SmartUp Fact Sheet: Why Binary Gender Frameworks Undermine Inclusive Smart Home Design?

This fact sheet explores how binary gender frameworks limit inclusivity in smart home design. While often presented as neutral, smart technologies reproduce social hierarchies when gender is reduced to fixed categories. Such framings misrepresent diverse identities, reinforce domestic divisions of labor, and obscure risks of exclusion or abuse. The document highlights how normative assumptions shape both design and research, and it calls for approaches that recognize gender as relational, intersectional, and context-dependent. Recommendations emphasize participatory methods, co-design with diverse communities, and critical reflection on embedded biases, aiming to foster more inclusive and equitable smart home technologies.