1. what connections have you seen among all the imaginative representations of gender and technology that we’ve looked @?
In all of the stories we have looked at recently, technology has pretty consistently been a bad thing. Its either been the tool used to change society in a bad way (handmaid’s tale), or perhaps been the cause of the negative change in society (metropolis, watchmen). Similarly, gender seemed to me to have a negative role, women either weren’t really present/not counted (metropolis/watchmenish) or were oppressed (handmaid’s tale).
2. how do these works contribute to your understandings of gender, technology or the relations between them?
I don’t think this contributed much to my understanding of technology, at least on its own. I think the concept of technology as dangerous is a pretty obvious one. I think seeing how women were left out of watchmen and metropolis really made me realize how much women are often left out of the action in books and movies, and that has left me wondering what that maybe does to society, and what it means. I’ve always thought of technology mainly as a way of empowering people, including women, and now I am reexamining that idea.
3. any other feedback about how the class has been working the past three weeks, w/ all the small group work we’ve been doing? are there other things you’d like to be doing in class that we haven’t done yet, or that you’d like to do more of?
I like the small groups, but I think having the same small groups wasn’t as useful as having new groups. I think it would be interesting to have a new way to form groups, but I’m not sure what it would be. Maybe interests, or having people support different arguments?
4. what concrete suggestions do you have in particular about wordpress functionality? (Laura and Anne have started a log here….)
I don’t have any new ones.
5. what has your experience been with posting and receiving on-line commentary on your papers?
I really like it! For the papers its not so helpful, mostly because other students don’t do much with the papers. but its really nice for the postings to have the opportunity to express incomplete thoughts and ask questions, and have people respond.
1. what connections have you seen among all the imaginative representations of gender and technology that we’ve looked @?
They all look at a society rather different than our own in order to give insight into the world currently; in other words they’re still applicable to understanding gender & technology generally and as it applies to us.
2. how do these works contribute to your understandings of gender, technology or the relations between them?
They show alternative representations of gender: for instance, Watchmen shows very few women and all or most men and women play stereotypical roles and have stereotypical appearances; The Handmaid’s Tale accentuates some of these roles even further, while still giving a more accurate depiction of how a woman might act and think (as we see in Offred’s interiority). They provide interesting cross-references between gender and technology, showing how they are or can be or should or shouldn’t be related: as in, the highly rigid technology of gender roles in Handmaid, the people-are-machines in Metropolis, some less blatant women-are-machines in Handmaid, etc. Another example of this is as discussed in class, the use of technology in cases that constrain in Handmaid (eg tattoo markings / bracelets (in the film) on women’s wrists as a technology on gender) but not using technology that might be productive (no limit to pollution, which has ramifications on gender and ability to bear children etc).
3. any other feedback about how the class has been working the past three weeks, w/ all the small group work we’ve been doing? are there other things you’d like to be doing in class that we haven’t done yet, or that you’d like to do more of?
Like the small groups a lot.
4. what concrete suggestions do you have in particular about wordpress functionality? (Laura and Anne have started a log here….)
It’d be nice to have a specific page listing out all posts in an easy-to-read, easy to go to the page without getting to an “edit this” page (unlike the Manage tab in Site Admin) and easily searchable (eg using Google search) way.
A cool additional idea here would probably take a lot of work to make, but would be neat: have a visual representation shown as a network of all the posts with visual links between posts that reference each other.
5. what has your experience been with posting and receiving on-line commentary on your papers?
It works just fine for me. The comments given on-line seem public-friendly.
1. what connections have you seen among all the imaginative representations of gender and technology that we’ve looked @?
I think that in The Handmaid’s Tale and Watchmen gender was portrayed as something that was strictly and rigidly regulated by rules and laws. I think the figures of Laurie Jupiter and Offred are strikingly similar, in that they’re both kept and sustained by outside forces for the purpose of being used by a man for a “higher” cause, and that the roles they portray are both telling and cautionary. I suppose the representation of Maria in Metropolis is in stark contrast to those of Offred and Laurie, in that she’s portrayed as something both regulated (by the mad scientist) and dangerous. Although different from the other two women in many ways, I suppose Maria’s existence is also cautionary to a certain degree.
2. how do these works contribute to your understandings of gender, technology or the relations between them?
I think these works reinforced ideas of gender construction, but also added to that concept the dimension of regulation or enforcement, as well as danger. Not necessarily danger in exploration, as parts of the “Tinysex” reading seem to imply, but instead danger in strict reinforcement of gender roles. I think technology factored into the relationships of Offred and Laurie to others, in that the laws they had to follow could constitute technology in some way, and Robot Maria, more obviously, embodied technology in her very construction and purpose. I think all three works we studied have somewhat unpleasant or apocalyptic endings, to use a term from the “Tinysex” article again.
3. any other feedback about how the class has been working the past three weeks, w/ all the small group work we’ve been doing? are there other things you’d like to be doing in class that we haven’t done yet, or that you’d like to do more of?
I’m not a huge fan of small group work. I prefer whole class discussions, when people contribute to discussion because they want to, not because they feel they have to spark discussion within their groups. I think the discussions we’ve had as a whole class have been more useful and interesting than the conversations we have in small groups.
4. what concrete suggestions do you have in particular about wordpress functionality? (Laura and Anne have started a log here….)
No suggestions.
5. what has your experience been with posting and receiving on-line commentary on your papers?
I think this is a good system.
1. what connections have you seen among all the imaginative representations of gender and technology that we’ve looked @? I’ve been really interested in the role that technology has played in the representations we’ve examined. I think it’s possible to see technology as a villain in the three we’ve looked at; in The Handmaid’s Tale, The Republic of Gilead uses technology as a scapegoat (nuclear power plants melting down, chemicals causing Caucasian infertility); in Metropolis, workers are slaves to/fuel for a monstrous machine; and in Watchmen, the technology created by Dr. Manhattan and Ozymandias brings incredible destruction. I haven’t really been that interested in the gender roles during this section of the class because our discussions of gender seem to be getting repetitive. I feel like we’ve talked gender issues to death and are simply concluding that “meh, this is the way of the world. it’s stereotyping men and women. and we don’t think that’s right.” This is a perfectly valid conclusion, but I don’t think it’s a particularly useful one.
1.) What connections have you seen among all the imaginative representations of gender and technology that we’ve looked at?
I don’t know about connections, but i have found it interesting to look at so many different types of representation of gender and technology. There really is quite a veriaty out there and it is a real testament to the creative capabilities of people. Watchmen is really different then Handmaid’s Tale which is different then Metropolis. I guess one thing that i noticed through out the things we looked at was a sense of people and technology being part of something larger; Metropolis: all the workers and thinkers were needed to keep the city running, Handmaid’s Tale: everyone had a job in the new country, Watchmen: the whole novel is about the human condition and wether the watchmen can control/effect the human condition.
2.) How do these works contribute to your understandings of gender, technology or the relations between them
I think they have added to my understanding of jobs being a type of technology and that jobs are often gendered.
3.) Any other feedback?
I liked the variety of representations that were chosen for this section of the course.
4.) WordPress Functionality?
not bad, i run another blog for a on-campus club so i feel pretty proficient with it. I like that it is easy to learn how to use, but you can do quite a bit. There are limitations, but for the job it fills here, it works quite well.
1.) What connections have you seen among all the imaginative representations of gender and technology that we’ve looked at?
Every representation stems from someone’s interpretation of the previlant form(s) of gender and/or technology. We;’ve looked at gendered/technological socities such as Metropolis and The Handmaid’s Tale. Gendered/technological identities with online avatars and our disscusion panels. Gendered/technological practices with the Watchmen Comic/Movie.
2.) How do these works contribute to your understandings of gender, technology or the relations between them?
These connections I have made make me realize that it is is important to look at current representations of gender and technology closely in order to better understand alternative forms. The relations between gender and technology are multilayered but ultimatly brought together through an idea. Thoughts of the future (Metropolis) and thoughts of society (Watchmen) lead to two completly different creations that merge gender and technology in their own way.
3.) Any other feedback?
I would like to have another speaker come in.
4.) WordPress Functionality?
I had problems initially with loging in. It was almost as if the browser I used made wordpress malfunction….? It got so bad I tried resetting my password which created new problems. Ther than that I have experienced no other wordpress problems.
1. what connections have you seen among all the imaginative representations of gender and technology that we’ve looked @?
In every example we looked at, technology is seen as something destructive. In Metropolis it drives a wedge between humanity, in Watchmen it nearly destroys the world by propelling the planet into a moral-less cesspool of cold war, and in Handmaid’s Tale technology gives the select few the ability to suppress the general population.
2. how do these works contribute to your understandings of gender, technology or the relations between them?
In all of these popular culture representations of gender and technology, technology is decidedly male. Whether it be embodied in the form of Dr. Manhattan, created in the guise of a women to suit the needs of the powerful male characters, or used to create a strict governing body, it is almost always used and created by men.
1. what connections have you seen among all the imaginative representations of gender and technology that we’ve looked @?
That they all portray some sort of dystopia that includes skewed relationships between the two genders: For example, the Handmaids and Commander’s machine-like relationship, Laurie’s relationship with Dr. Manhattan, the (creepy) Maria-cyborg in Metropolis made by the scientist for the eyes of men. Each couple/pairing also happens to exhibit a mechanical, or artificial type of quality to it.
2. how do these works contribute to your understandings of gender, technology or the relations between them?
That when gender is turned into technology, it has the potential to get out of hand and possibly form a dystopia. Perhaps, we need to strive for a more positive (healthy?) relationship with technology ( regardless of gender) in order to combat this, though seeing as how works such as Watchmen and The Handmaid’s tale are based on our own societies, maybe we’re already heading down that road to a dystopia? Then that leaves me with the question of what exactly is a “healthy relationship” with technology? Is it our version of a technological utopia? Even if we can’t reach a technical utopia, maybe aiming for it can pull us out/help us avoid a dystopia? Hmm…I think these works gave me more questions than answers…
3. any other feedback about how the class has been working the past three weeks, w/ all the small group work we’ve been doing? are there other things you’d like to be doing in class that we haven’t done yet, or that you’d like to do more of?
I really liked working in small groups, though I don’t much like writing on the board. I have an idea though: Since we have some really good artists in class (as seen on the blog), maybe for one class while we’re having our big group discussion, a few of us (on a volunteer basis!) could graphically facilitate our discussion on the blackboard? I’m interested to see how it would turn out! Then we could take pictures of it and proudly display it on the blog =)
4. what concrete suggestions do you have in particular about wordpress functionality? (Laura and Anne have started a log here….)
None that I can think of.
5. what has your experience been with posting and receiving on-line commentary on your papers?
I have had no problem with posting. The on-line commenting is fine as well, however when I paste my paper into the text box and then click on “preview this page” I have this massive amount of text (such as: <!– /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Wingdings; panose-1:5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:2; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font”; …..and it just goes on and on.) at the top of the post, before my actual paper starts. I later have to edit the page and delete it all out, which is okay, but is there any way to avoid this happening in the first place?
1. what connections have you seen among all the imaginative representations of gender and technology that we’ve looked @?
One common thread for me has to do with utopia: in all three narratives, the goal of the troublemakers is to create a utopia. But all were anti-utopias because they were founded on mass death and suffering. “Better always means worse for some” means utopia really is “no-place”: it can’t exist. Yet people who want power (Frederson, the Commanders, Ozymandius) often invoke ideas of utopia to justify their plans.
2. how do these works contribute to your understandings of gender, technology or the relations between them?
The Handmaid’s Tale made me think back to women telephone operators, and even the women who perform female genital cutting, because in the book and real life, women are agents of male dominance by being “leaders” or controllers of other women. This seems dangerously subtle.
3. any other feedback about how the class has been working the past three weeks, w/ all the small group work we’ve been doing? are there other things you’d like to be doing in class that we haven’t done yet, or that you’d like to do more of?
I liked dividing up by our majors; that was productive, especially, for me, hearing from a computer science and social science perspective. Maybe reading some theory with the fictions would have helped our discussions…but, I should be careful what I wish for…
4. what concrete suggestions do you have in particular about wordpress functionality?
One thing I still miss about classes on Serendip compared with WordPress is that you can see the names of all the threads, with author and number of comments and date all in one chart. I wish there were some option to view the front page like this, because I find it easier to find and go back to certain posts.
5. what has your experience been with posting and receiving on-line commentary on your papers?
No complaints–I just think personally I need to get back into the groove of posting during the week, between classes ideally, when our conversations are fresh in my mind, instead of on the weekends.
1. what connections have you seen among all the imaginative representations of gender and technology that we’ve looked @?
The themes presented in Metropolis, Watchmen and The Handmaid’s Tale all contain this sense of programming the woman to do certain things, the Machine-Man in Metropolis does her thing by causing the workers’ uprising, the Handmaids are basically used to conceive babies and Laurie is used as some sort of sex toy by Dr. Manhattan.
2. how do these works contribute to your understandings of gender, technology or the relations between them?
Men can even view women as a form of technology, since they feel that they have to control them to make themselves feel powerful.
3. any other feedback about how the class has been working the past three weeks, w/ all the small group work we’ve been doing? are there other things you’d like to be doing in class that we haven’t done yet, or that you’d like to do more of?
I like the small group works, some issues and ideas are touched upon within those groups. But sometimes the discussions are not completed due to time constraints.
4. what concrete suggestions do you have in particular about wordpress functionality?
None
5. what has your experience been with posting and receiving on-line commentary on your papers?
Posting has been going well.
Still struggling w/ this avatar-thing-y….
have belatedly realized that, when I went abroad during my leave a few years ago,
and created a blog to chronicle my thoughts while I traveled, I used this image
to figure who I was and what I was up to.*
I like it far better than any of those “anthropomorphic”
figures that Nowak and Rauh study at such length….
*“Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science—and it means as little to us (because we are from Earth) as color means to a blind man.”–Robert A. Heinlein
So…I really do not get the avatar thing. The possibilities seem way too limited–why represent yourself as a puppet, a reduction of who you are? I was also struck by the sharp contrast between the claim, by Turkle, that avatars could be ways of imagining alternatives, and the one made by Nowak and Rauh, that the participants in their study strongly preferred avatars who matched themselves. Me, too…
So here are two possibilities, both playing w/ the possibility of being something different….
the first is from a renga series called “face poiesis“:
