Introductions
Hello, everyone! I’m a senior here at BMC, double-majoring in English and Spanish, and being at this stage in my undergraduate career, I’m frantically searching for career possibilities or angles and spins I can put on my credentials in order to land a legit job in this crazy economy.
Which I suppose brings me to this class. I’m supposed to list any questions I have about gender, technology, and the intersections between the two. But the main reason I gravitated toward this course is that upon finding it on the Tri-Co course guide, I realized I had no questions about these topics. Or any thoughts about the two concepts as they relate to each other at all. So I guess that answers the “Why are you here?” question, as well as explaining why I haven’t posted any questions of my own. I have never thought about gender and technology in connection with one another, and I’m taking this class because the possibility of a relationship between the two concepts surprises and interests me.
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Hey ^_^,
In response to the question: I’m a senior as well, I chose this course because it was all about the intersection of gender and technology, which I find fascinating. It’s especially fascinating to me because it seems that people also attempt to “gender” computers or telephones. As you are a Spanish major, you’ll know that foreign languages often gender words, using articles such as “la”, “el”, “los”, “las” to gender what I personally consider neutral objects. I signed up for this course as a way to access interesting articles that address the construction of gender, the use of technology and get other people’s perceptions on whether or not it’s weird to think that gender can be a bit more “masked” online. What is especially fascinating is the idea that a man can pose as a woman online or visa-versa with fewer cultural or social consequences. I think that as our own culture (and here I’m making an assumption that we are primarily American) there is a strong tendency towards duality, where we try to label things as “male”/”female”, “right”/”wrong”, “acceptable”/”not” without looking at the “in between” or any other options. I would hope this course addresses such issues and I look forward to seeing the intersection of these two concepts.
Gender is an especially sensitive topic, as I grew up among college art students, so I thought it was wrong to be heterosexual! (You know it’s weird to grow up and think it’s odd to like boys because one is a girl). I think it will be interesting to challenge the concept of gender and the idea that technology can mask some of what is socially acceptable. Would anybody else find it odd to find out that the girl the fell in love with online has a man’s body? Would it be weird to find out that this teenage girl was actually a man who was married and had kids? What kinds of things can one “get away” with online in subverting gender roles?
I guess all of the above brought me to this class.