Women in Higher Education: A Vase-Breaking Theory by Female Technologists in Taiwan

Abstract

Gender equality is a key issue in Taiwan thanks to the policy of gender mainstreaming. This study aims to explore the gender-technology relation in Taiwan’s higher education by drawing upon female discourses on technology, gender, and success. Data were collected by individual interviews from 28 women in technology who were asked about their experiences of doing technology, doing gender and performing femininity or/and masculinity. Based on the cross-generation females’ accounts on their context of family, schools, and society, this chapter explores how female technologists constitute their gender roles and how they articulate the formation of gendered technology phenomenon. It concludes with a vase-breaking theory that elite female technologists can break gender boundaries through multiple means that include developing personal multiple interests and enacting characteristics of normative masculinity, getting support from family and school empowerment inspired by female role models and masculine climates in single-sex schools and social support from university.