the gendered smart home: outsourcing domestic labour to automation devices

The gendered smart home: outsourcing

domestic labour to automation devices

Yolande Strengers

Larissa Nicholls

Centre for Urban Research

RMIT University, Melbourne

The smart home

• ‘A "smart home" can be defined as a

residence equipped with computing

and information technology which

anticipates and responds to the

needs of the occupants, working to

promote their comfort, convenience,

security and entertainment through

the management of technology within

the home and connections to the world

beyond.’ (Aldrich, 2003: 17)

• Growing, much-hyped market

• Smart home demand slower than

predicted (http://www.connectedhome.com.au/consumer-demand-

for-connected-home-products-slows-dramatically-in-first-

half-of-2015/)

RMIT University © 2015 Centre for Urban Research 2

Electric home: intended to free up women’s time

Westinghouse’s

‘Total Electric Home’

“Imagine this: Total

Electric Living... where

electricity does

absolutely

everything: heats, air

conditions, cooks,

preserves food, lights,

entertains,

encourages hobbies,

makes it the easiest

way ever for you and

your family to be

happier, healthier, to

live fuller lives”

Source: http://thriftshopromantic.blogspot.com.au/2008/06/futures-so-bright-inside-1950s-total.html


http://thriftshopromantic.blogspot.com.au/2008/06/futures-so-bright-inside-1950s-total.html

• Outsourcing domestic labour to appliances and

electricity has a long history (Forty 1986; Schwartz Cowan

1989)

• Home appliances (e.g. vacuum cleaners & irons)

previously marketed to women

• Raised cleanliness (and other) expectations (Schwartz Cowan 1989; Shove 2003)

Industrial home: more time (and work) for mother


The smart home: deceptively gender neutral

• Appearance of gender neutrality

• Absence of gender (and people)

‘Imagine one person being on holidays anywhere in the world and

being able to check on his/her home from the laptop. Or, if one forgets

to lower the thermostat before he/she leaves for work, imagine

him/her logging onto a secure site to change the setting to an energy-

saving level.’ (Maclean’s 2006)


Image source: http://www.householdappliancesworld.com/tag/smart-home/

Content analysis of the 21st Century smart home

• Analysed 221 magazine, newspaper and web articles published since 2000

• Searched for ‘smart home’, ‘home automation’ and derivatives/ related terms

• Qualitative inductive coding of article text (Schreier 2012)

• Frequency coding for 166 primary images using pre-defined parameters

drawn from content (Schreier 2012)


Who is writing about the smart home?

• More men write about the smart home than women


0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Male Female Unspecfied

Author gender

Author gender

Who is designing the smart home?

• As computers entered the home, women’s participation in computing science declined (http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding)

• Low numbers of women in engineering and system integration


http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding

Absence of domesticity (and people) in 21st Century

smart home visions

• Only 3 images showed any domestic

activity (e.g. dishwashing, cooking,

laundry)

– a cartoon of parents looking after

children

– a cartoon of a woman doing

various things around the home

– a robot doing the cooking

• 27/166 (around 1/6) images included

people

– Gender mix, mostly young,

caucasian individuals living in

smart home


Optimisation and efficiency of household tasks

• Earlier versions of smart home ignored housework

(Berg 1994)

• In 21st Century smart home domestic labour embodies

masculine ideals of efficiency and optimisation

With just a text to your laundry pair, users can find out how much

time is left on their load of laundry; or even with a text to the

refrigerator, they can find out what they need while out grocery

shopping.’ (Appliance Design, 2015)

• Uncomplicated delegation of tasks to technologies:

‘you can instruct a vacuum-cleaning robot to double-up as a security

guard for your house.’ (http://www.ibtimes.co.in/aiming-apple-like-ecosystem-samsung-says-

all-its-future-devices-will-feature-smartthings-613849)

• Homogenised, undifferentiated, tech-centric understanding of domestic

practices, ignores sensory experience (Pink 2005)

• Resource Man does the laundry? (Strengers 2013; 2014)


http://www.ibtimes.co.in/aiming-apple-like-ecosystem-samsung-says-all-its-future-devices-will-feature-smartthings-613849

The smart home serves you

• Smart home intended to replace or provide:

– ‘Rosie the maid’-type robot (Jetsons)

– ‘Nanny cameras’/ ‘digital nannies’

– Housecleaners/ housekeeper

– Butlers

– ‘Teddy the Guardian’ (to replace parenting/

nursing responsibilities in homes and

hospitals)

'If your house is able to think and feel, what can it

do for you? Well, it could be an affordable or

even a free housekeeper that can automatically

take care of your family and property to make

your life easy, comfort, organized and secure’ (http://www.asmag.com/showpost/17834.aspx)

Image source: http://hero.wikia.com/wiki/Rosie_The_Robot_Maid


Meet Lili (and Ivee, Siri & Alexa)

• Gendered (female) smart (home) applications/ platforms

• Video: http://www.fibaro.com/en/i-am-coming-home-LiLi


http://www.fibaro.com/en/i-am-coming-home-LiLi

‘PAT’ from Disney 1999 Smart House movie

• PAT (Personalised Applied Technology) smart home system is surrogate wife

and mother to single Dad Nick and his two children (https://gigaom.com/2015/01/03/smart-

house-predicted-the-smart-home-in-1999-so-where-is-it/)

• Video: https://youtu.be/4uSGOZ_VJc4


https://youtu.be/4uSGOZ_VJc4

A ‘servile spouse’

• ‘You like to talk; you want a home that will listen to - and obey - you. Ever

wish you could stumble through the front door after a long day and say, "Turn

on the TV and start dinner!" Unless you have a particularly servile spouse,

that tactic is unlikely to get you anything but silence - or nasty glares. The

Home Automated Living HAL2000 speech-recognition system can bring you

closer to that vision’ (PC Computer 2000).


Image source:

http://a1950swifesguide.blogspot.com

.au/p/blog-page.html

Serving Dad’s needs

• ‘So when dad arrives home, smart-home technology will turn on his

favourite music play list, boil the kettle, dim the lights to his preferred level,

turn the television on and switch to the news. It will then interact and ask dad

what he wants next - and hopefully even turn down the children's music’ (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/life/smart-homes-are-simplicity-itself/story-e6frg9zo-1226755178531)


Image source: http://www.kxly.com/home-and-family/fathers-day/5-must-have-man-cave-essentials-for-dad/9236076

Happy families

• ‘Something the whole family can enjoy – A family that plays together,

stays together. Although home automation is all of the above, most of all it’s a

lot of fun for the entire family. You will find home automation will bring the

family closer together as everyone learns about the technology’s

capabilities together.’ (http://compnetworking.about.com/od/homeautomationvalueproposition/a/top-reasons-to-automate-

your-home.htm)


Image source: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-were-the-earliest-video-games.htm

http://compnetworking.about.com/od/homeautomationvalueproposition/a/top-reasons-to-automate-your-home.htm

Good parenting

• ‘Your Hue can alert you and your children when it's time for bed, time to

leave for the school bus or when you need to grab the umbrella before

walking outside.’

• ‘Our daughter knows that she can't get out of bed in the morning until her

bedside lamp turns green.’

(http://resources.uknowkids.com/blog/keep-your-family-on-schedule-with-smart-lighting)


http://resources.uknowkids.com/blog/keep-your-family-on-schedule-with-smart-lighting

Smart homes: intended to free up men’s time

• Silent (and discrete) erasure of domestic

labour (traditional ‘women’s work’)

• Subtly marketed towards men:

‘LG today unveiled a smart home

system that will enable a fridge to text

you how many cold beers you have in

your fridge.’(http://www.news.com.au/technology/lg-homechat-allows-you-to-

text-your-fridge-and-receive-a-text-back/story-e6frfrnr-

1226796284606)

• Designed to create more leisure time for

men

• Family harmony and cohesion an important

side benefit

• Solution to the ‘wife drought’ (Crabb 2014)

– Domestic and parenting tasks assigned

to gendered smart technologies


http://www.news.com.au/technology/lg-homechat-allows-you-to-text-your-fridge-and-receive-a-text-back/story-e6frfrnr-1226796284606

Re-gendering the smart home vision

• Common solution proposed: enrol more women in tech-related disciplines

– Runs the risk of prioritising same tech-centric vision

• Enrol disciplines which account for the messiness, improvisation and

adaptation of everyday domestic activities (Dourish & Bell 2011)

– Sociology, anthropology, cultural studies etc.

• Value women’s (and men’s) skills in housework and caregiving as a design

resource (Berg 1994)

• Recognise and value meaning associated with performing roles such ‘mum’

and ‘dad’ (Davidoff et al. 2006)

• Draw inspiration where technology is supporting and changing traditional

gender relations and roles (e.g. Technology Dad and flexible work

arrangements) (http://www.boygirlmodernworld.com/2015/11/introducing-and-unpacking-technology-dad-

juggling-work-and-home-in-the-21st-century/)


Thank you

@yolandestreng @LarissaNicholls

[email protected]

[email protected]

This research was supported under the Australian Research

Council's Discovery Early Career Researchers Award funding scheme

(project number DE150100278).


mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

References

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Verlag London Ltd, London [UK]) pp 1-13.

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(Free Association Books, London).

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Annual Meeting (Denver, Colorado), 11-14 November.
