Teaching Artificial Intelligence from a Feminist Lens
Abstract
This paper is based on my research for the upcoming Fall 2026 course WGSS 150: Our Data, Ourselves - A.I., Algorithms, and Cyborgs. This paper presents a feminist sociotechnical approach to artificial intelligence (A.I), machine learning, and algorithms. A sociotechnical approach holds that humans and machines are entangled and inseparable. This approaches' practitioners believe that to fully understand technological systems requires us to study the complicated ways technical, social, and institutional constraints shape our worlds. I hold that we should use the tools of feminist political economy to analyze A.I. and its impacts. The field of political economy seeks to understand how systemic decisions about resource extraction and renumeration impact our daily economic practices at home, at the workplace, and in the public. In lieu of conversations over A.I. as a classroom nuisance or as a research tool, I argue that we should approach A.I. as a rich social object that we can analyze as an industry, site of labor, policymaking, and political contestation. In doing so, we can begin to see A.I. and the broader technological sector as a site of struggle shaped by systems of racism, classism, resource extraction, sexism, and homophobia. This approach opens the space for students to understand A.I. as problem that we can intervene in rather than absorbing passively.
College
College of Liberal Arts
Department
Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies
Location
Kryzsko, Solarium, Winona State University, Winona, Minnesota; United States
Start Date
4-23-2026 9:00 AM
End Date
4-23-2026 12:00 PM
Presentation Type
Event
Teaching Artificial Intelligence from a Feminist Lens
Kryzsko, Solarium, Winona State University, Winona, Minnesota; United States
This paper is based on my research for the upcoming Fall 2026 course WGSS 150: Our Data, Ourselves - A.I., Algorithms, and Cyborgs. This paper presents a feminist sociotechnical approach to artificial intelligence (A.I), machine learning, and algorithms. A sociotechnical approach holds that humans and machines are entangled and inseparable. This approaches' practitioners believe that to fully understand technological systems requires us to study the complicated ways technical, social, and institutional constraints shape our worlds. I hold that we should use the tools of feminist political economy to analyze A.I. and its impacts. The field of political economy seeks to understand how systemic decisions about resource extraction and renumeration impact our daily economic practices at home, at the workplace, and in the public. In lieu of conversations over A.I. as a classroom nuisance or as a research tool, I argue that we should approach A.I. as a rich social object that we can analyze as an industry, site of labor, policymaking, and political contestation. In doing so, we can begin to see A.I. and the broader technological sector as a site of struggle shaped by systems of racism, classism, resource extraction, sexism, and homophobia. This approach opens the space for students to understand A.I. as problem that we can intervene in rather than absorbing passively.
