The Need for Diffraction in STEM-Fields: An Ethical Feminist Consideration of the Concept of Gender Scripting

Gender scripting describes the process and all the associated factors of the development, manufacturing and marketing that ensure that technologies are given a targeted gender-specific imprint including all positive and negative consequences. Gender scripting leads, even if not always intended, to exclusions in user behaviour, so that certain groups of one gender, but also of other intersectional spheres, are not taken into account. The problem is very complex and particularly concerns the norms, rights and technical infrastructure in the areas of development, production and marketing, which disadvantage or exclude certain users who do not conform to prevailing patriarchal or societal norms of the use of technology by different genders. To prevent such misuses of societal ideas, norms and values Karen Barad introduced the concept of diffraction. Diffraction, originally a phenomenon from the field of physics, can point the way towards recognising and thus replacing the outdated and patriarchal structures in science and research and can contribute a model of inclusion of feminist imaginations and intersectional practice in research, development, manufacturing, and commercialisation. Diffraction is one way of implementing feminist techno imaginaries in STEM-fields and engineering. This article looks at these aspects and shows how diffraction can become reality.