Athena in the World of Techne: The Gender Dimension of Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Authors

  • Marina Ranga Stanford University, Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research, Stanford CA 94305, US
  • Henry Etzkowitz Stanford University, Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research, Stanford CA 94305, US

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4067/S0718-27242010000100001

Keywords:

gender, women, innovation, technology, entrepreneurship.

Abstract

Long confined to the realm of feminist studies, issues pertaining to women’s access, participation, advancement and reward are rising to prominence in innovation, technology and entrepreneurship –areas traditionally characterised either by gender-blindness or male dominance. The implications of this shift are wide-ranging but the mechanisms by which it takes place are little known. We Discuss causes of the relatively small numbers of women scientists, researchers, innovators or entrepreneurs, the exceedingly slow pace of transition from inequality to equality and the usually lower hierarchical positions than men’s in academia or business, women’s hidden roles in technological change and an exemplary instance of women’s leading role in a major technological innovation with wide social impact, in the context of major changes arising in the transition from the Industrial to the Knowledge Society.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

Author Biographies

Marina Ranga, Stanford University, Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research, Stanford CA 94305, US

Marina Ranga is a Faculty Research Fellow at Stanford University’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research, US, Visiting Assistant Professor at Stony Brook University New York and Visiting Fellow at Sussex University, School of Business, Management and Economics, UK. Her research interests include national and regional innovation systems, policies and strategies, Triple Helix interactions and the evolution of the entrepreneurial university, as well as the gender dimension in innovation, technology transfer and entrepreneurship. She is a member of the Gender Advisory Board of the UN Commission for Science and Technology for Development and of the UN Economic Commission for Europe’s Expert Group on Innovation and Competitiveness Policies. She is the Chair of ‘The gender dimension of University-Industry- Government interactions: Past imperfect, present tense’ Plenary Session of the Triple Helix 8 International Conference (Madrid, October 2010). She co-authored 'The Coming Gender Revolution in Science' in the New Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, MIT Press, 2008 (with Etzkowitz et al) and is currently working on the book Gender Dynamics in Science and Technology: The Vanish Box Phenomenon, co-authored with Henry Etzkowitz.

Henry Etzkowitz, Stanford University, Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research, Stanford CA 94305, US

Henry Etzkowitz is a Faculty Research Fellow at Stanford University’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research, US and Visiting Professor at Edinburgh Business School, UK. He is a scholar of international reputation in innovation studies as the originator of the ‘Entrepreneurial University’ and ‘Triple Helix’ concepts that link university with industry and government at national and regional levels. He is also a leading scholar in gender in innovation studies, and co-author of an iconic book in the field Athena Unbound: The Advancement of Women in Science and Technology (Cambridge University Press, 2000). He also co-authored “The Coming Gender Revolution in Science” in The Handbook of Science and Technology Studies (MIT Press, 2008). He is currently working on a new book Gender Dynamics in Science and Technology: The Vanish Box Phenomenon (co-authored with Marina Ranga). Prior to coming to Stanford, Henry held the Chair in Management of Innovation, Creativity and Enterprise at Newcastle University Business School, UK and served as Visiting Professor in the Department of Technology and Society, Stony Brook University, US.

References

BAINBRIDGE, W. (1976). The Spaceflight Revolution. Wiley Interscience, New York.

BRAY, F. (1997). Technology and Gender: Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles.

CAIN MILLER, C. (2010). Out of the loop in Silicon Valley. New York Times, 18 April 2010.

CHESLER, E. (1992). Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America. Simon & Schuster, New York.

COCKBURN, C. (1983). Brothers: male dominance and technological change. Pluto Press, London.

COCKBURN, C., Ormrod, S. (1993). Gender and Technology in the Making. Sage Publications, London.

CONLIN, M. (2004). Margaret Sanger: Birth Control of a Nation. 13 September 2004 http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_37/b3899026_mz072.htm (Accessed 1 June 2010).

COWAN SCHWARZ, R. (1983). More work for Mother: The ironies of household technologies from the Open Hearth to the Microwave. Basic Books, New York.

CROWDEN, N. (2003). Examining Gender Bias in Studies of Innovation. MA Thesis. Simon Fraser University, Burnaby B.C.

EUROPEAN COMMISSION (2009). She Figures 2009. Statistics and Indicators on Gender Equality in Science. http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/document_library/pdf_06/she_figures_2009_en.pdf (Accessed 1 June 2010)

ETZKOWITZ, H., Blum, E. (1997). Entrepreneurial Science in Mexico as a Development Strategy". Sociology of Science Yearbook. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.

ETZKOWITZ, H., Kemelgor, C., Uzzi, B. (2000). Athena Unbound: The Advancement of Women in Science and Technology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

ETZKOWITZ, H., Kemelgor, C. (2001). Gender inequality in science: A universal condition? Minerva, 39(2), 239-257.

ETZKOWITZ, H., Ranga M. (2010). A Triple Helix System for Knowledge-based Regional Development: From "Spheres" to "Spaces". Theme paper for Triple Helix 8 International Conference, Madrid, October 2010, http://www.triplehelix8.org/downloads/Theme-Paper.pdf

ETZKOWITZ, H. (1971). The male nurse: Sexual separation of labour in society. Journal of Marriage and the Family, August 1971.

ETZKOWITZ, H (2007). The Athena Paradox: Bridging the Gender Gap in Science. Journal of Technology Management and Innovation, 2(1), 1-3.

FAULKNER, W. (2000). The Power and the Pleasure? A Research Agenda for "Making Gender Stick" to Engineers. Science, Technology and Human Values, 25(1), 87-119.

GLOBAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP MONITOR (GEM) (2006). Report on Women and Entrepreneurship. http://www.gemconsortium.org/document.aspx?id=580 (Accessed 1 June 2010).

GRINT, K., Gill, R. (1995). The gender-technology relation: contemporary theory and research. Taylor and Francis, London.

HARAWAY, D. (1991). A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century. In: Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. Routledge, New York.

KOHLER, R. (1994). Lords of the Fly. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

LINK, A.N., Siegel D.S., Bozeman, B. (2007). An empirical analysis of the propensity of academics to engage in informal university technology transfer. Industrial and Corporate Change, 16(4), 641-655.

MCGAW, J. (2003). Why feminine technologies matter? In: Lerman, N., R. Oldenziel, Mohun A. (eds) Gender and Technology: A Reader. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.

MILLS, E. (2009). Women have got greedy with maternity leave. The Sunday Times, October 18.

NSF (2009). Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/ wmpd/figh-4.htm (Accessed 1 June 2010).

RANGA, M., Etzkowitz, H., et al. (2008). Gender Patterns in Technology Transfer: Social innovation in the making? Research Global, 4-5.

ROSSER, S.V. (2006). Women, Men and Engineering. In: Frank Fox, M., Johnson, D.G., Rosser, S.V. (eds) Women, Gender and Technology. University of Illinois Press.

ROSSI, A. (1965). ´Women in Science: Why So Few?´ Science, 148, 1196-1203.

ROTHSCHILD, J. (1983). Machina Ex Dea: Feminist Perspectives on Technology. Pergamon, New York.

SMITH DOERR, L. (2004). Women´s Work: Gender Equality vs. Hierarchy in the Life Sciences. Lynne Rienner, Boulder CO.

SONNERT, G., Holton, G. (2006). Who Succeeds in Science? The Gender Dimension. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick.

THURSBY, J.G., Thursby M.C. (2005). Gender Patterns of Research and Licensing Activity of Science and Engineering Faculty. Journal of Technology Transfer, 30(4), 343-353.

TEMM, T. (2008). If you meet the expectations of women, you exceed the expectations of men: How Volvo designed a car for women customers and made world headlines. In: Schiebinger, L. (ed.) Gendered Innovations in Science and Engineering. Stanford University Press, Stanford.

UNITED NATIONS ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR EUROPE (2004). Access to financing and ICT for women entrepreneurs in the UNECE region. Challenges and good practices. Geneva and New York.

VALIAN, V.(1999). Why so Slow? The Advancement of Women. MIT Press, Cambridge.

XIE, Y., Shauman, K.A. (2003). Women in Science: Career Processes and Outcomes. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

Downloads

Published

2010-06-06

How to Cite

Ranga, M., & Etzkowitz, H. (2010). Athena in the World of Techne: The Gender Dimension of Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Journal of Technology Management & Innovation, 5(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.4067/S0718-27242010000100001

Issue

Vol. 5 No. 1 (2010)

Section

Introduction

License

Copyright (c) 2010 Journal of Technology Management & Innovation

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

 

Crossref
Scopus
Google Scholar
Europe PMC