Gender, computers, and holistic knowledge: the case of homeopathy

Periods of time in which stocks of knowledge hold plausible or true are decreasing. At the same time, the amount of information which has to be managed is augmenting-due to technologically increased possibilities of collecting, processing and producing information. Taking homoeopathy as an example of a “computer-unlike” domain, the aim of the paper is to shed some light on two interrelated phenomena: first, the production and application of holistic knowledge is increasingly supported by computers; second, sociological assumptions on gendered styles of using computers need to be reconsidered. Based on extensive qualitative research which the author has conducted over the past several years, she argues that the clash of traditional holistic medicine and modern social requirements of treating patients in a way that is “quick and perceptible”, computer-supported homoeopathy offers leeways which can be appropriated in a manner which it is suggested is best understood as a process of de-emphasizing gender (de-gendering). As a consequence, the notion of “women as technological illiterates” has to be reworked thoroughly