Insufferable Tools: Feminism Against Big Tech-nurbook

Insufferable Tools: Feminism Against Big Tech book cover

Insufferable Tools: Feminism Against Big Tech

Author(s): Sarah Sharma (Author)

Publisher: Duke University Press
Publication Date: April 21 2026
Language: English
Print length: 222 pages
ISBN-10: 1478038551
ISBN-13: 9781478038559

Book Description

In a world seemingly run by the whims and power plays of Musks and Zucks, Insufferable Tools cuts to the core of modern technology’s gendered politics. Sarah Sharma challenges the idea that the Big Tech broligarchs are neutral utilitarians who view technology as mere tools. She shows instead how these tech giants have turned the internet, and, increasingly, “real life” into a set of environments which they cultivate and manipulate to wield the real tools: us, the users. Sharma critiques a popular system of inclusion she calls “Big Tech Feminism” that attempts to incorporate and make useful people of color, queer people, and others who are seen as broken machines in the current gendered power structures. Deconstructing Big Tech’s patriarchal deployment of media theory to gain and maintain power, Sharma proposes a feminist techno-politics that can forge new futures free from the grip of the truly insufferable tools.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“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

About the Author

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.

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