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Wearable technology and women in STM careers

Do we have to dress up engineering to make it appeal to women?

By IGI Global on Mar 4, 2014
Contributed by Ann Lupold, Promotions Coordinator

Wearable technology is shaping up to be one of the predominant trends of the year. According to The National, US-based consultancy Deloitte predicts sales of “wearables” will reach 10 million units this year, generating around $3 billion in the US alone.

Wearable technology is nothing new; electronic watches have been around since the 80s. But the recent lineup of emerging tech that is worn versus carried is mind-blowing. The Google Glass, smart watches, and activity trackers have all been introduced in the recent years and are rapidly developing and progressing. Another area of wearable technology is evolving in the fashion and textile field, literally weaving technology into our garments.

Do We Have To Dress Up Engineering To Make It Appealing To Women? Etextiles, or smart textiles, are wearable fabrics that are embedded with or enable digital components such as computers or electronics. Trendsetters such as UK-based fashion designer Amy Winters incorporates technology into her clothes using sensors and smart textiles that adapt in response to sounds, stretch, sunlight or water, changing color and pattern. Her sound-reactive thunderstorm dress, which lights up in response to music, was on display at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Smart textiles are making technology and engineering more aesthetic, artistic subjects. Many researchers and teachers are hoping that this might in encourage the low numbers of female students engaged in computer science and engineering fields. According to a recent PBS article "Why Engineering, Science Gender Gap Persists, "More than twice as many men than women attend graduate school for computer science fields, and more than four times as many men are enrolled in engineering."

The IGI Global journal article “Shaping Interactive Media with the Sewing Machine: Smart Textile as an Artistic Context to Engage Girls in Technology and Engineering Education,” featured in the International Journal of Art, Culture and Design Technologies, features a study on the use of smart textiles in the classroom, using the medium as a tool to appeal to girls in the classroom. Written by Daniela Reimann of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) Institute of Vocational and General Education, Germany, the abstract of the article states:

“The research project aims to bridge the gap between arts, design, sciences and technology by integrating artistic processes in technology and engineering education. It aims to contribute to the development of a transdisciplinary research approach to Smart Textile technologies and to generate transdisciplinary research methodologies to integrate the education through arts approach the curriculum. The research aims to improve the integrated arts-science-technology education to support girls’ interest and understanding of technology in order to contribute to the generation of a wider gender- and art-oriented curriculum and teaching culture in technology and engineering education.” We are witnessing the beginning of a trend that will change how our clothes and technologies are worn and utilized forever. To view the full text of the article “Shaping Interactive Media with the Sewing Machine,” click here.

This article is one of the thousands available on IGI Global's InfoSci®-OnDemand, which allows full-text searching through our entire collection of thousands of research articles, book chapters, and teaching cases. Refer to the previous link for additional information, or contact cust@igi-global.com. Some of IGI Global’s other publications featuring women in science and engineering include the following:


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