SILENCE! How Smart Device Technologies En(Gender) Backlash Within the Home

Abstract

Smart home devices are entering the home at exponential rates, marking the nascence of a new epoch of domestic technologies and life within the home. This study focuses on the gendered implications of smart home devices (Alexa, Google Home, Siri, and Cortana) that arise due to the mix of intimate spaces and preconceived notions of women’s beings. It offers insight into the patterns of entanglement between artificial intelligence, domestic contexts, verbal abuse, and normative notions of gender as well as the indivisibility of technology and society. Through observation and semi-structured interviews amongst 19 respondents, it reveals how users are scripting malfunctions onto the gender of these devices, paying particular attention to the ways in which they are also reinforcing gender-stereotypic beliefs and behaviors.