Insufferable Tools

“Sarah Sharma artfully weaves a story about the ways that Big Tech patriarchs have a coherent media theory—one that makes tools out of you and me—and lays the groundwork for a countertheory to break that logic. Let us all aspire to be Broken Machines in a land of toxic masculine machinations.”—Alex Hanna, co-author of The AI Con“In the aptly titled and elegantly written Insufferable Tools, Sarah Sharma, with great brilliance and incisive wit, urges us to consider the stark reality of the connection between gender and technology, insisting on how these domains are mutually constitutive. This is an absolute must-read, not only for those who are interested in gender and technology, but indeed all of us who live our lives as ‘tools’ of the patriarchal techno-logic.”—Sarah Banet-Weiser, Walter H. Annenberg Dean and Lauren Berlant Professor of Communication, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania

Sarah Sharma is Professor of Media Theory and Director of the Institute for Communication, Culture, Information and Technology at the University of Toronto. She is author of In the Meantime: Temporality and Cultural Politics and co-editor of Re-Understanding Media: Feminist Extensions of Marshall McLuhan, both published by Duke University Press.