Mutable technology, immutable gender: Qualifying the 'co-construction of gender and technology' approach

In highly technical societies, gender is largely produced in relation to technology. In this article, we explore the effects on the construction of gender and technology when groups of parents discuss technological activities. To do so, we report the results of a research project conducted in Barcelona, in which fathers and mothers, after playing video games with their sons and daughters, expressed their opinions about that activity, the relations their sons and daughters have with video games, and their own relationship with technology. The results support the idea that gender and technology are discursively and practically in permanent co-construction and have a relatively firm relationship that guarantees stability to both. However, we find that when people are confronted with facts that contradict the dominant perception that women are technologically unskilled or uninterested, it is only technology and not gender that is flexibly interpreted.