Women and the Machine: Representations from the Spinning Wheel to the Electronic Age: Julie Wosk

The image of the flustered woman unable to change a tire or recognize a Phillips screwdriver is so common it's practically archetypal but then again, so is her counterpart, Rosie the Riveter. Wosk (a professor of English and art at the State University of New York, Maritime College) takes these images their place in history, literature, art and advertising and deconstructs them in this engaging and entertaining but nonpreachy feminist history. She posits that women and technology always seemed like strange bedfellows to men, and to many women, too. The world of machines, after all, historically belonged to men; women's involvement in technology signaled both an intrusion into male turf and an abandonment of the female landscape of hearth and home. Using illustrations, cartoons and photographs from the past three centuries, Wosk delineates shifts in social acceptance of women's relationship to technology. Typewriters, spinning wheels, sewing machines and household appliances are all given their due, as are bicycles, cars and airplanes. But there are intriguing asides, too, like the technology of women's corsets, bustles and hoops. How women were inveigled into factories during World War II and then lured back into the home all via the mechanics of machines and appliances is fascinating. Wosk also delves deep into the use of women to sell machines, from factory equipment to automobiles. With the sleek detail of a gift book, Wosk's history may look deceptively slight, but her work is complex, comprehensive and highly readable. Illus. and photos. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Art historian Wosk analyzes the overt and covert messages in depictions of women and machines in an array of fiction and, more impressively, in some 150 visual images. Historically, the spinning wheel gives way to the typewriter and pounding rivets with Rosie the Riveter to pounding computer keyboards. Wartime glorification of female capability usually showed women being instructed by men, reminding everyone that the necessity of women's labor was temporary, and subordinating laboring women to men. Examining a wide range of advertisements, fashion stories, cover illustrations, and photographs, Wosk contrasts images of women as fearful of machinery and scientific technology in general with others showing mastery and control, thereby illustrating gender stereotyping and the hesitant advances women have made in a supposedly male domain. Although primarily pitched to scholarly readers, Wosk's study will also inform nonacademic readers. Whitney Scott Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved