Cheris Kramarae is Professor of Speech Communication, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she teaches courses in interpersonal communication, feminist theory and sociolinguistics. She is the author of over 30 articles on language and gender, and author, editor or co-editor of seven books on communication and feminist theory, including A Feminist Dictionary (Pandora Press, 1986), Language and Power (Sage, 1984), Language, Gender and Society (Newbury House, 1983), The Voices and Words of Women and Men (Pergamon Press, 1980) and Women and Men Speaking (Newbury House, 1981).

• PREFACE; Gotta go Myrtle, technology’s at the door; Women’s voices/men’s voices: technology as language; Women clerical workers and the typewriter: the writing machine; Computational reticence: why women fear the intimate machine; ‘Who needs a personality to talk to a machine?’: communication in the automated office; Chatting on a feminist computer network; Gender and typographic culture: beginning to unravel the 500-year Mystery; Women on the move: how public is public transport? Women and Transport Forum. Putting wheels on women’s sphere; Talk of sewing circles and sweatshops; ‘Washing, seems it’s all we do’: washing technology and women’s Communication; Oral traditions and the advent of electric power; Speaking up: voice amplification and women’s struggle for public Expression; Women and the telephone: the gendering of a communications technology