Why do virtual assistants like Siri, Alexa and Cortana often have a female-sounding name and voice? Why was it that in the 1940s computer calculating power was expressed in ‘girl hours’? And should we worry about the development of sex robots and ‘AI girlfriends’?
Women as Technology explores the intersection of femininity and technology using pole-dancing robots, quasi-erotic anatomical models and kitchens designed specifically for women. Meet ELIZA, the first therapeutic chatbot from the 1960s, or Nancy, the embroidering lady robot from 1925, who gracefully flutters her eyelashes and demurely crosses her ankles.
The exhibition presents over 200 objects that show how technology is rarely neutral and always reflects prevailing social views, especially when it comes to women. Women as Technology is an exhibition for tech fanatics, feminists, lovers of design and anyone who has ever wondered why we pretend technology is basically a male thing.
Calculators, homemakers, incubators and pleasure machines
Women as technology presents four potential roles for women that are as significant as they are problematic: women as homemakers, women as calculators, women as incubators and women as pleasure machines. The exhibition highlights the ambivalent relationship between women and technology and how these roles have in part been shaped by it. Technology itself is far from neutral in this regard: its development invariably reflects prevailing social attitudes. At the same time, you will discover the important contributions that women have made to the development of technology in the home, in computing, in the medical discipline of fertility and in the sex industry. We present current societal issues and structures, venture back in time and speculate about the future.
Exhibition ‘Women as Technology‘
Design Museum Den Bosch
7 June – 26 October, 2025
designmuseum.nl
Photography: Elise van den Arend, Evita Copier
