Exploring Nuanced Gender Perspectives within the HCI Community

With the increasing spread and pervasiveness of technologies, the role of gender in the design of these technologies is a topic of growing importance. Several conference panels and journal issues have focused on the contributions feminism, gender theory, and queer theory can make to HCI. This paper discusses the key developments in the sub-field of Gender HCI over the past five years. We discuss, in particular, how recent approaches to gender in HCI move past questions of how men and women interact differently with technologies. Scholars are focusing on activist, intersectional, and reflexive approaches to gender and identity in design that focus on inclusion and accountability in terms of who technologies are designed for and in what ways. This scholarship draws on a wide variety of theoretical approaches to gender not integrated or well-known in the general literature or education in HCI or computing. We recommend the implementation of a Gender 101 general education module for all computing students to provide fluency in gender theory as a way to promote discussion, inclusivity, and accountability in interaction design and computing practices and organizations.