A significant stream within feminist theory upheld the woman-nature connection and valorized what they viewed as women's intrinsically closer relation to nature (see, for example, Stabile's treatment of this, as well as Grint and Gill). As other theorists have noted, the main problems with this approach lie in its essentialism, both about "women" and about nature, science and technology. Furthermore, an evaluative reversal does little to fundamentally challenge binary structures. Another approach, based in psychoanalysis, particularly object-relations theory, posited different cognitive relationships to science based on gender. A third approach looks to the gendered division of labour to explain women's exclusion from technoscientific practice. One promising theme is that of standpoint theory, although it too can be essentialist in many of its theoretical assumptions, particularly around conceptions of nature and scientific practice (see Harding and Vehviläinen on this subject). Some postmodern workings with standpoint theory have shown promise.

However, as Wajcman argues (as does Landström), that many of these feminist theories are located in the philosophical/epistemological realm, and do not focus entirely on actual practices. "We need to be cautious", notes Wajcman, "in presuming that the adoption of a 'feminist' scientific method would lead to differences in scientific practice without a thoroughgoing change in the relations of power within science."(p.12) Furthermore, in theorizing technology, we need to adopt a context-based approach which does not conflate science and technology, since while the two are related, they also have significant differences, particularly at the level of practice.

Wajcman defines technology in three ways (see also Sundin's treatment of these definitions): as a form of knowledge, as a form of practice, and as a collection of objects. A feminist approach to technology would recognize these three levels of operation, and note that women's creation and use of technology has often gone unnoticed because it has been coded as "feminine".

Although Wajcman nods to the "writing women (and their values, whatever those are) back into technology" approach, she is most interested in the socioeconomic approach, which links relations of gender and technology to relations of production (and reproduction). In this model, technology developed both according to class and gender (and, as Harding would argue, according to race/ethnicity and relations of colonialism). For treatments of this subject, see Franklin as well as Berner and Mellstrom's work on engineering schools. Noting that technology development is a process which builds on previous work, Wajcman writes: "The nature of women's inventions, like that of men's, is a function of time, place, and resources."(p.22)

Taking up Berner and Mellstrom's point on technology as elite masculine culture, Wajcman argues that "women's exclusion from, and rejection of, technology is made more explicable by an analysis of technology as a culture that expresses and consolidates relations among men."(p.22) Technology is inscribed with political and social relations from conception to realization to use, and "technological change is a process subject to struggles for control by different groups. As a result, the outcomes depend primarily on the distribution of power and resources within society."(p.23) Thus, Wajcman argues for a grounded, contextual approach that takes account of structural relations of power, without losing sight of actual technological practice (which, as evidenced by, for example, Frissen's work on the telephone, can have different manifestations from design to practice).

In this chapter, Wajcman examines the implications of technology for the gendered division of labour, both past and present (see also Webster and Vehvilainen in Berner). Setting aside predictions of technology as either a liberating or repressive force in the workplace, Wajcman instead argues that "[a]lthough new technologies do represent a force for change… the outcomes are constrained by the pre-existing organization of work, of which gender is an integral part."(p.28)

Wajcman first turns to the implications of office technnology, which is a particularly salient subject for women who tend to be segregated in the "pink collar ghetto" of clerical work. She notes that with the advent of technology in the office workplace, "opposing tendencies of increased complexity and of greater simplification and standardization have coexisted… it has become clear that the overall tendency is for technology-led changes to operate within and reinforce pre-existing differences in the patterns of work."(p.31) Theoretically, argues Wajcman, it is problematic to make "inappropriate comparisions… between experiences at different stages in the evolution of technologies."(p.31) Thus as researchers, although we can identify some general tendencies, we cannot generalize cross-contextually or cross-historically about the causes and effects of technology in the workplace. Furthermore, these relations of workplace technology cannot be understood in simplistic terms of relations of production. As Webster also notes, employers and employees have a variety of needs and desires around technology, which are not consistent across the board.

In this chapter, Wajcman examines feminist work on reproductive technology (NRT). Despite a few early champions of reproductive technology, most feminists have been wary of NRTs effects and uses, "concerned either to oppose the experimentation on women's bodies that the development of these techniques entails or to harness these techniques in the interests of fulfiling women's maternal desires."(p.56) Although earlier reproductive technologies, such as birth control and abortion, expanded the traditional norms of femininity, "by contrast these new technologies are about fulfilling, rather than rejecting, the traditional feminine role."(p.57) See Stabile and Balsamo's treatment of this subject.

One significant concern is the degree to which NRTs replicate traditional ideologies of motherhood and femininity, and the degree to which these ideologies are class and race based. Some feminists (see Raymond and Hynes in both the anthology and in Berner) find NRTs inherently patriarchal, and associate NRTs with the desire for male control over female reproduction. NRTs here are a tool of domination and surveillance. Part of this perspective is a historical view which argues that as medical science developed, it resulted in a loss of women's power over childbirth and reproduction.

However, changes in the household labour force resulting from household industrialization signified a change in ideologies of housewifery. Domestic labour became correlated to romantic love and maternal affection, so that with the advent of household technology, women were not freed from their gendered roles. Furthermore, women were not inventors and designers of household technology, but merely unskilled users whose gender identities were not altered by use of machines (see also Chabaud-Rychter's article and the Horowitz and Mohun anthology). Thus, relations of gender and technology intersected in this case to further entrench notions of appropriate femininity, and to present the idea that household technologies required less technical skill to use and operate.

In tracing the development of the home from the Victorian period to the present day, Wajcman identifies how efficiency rather than aesthetic appeal became the organizing architectural value in the twentieth century. During the early part of the twentieth century, domestic labour underwent study and schematization according to the principles of scientific management (Chabaud-Rychter's article provides a faintly amusing mathematical scheme for developing a blender that would prevent lumps in crêpe batter). Development of living spaces also schematized in a normative fashion the form and function of the family.

In this chapter, Wajcman explores the "ideological and cultural processes that serve to make 'natural', and thereby help to generate, [the] close connection between men and machines."(p.137) Technology as both ideology and practice is, according to Wajcman, intrinsically connected to masculinity, and moreover certain kinds of masculinity (see also Massey, Berner and Mellström, and Håpnes and Sørensen).

An attentive account of masculinity and technology is careful not to homogenize masculinity. For example, Wajcman points out that hegemonic forms of masculinity are different from marginalized forms, and that these forms are dependent on a number of variables, such as class, race/ethnicity, and so forth. However, Wajcman proposes that there is a dominant form of masculinity which is then splintered into variants, and all of these are highly flexible and context-specific (not to mention contradictory). In the context of technology, is technical expertise reflective of real power for men or their lack of it? Is the ascribed desire for technical mastery indicative of real or compensatory mastery? Command of certain kinds of technology in our culture has been mythologized and highly valued (see Melanie Stewart Millar's treatment of the subject), whereas command of other kinds of technology, such as cars or industrial machines, does not signify the same level of dominance or agency. Furthermore, it is often held that militarism reflects masculinity in an unproblematic way, despite the fundamental role of women in the operation of military technology (such as Balsamo's and Plant's description of computers, and Stabile's discussion of women in the military).

Observing replication of masculinities in the discipline of computer science, Wajcman notes that educational practices (explicit and implicit) help to shore up and reproduce ideologies which code certain technologies as masculine. Wajcman also touches on video games as socialization tools (see Cassell and Jenkins here), as well as ascribed differing techniques of mastery (she uses Turkle here).