In cultural contexts where menstruation is a stigmatized health topic, daily management of menstrual hygiene comes with its set of challenges. Our research aims to identify and examine such challenges faced during menstruation in the urban environs of Delhi, India. Through participatory design activities and interviews conducted with 35 participants who identified as menstruating and female, and a survey with 139 responses, we investigate how participants deal with their periods on the go. We also examine participants' conceptualizations of safe spaces, where they are able to deal with their period on their own terms. Finally, we discuss how menstrual mobilities are being, and might be, supported through technology-based interventions for a third space, targeting the legibility, literacy, and legitimacy of surrounding environments.
The number of women in IT is still low and companies struggle to integrate female professionals. The aim of our research is to provide methodological support for understanding and sharing experiences of gendered practices in the IT industry and encouraging sustained reflection about these matters over time. We established a Living Lab with that end in view, aiming to enhance female participation in the IT workforce and committing ourselves to a participatory approach to the sharing of women's experiences. Here, using the case of a German video game company which participated in our Lab, we detail our lessons learned. We show that this kind of long-term participation involves challenges over the lifetime of the project but can lead to substantial benefits for organizations. Our findings demonstrate that Living Labs are suitable for giving voice to marginalized groups, addressing their concerns and evoking change possibilities. Nevertheless, uncertainties about long-term sustainability remain.
We examine the opportunities and challenges in designing for maternal health in low-income, low-resource communities in patriarchal and religious contexts. Pakistan faces a crisis in maternal health with a maternal mortality ratio of 178 deaths per 100,000 live births, as compared to the developed-country average of just 12 deaths per 100,000. Through a 6-month long qualitative, empirical study we examine the prevalent beliefs and practices around maternal health in Pakistan, the access women have to health-care, the existing religious practices that influence them and the agency they exert in their own health-care decision making. We reveal the rampant misinformation among mothers and health workers, house-hold power dynamics that impact maternal health and the deep link between maternal health and religious beliefs. We also show how current maternal health care interventions fit poorly into this context and discuss alternate design recommendations for meeting the maternal health needs of these women.
Modding, the act of custom creation in videogames, is a large enterprise comprising millions of people. Despite the large number of individuals creating mods, our understanding of who modders are and their motivation for modding is limited. This is especially true for minority groups, including women. In prior research with modding communities, women modders were consistently underrepresented. Using a mixed-method survey (N = 68) that incorporates the Serious Leisure Framework, this study begins to unravel women's participation in modding activities. We begin to identify who women modders are, examine what motivates them to mod, and investigate their modding practices. Results show that women modders value the creation of multiple mod types, including cosmetic, environmental and gameplay modification. They are primarily motivated by self-gratification and enjoyment. These findings create new insights into how women interact with gaming environments, as well as identifying those aspects of the experience that motivate women's engagement in modding.
This paper explores the disruptive and transformative effects of digital technology on gendered security asymmetries in Greenland. Through ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Greenland and Denmark, research findings emerged through in-depth interviews, collaborative mappings and field observations with 51 participants. Employing a critical feminist lens, the paper identifies how Greenlandic women develop digital security practices to respond to Greenland's ecologically, politically and socially induced transformation processes. By connecting individual security concerns of Greenlandic women with the broader regional context, the findings highlight how digital technology has created transitory spaces in which collective security is cultivated, shaped and challenged. The contribution to HCI scholarship is therefore threefold: (1) identification and acknowledgement of gendered effects of increased usage of digital technology in remote and hard-to-reach communities, (2) a broader conceptualisation of digital security and (3) a recommendation for more contextualised, pluralistic digitalisation policies and design.