My previous connection to AG Queer STS
Brigitte Ratzer is a chemical engineer by training and has headed the Gender Equality Office at TU Wien for over 20 years. Her current field of interest is the inclusive design of technologies. And she states: “Personally, I really admire Lily Munster, if only because her housework consists of emptying dust bags and hanging up cobwebs.”
Look back with Joy
How I became involved with AG Queer STS/Queer-Feminist STS Forum…
When I attended one of the annual STS conferences in Graz, I came into contact with this wonderful initiative for the first time. As I recall, at that time it was still a matter of finding our way towards what it could actually be and what perspectives it would involve. To be honest, I can’t say when this was exactly, and what kind of contribution I brought to discussion.
At that time, I was however very interested in diverse masculinities, concepts related to them and different perspectives on them. I think Tanja Paulitz for the German-speaking world, Ulf Mellström and Raewyn Connell and Judy Wacjman inspired me greatly in my exploration of this topic.
All of this research was inspired by the fact that, in my work as an equality officer at TU Wien, I mainly deal with men. And that these men are not just ‘men’ but have very different views, needs and e.g. approaches to gender issues. It is worthwhile to engage in this activity simply to identify allies – and also to communicate on an equal footing. When I raise feminist issues, I want to do so with rhetoric that also says, ‘I see you, I see your struggles, your problems, your marginalisation.’ This creates a completely different basis for conversation and sometimes even a sense of complicity.
What happened since my contribution…
Woww, quite a lot! Basically, I didn’t know much about gender diversity and queerness back then. That is, I had many gay friends (including in the STEM field), but I hadn’t yet explored theoretical perspectives. I think the entire feminist community had to learn a lot about new theoretical perspectives on gender, queerness and their interrelationships during that time. When we made the explanatory videos for the EU project GEECCO1, for example, the perspective was already quite different and suddenly so many research gaps and missing data became apparent.
Today, when I talk about the shortcomings of technologies, I would usually address this from the perspective of women and then add that we simply have no or too little data on other genders to make valid statements about what specific needs exist in relation to this technology.
In essence, my understanding of what inclusive technologies are and how we can approach them has changed significantly.
Thinking about the future from a queer-feminist perspective, I…
Well, there is still a lot to do, and in truth we haven’t come very far with the goal of making technologies more inclusive. Or making the training of technicians more inclusive. Or designing research projects in such a way that we can generate missing data. Rather, I see an ever-accelerating pace of technological production that continues to completely ignore gender, queerness – and other perspectives as well. I see that we are still chasing after existing products and trying to repair at least the worst inequalities and discrimination. The booming field of AI is a clear example of this, as it involves technologies with a very large impact.
As the example of the Gendered Innovations homepage2 shows, the research community has learned a lot about how we need to think about gender perspectives and queerness in order to be more inclusive. But I cannot really assess how much change this has brought about outside the immediate research community. And I am not even talking about the backlash that is currently coming from the USA.
My personal wishes to the AG Queer STS / for the Queer-Feminist STS Forum…
Be excellent to each other – and party on dudes!!!3