1AC Evidence is a product of gendered innovation studies

(Sine and Sara, Com@Roskilde, What Does It Take? Feminist Readings of Innovation Studies In Debating Innovation: Perspectives and Paradoxes of an Idealized Concept ed. Rehn and Ortenblad)

Innovation studies tend to ignore gender issues, arguing that the practices and processes of innovation are gender-neutral or gender-blind. However, what such practices are, in fact, blind to is the existence of women in innovation. Thus, the traditional argument that gender is irrelevant to innovation offers male innovators a privileged position and positions women as “other” to innovation. Studies and practices that seek to ameliorate this situation, however, tend to reverse it—making women overly visible and essentializing the “female innovator.” Here, a particular position is carved out for women, which both means that women have to fit a certain stereotype to become recognizable as innovators and that the general field of innovation remains male by default. While the second trend reacts directly to the first, it both reproduces some of its problems and incurs limitations of its own. Noting this dilemma, we ask: what does it take to make the gendered practices of innovation visible without re-confirming essentialized gender dichotomies? In answering this question, we seek to contribute to a “third wave” of feminist readings of innovation studies that take issue with both the assumptions of gender-blindness and gender-visibility, arguing, instead, that gendered norms result from innovation practices. To do so, we use Gibson-Graham’s (2006a) theory of diverse economies to build an alter native vision of innovation; one that is both critical of current gendered norms and actively involved in designing better alternatives. We illustrate the methodological and practical purview of this framework through analyses of three illustrative cases. The first reproduces gender-blindness and, hence, reinforces current structural inequalities. The second focuses exclusively on innovation for and by women, thereby redressing issues of gender-blindness, but also reproducing gendered stereotypes through one-sided visibility. The third adopts a norm-critical perspective that is aligned with Gibson-Graham’s retooling of performative gender theories for practical purposes of social innovation. Critique of current social norms, we conclude, is an effective driver of innovation for gender equal ity, specifically, and may offer new impetus for innovation, generally.