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This paper introduces a systematic feminist approach to conceptualizing and building computational artefacts. The main objective is to provide methods for technological design that avoid a perpetuation of the existing structuralsymbolic gender order. This, however, presupposes a thorough theorizing and analysis of gendering processes. Based on a review of existing research on 'gender in information technology' I will describe four mechanisms that often lead to gendered computational artefacts: 1.) the 'I-methodology' that assumes technology as neutral, 2.) implicit gendered assumptions and the gendered distribution of labour, which are inscribed into computational artefacts, 3.) gender stereotypes of human bodies and behaviour reflected in technology and 4.) decontextualization and disputable epistemological and ontological assumptions. For each of these mechanisms I will propose technology design methods adopted from the field of 'critical computing' and discus their potentials and limits to de-gender computational artefacts on the basis of feminist theory.

By focusing on gender analysis and feminist design of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), this special section brings together three strands of expertise: Science and Technology Studies (STS), Gender Studies and computing. 1 A commonality among these three disciplines is a shared interest in interventions to improve the world we live in. Nevertheless, particularly Gender Studies and computing seem difficult to combine, partly because of their different epistemologies. Whereas deconstructivism, the challenging of categories and dichotomies, is an important target of many Gender Studies (and STS) researchers, most ICT researchers have a positivist stance toward science (Forsythe 2001; Weber 2004) as ICT developers need clear categories and choices to construct ICTs (Maass et al. 2007, 23). The presentations at the ''Gender & ICT Symposium 2009'' in Bremen, Germany, from which the articles of this special section originate, showed that STS provides theoretical concepts, tools, and theories that may help bridge this gap.

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