Women and Maker Cultures. The Relevance of Technological Appropriation from History to Current Phenomena

In recent years, consumers and designers’ interest in crafting related to the DIY and maker culture paradigm has grown in Europe, the USA, and, lastly, Asia as well. Crafters and makers’ exhibitions, fairs, shows, magazines, forums, blogs, image banks, tutorials, and web platforms are echoing the Arts and Crafts movements of the past. One common aspect of the crafting movement is the growing communities of women sharing their creations and activities the centrality of digital technologies and ICTs: women and ICTs are harbingers of significant empowerment of our society (Cummings & O’Neil, 2015), as this combination is promising in terms of gender equality, social innovation, and sustainability. Women’s maker culture can represent a form of opposition to deterministic trends, by rebalancing the way technology is used and by giving voice to a larger part of the society. In this thematic context, we firstly provide a diachronic analysis of the female role in creative practices and technologies appropriation along with the history of design from the 18th century up to the current time. Secondly, we offer a synchronic analysis of the current creativity and design conditions by introducing the reasons and the various characteristics of the craftswomen (who may also be called crafters or craft makers) phenomenology. Based on the current literature on the topic (paragraph 3), the critical stances are supported by a number of selected examples drawn from different countries, communities, and practices, in order to deepen the understanding of the phenomenon.