Carve out a Niche for Sewing: The Experience on Sewing Machine for Modern Taiwanese Female

• Main Authors: Hsiao-Hua Chen, 陳曉華
• Other Authors: Ju-Joan Wong
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/zkj5rz

碩士 === 國立雲林科技大學 === 工業設計系 === 102 === In early 19th century, the sewing machine was innovated and introduced by manufacturers to household, which even precedes washing machine and television. Sewing is not only established firmly as domestic labor but often regarded as an significant part of women’s life history. Therefore, sewing machines embody particular cultural meanings into women’s role in society. In retrospect, we can see the sewing machine has a great historical significance for Taiwan’s economic development and women’s life experience. Through the interviews with female users in different periods, the research discovers that the sewing techniques they grasped, the technology they selected and adopted, and maintenance skills they possessed all renegotiated relationship between genders in traditional tech products. This phenomenon not only fully shows women’s agency and the possibility of self-empowerment but also reverses the notion that humans are enslaved by objects. The research approach of this technology in use echoes modern technology historian, David Edgerton’s saying. When approaches of design realized the significance of female users, they can rebuild the connection with the society, and further bring those issues of marginalization to the surface through the discussion with different theories. Although the development of sewing technology changed the original form of skill, it wouldn’t take place of the skill which has internalized users’ body. From the point of women’s practice of the sewing machine, it is the key that transcends the long-existed gender myth in the technology field, redefines the real value of sewing labor, and realizes the possibility of self-empowerment.