognitive styles from the sciences. Masculine and feminine are to be understood as opposite poles within the individual, man or woman, but the gender specific division of labour gives the concepts some contens of reality.
Through a theoretical analysis of mens respectively womens forms of production and reproduction, hence the character of their relation to the object world, the polarization is pointed out in 1) the concrete activity 2) the intuitive thinking and 3) the verbal cognition. It is argued that both the masculine and the feminine univers of understanding may be dequalified by this polarization. The masculine, through the instrumentalization, and the feminine through further demarcation from the societal system of meanings: The tendency to render them mute is reinforced, and the repression is intensified in the conscious verbal cognition, where dialectic communication and empathy may be expressed only
with difficulty. As an externalization of instrumentel cognition, the computer science may reinforce the demarcation of the feminine styles of cognition, and cause a backlash for the critisism of the scientific paradigms which has been voiced especially by feminist scientists.