I’m just going to throw this up here. It’s mostly me thinking out loud. First I want to say a couple of things about cyborgs as a utopian image. In the science fiction I’ve read and seen, as opposed to what Haraway has read and seen, cyborgs are figured as frightening and horrible. Often they are figured as female (I’m thinking here of the cyborg “leader” in one of the Star Trek: TNG movies). She says “the cyborg does not expect its father to save it”, nor does it “dream of community”; however, Data, in Star Trek, who is a cyborg, does nothing but long to be human and one of the aspects of humanity he longs for most is a family, both in his search for a father (in the form of his creator/inventor) and in terms of having a wife and family. So I both have trouble with Haraway’s figuring of cyborgs as somehow outside of or without these human needs and by her continual anthropomorphizing of them. If they are indeed part human, then they may indeed have human longings that may indeed be part of a traditional sex-gender system.
I do think that the Internet has come close to creating Haraway’s world with “partial identities and contradictory stanpoints.” In chat rooms and on blogs, gender identity often disappears, cropping up only if someone mentions it. In virtual worlds, although one can construct a typically female or male character, the person behind the character may or may not be that gender. Additionally, some worlds allow you to create animals and other very gender-neutral forms. None of this existed when Haraway was writing so it’s amazing that she could come close to describing something like this.
One of the things that both Haraway and Halberstam come back to is the association of technology with the military and that this is one possible reason that women reject technology. I think this is less true now than it was 20 years ago. Or even in 1991 when Halberstam was writing. 1991 was the year of the first Gulf War and it was the first time in my memory that we saw images of missle strikes that looked an awful lot like a video game. While it’s certainly true that the military still uses a lot of technology, it’s also true that technology has infiltrated so much of our lives that the narrative of technology as a militaristic tool is no longer the dominant one. But it strikes me as a narrative that likely affected my mother and perhaps even some people in my generation.
Although Halberstam’s vision that word processing will no longer be a secretarial task (it is, unless you’re in a field that requires a lot of writing), her idea about “a posthierarchial labor structure” that “stresses interaction” is currently the trend and is related to my utopian image of gender and technology. My image involves a network graph.
These are graphs that represent connections between things–could be web sites, people, etc. The dots are nodes and the lines are the connections between the nodes. Most graphs show the effect of the power law, whereby some nodes are more popular than others. In the blogosphere, it’s been shown that these graphs have a power law in effect and the nodes with the most connections reprented blogs written by men. So, I’ve gone back and forth between thinking that my utopian vision is for these nodes to have an equal number of links, which I’m told is boring, or for there to be an equal number of “popular” nodes that represent women as men, but that doesn’t seem right either. So perhaps, it’s just that gender disappears within the network and we no longer care what those nodes represent. We become a kind of collective intelligence (borg-like even) while still maintaining our individuality.
In my utopia of technology and gender, everyone would be able to drive this car:
Behold, the Nissan Pivo 2. Yes, it is cool, battery-powered, and extremely user-friendly. I would love to have this car, mostly because I can’t drive and I’m sure anyone who has trouble driving would appreciate it. Yet in its demonstrations, this car has never been marketed toward people who find driving to be difficult. Only women are ever shown driving it and not in the popular “if you drive this car, sexy women will pull up alongside you and flirt with you” way. The underlying message is clear, that this car is so simple that even women can use it, that cars in general are a male technology. I was reminded of this concept car during the discussion on Monday, during which my group talked about technology that is geared toward one gender or the other when both could be using it.
My utopian view is not that technology should be completely neutral, but it should be able to acknowledge gender differences without exploiting them. This car should be marketed toward anyone who prefers an easier way to drive. It could even be geared toward people who are on the shorter side, as it is a relatively small car. If it were marketed in this way, I’m sure anyone would want to drive it.
I am not sure what my “utopia” would be, when it comes to integrating technology and gender. On the one hand, I would like there to be gender-free technolgy. I think the woman about to shake the robot’s hand is a good example of this idealization. On the other hand, I realized that we may never reach this point, so a more realistic utopia for me would be for men and women to work more as equals with technology. The robotic dogs are represented by gender through color. I believe that the differences between men and women will always be evident, but that we can realize we are capable of doing the same tasks like in the robotic dogs. Right now, that would be my utopia.
Images: Google images, http://images.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&rlz=1T4GGLJ_en&q=robotic+dogs
Hi, I’m Alex M. I am a junior psychology major at Haverford College and I’m from New Jersey. Academically, my interests generally tend to center around development and neuroscience, but I also enjoy English classes and try to take one each semester. This class appealed to me because it takes me fairly far out of my element as I have never taken a Gender and Sexuality course or one on technology, but I am eager to learn something new.
The intersection of technology and gender is not something I considered before looking at this class, so my questions are fairly basic. How has gender come to interact with technology over time? Are the depictions of gendered technology useful or beneficial? Is it possible for technology to be completely gender-neutral? I am sure these are questions we will be discussing and thinking about all semester and I look forward to the many answers that we will come up with.
Over twenty years after its first publication, Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto steadfastly remains a formative text in what has become a heterogenous body of postmodern feminist critique. In its image of the cyborg, it configured what would become the lasting ideal of an unapologetically transgressive, interstitial, self-inventive, and, perhaps most centrally, anti-essentialist feminism. Haraway’s idiosyncratic and irreverent text revels in ambiguity and difference, and claims emancipation from the gendered binaries on which oppressive ideologies, past and present, were constructed, as well as from the totality and totalitarianism of the “whole.”
Particularly of interest to me in my re-reading of the Cyborg Manifesto for this class was Haraway’s theme of (re)constructing new identities from/within the margins of normative categories. She describes (perhaps somewhat appropriatively?) the then-emergent identity category “women of color” as a cyborg identity, hybrid, self-inventive and anti-essentialistic. However, she notes that the “cyborg” praxis of women of color is complicated by the distinct emergence of themes of renaturalization, organicism, and even eco-feminism in such writers as Audre Lorde (174). She compliments these women for constructing what might be considered the supreme work of the cyborg: its self-aware re-organicization as a “whole,” and thus its self-transcendence as interstitial cyborg.
In the last twenty years, I believe that this latter type of cyborg – if it can even be called such – has risen to prominence in the more progressive sectors of the radical feminist project. A good deal of recent scholarship has focused not on the irreverent, “cyborgist” mocking, bending, and subversion of norms, but rather on a more difficult, and perhaps more transformative work: the articulation of new selves. Those whose voices (and thus abilities to formulate identities) have been marginalized and silenced by dominant codes begin the complex work of examining, articulating, and (re)constructing their beings, using “cyborg” language. This hybrid, even paradoxical craftsmanship involves both a deliberate critique of normative subjectivity and a deeply self-aware and self-reflexive re-invention of a transient, fragile “self” – in some fleeting way, a whole, but only in the sense that a vast constellation can be called a whole.
Asked to provide a utopian image of gender and technology, I considered a number of vastly different options before deciding upon the music video for the song You are My Sister by Antony and the Johnsons.
This profoundly moving video features the faces of a number of trans- and cisgendered women, each adorned in an unconventional glamour of her own, turning in slow circles and fading into one another; these solemn rotations, accompanied by the coiling of computer-generated DNA strands, are reminiscent of the “spiral dance” referenced several times in Haraway’s manifesto. Singer Antony’s ethereal bass falsetto, speaking of adoration, memory, and shared pain, provides tender backdrop to the women’s images. The overall effect is at once laden with otherworldly, glamorous, even alien beauty and with profound human emotion.
The women of the video, considered in terms of their relationship to “womanhood,” are neither simply the irreverent hybridized cyborgs proposed by Haraway in 1987, nor merely the monolithic eco-feminist goddess-figures she denounced as figments of reactionary feminism. Rather, the women in You are My Sister are, or have chosen to be, both hybrid cyborg beings and self-reflexively reconstructed organic selves: “cyborg goddesses,” if you will. As Harawayan cyborgs, they shape themselves, employing “artificial” praxes of body modification – hormonal, surgical, cosmetic, decorative – in the technologized construction of their bodies; as “goddesses,” however, they demonstrate and embody the compelling if theoretically fragile (ie not essential) tenets of womanhood admired by the singer’s lyrics: deep internal strength, beauty, gentleness, grace. Simply, they are women, both natural and hybrid, as all women, given the artificiality of that category, must be. Their womanhood is a choice, a fabrication, enabled through technologies and artifices; and yet it is very real, very natural, and very deeply beautiful.
Lest I mischaracterize Haraway’s arguments as calling primarily for an existential invention of the self, I would like to point out the themes of solidarity and support in her work – themes which I see as fundamental to You are My Sister. In her Manifesto, Haraway calls for a political praxis based on affinity rather than on constructed axes of identity and ideology. I think that there is tremendous power and healing potential in such praxes; the tender and deeply supportive lyrics and music of You are My Sister exemplify this radical, transformative solidarity. Antony’s refrain is overwhelming in the simplicity and directness of the care it offers: “You are my sister, and I love you. May all of your dreams come true.” Although there is nothing overtly political in these statements, they exude a degree of affinal support and solidarity that puts ideological politics to shame; given the thoroughly queer context of Antony’s music and this video in particular, such words can only be called radical. Yet, above all, it is the profound atmosphere of care and tenderness in this video that I would consider its supreme utopianism.
hi, i’m jonathan. i’m from madison, wisconsin. i’m a junior at swarthmore college majoring in film and media studies and double minoring in asian studies and gender and sexuality studies. although a major-minor division marks the way my credits fell into place, i don’t consider any of these areas of study more or less important; i’m interested in the rich spaces of overlap between all these fields, and their relevance to one another. such diverse topics as “the” queer gaze(s), postcolonial cinemas in asia, and the ties between gendered subjectivity and technologies of perspective exemplify the abundant inquiries to be explored at the complex junctures of media, gender, and cultural history.
as far as opinions go, i’m coming from a strongly (if critically) third-wave feminist position informed by queer, trans, and postcolonial critiques. it should go without saying that the complexly-woven dominion of Western patriarchal global capitalism is my primary foe; however, i also make a conscious effort to critique and expose those facets of and trends within the feminist project which smuggle silent oppressions and marginalizations into their discourses of liberation.
at the moment i’m interested in the application of the deleuzean critique of subjectivity to feminist deconstructions of identity, and how such a critique might be formulated in the context of media/cinema.
i think this is going to be a wonderful class, and despite my late arrival, i am very happy and excited to be here!
Halberstam tell us that “[g]ender, we might argue, like computer intelligence, is a learned, imitative behavior that can be processed so well that it comes to look natural. Indeed, the work of culture in the former and of science in the latter is perhaps to transform the artificial into a function so smooth that it seems organic.”
Once the artificial seems organic, how can we distinguish between the two? For example, take Zou Ren Ti (left) and his twin (right)…
…his robotic twin. This cyborg was made in the exact image of its creator, and the two are nearly indistinguishable. But is the cyborg male? Does it have the same gender as its creator, or just the same image? What would happen if the cyborg were assigned to clean and cook and care for children; would it be female? Robots are inherently gender neutral until we make them into something else- cyborgs. My utopian interaction between gender and technology would be the equal use of technology for the same purposes regardless of gender. Technology that is solely gender neutral, not manipulated into one or the other by training and programming.
I already made a post with images, but I found this today and thought it was really interesting. In our groups last class, we were discussing how almost everything around us is technology – not just the computers we use but even the pen in our hands. The picture shows a couch/sofa bed (technology?) next to an interesting comparison – a female body. With the two images next to each other, (put together using some form of technology) the similarity is striking, although it had never occurred to me before…
This picture nicely shows my idea of a Utopian relationship of gender and technology. My Utopian relationship would simply be one in which both men and women interact with technology in similar ways, without one gender being dominant over the other. Both would see each other as equals and equally capable of working in the field. There would be no societal constraints on what is masculine and what is feminine.
Alternatively, it could also be this way :p
Sasha Fierce and Utopian Relationships of Gender and Technology
In November I read a post on Jezebel positing that “critics have been misinterpreting Beyoncé’s overtly pro-woman lyrics as being anti-feminist ever since 1999’s “Bills, Bills, Bills.” Whether or not this is true, it’s hard to understate the pure (mostly female) euphoria one experiences when Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It) comes on at a party, and I thought it would be interesting to consider Beyoncé’s recent foray into the world of pop diva alter-egos in light of trying to get at a personal conception of a Utopian relationship between Gender and Technology. In case any one missed it, Sasha Fierce is Beyoncé’s on-stage/in-video intensely charismatic, enigmatic, and slightly robotic alter-ego who allows B to shed her every day personality which is actually rather shy, for an international pop superstar. And, by Donna Haraway’s standards, Sasha Fierce is a cyborg. Check out the awesome robot hand.
The idea that Sasha Fierce adds (to paraphrase Haraway) “lively” machinery to Knowles’ “inert” existence, creating a fabulous cyborg of epic pop stardom is really interesting, especially since the lyrics in her songs speak to pure independence and self-worth. In “Diva” she spits: “where my ladies up in here who like to talk back?” and “take it to another level/no passengers on my plane,” while in Single Ladies insists that she “can care less what you think/I need no permission.” What actual technologial purpose the robohand serves is unclear and kind of unimportant. What is important is what it represents, a personal and professional progression for an incredibly successful woman, and a concrete example of how cyborgs have already entered our societal and cultural consciousness. She is a woman utterly unafraid of becoming part of technology, or of technology becoming a part of her.
Conversely, it’s possible to argue that Sasha Fierce is just another sexy gendered robot, an alter-ego who serves as an emotional crutch for a powerful woman unable to handle her success with only one personality, trying to create depth with a titanium glove. In another song from her album, Knowles flips genders, considering how her navigation of gender roles in a relationship would be different “If I were a boy,” and Sasha Fierce is absent. It’s only Beyonce, trapped by expectations of how a woman should behave and what she should put up with in a heterosexual relationship, but critiquing these expectations and turning them on their heads. I like to think Sasha has greater repercussions, especially in light of the fact that the feminist connotations Knowles has created with her do not cleave exactly to mainstream, white liberal feminism and represent a possible experiment in considering the “oppositional consciousness” which Haraway cites as being part of the “network” of space and identities which women of color in the United States navigate.
As much as I sometimes have an issue with an oversexualization of women in the field of technology, sometimes I find an image in which there is a balance between beauty/sexiness and power. This is one of those images. The technology aspect is fairly subtle, with the designs on her back, the glass(?), and the headphones being the only visible signs.This image was drawn/constructed by one of my favorite artists on deviantart, NorthernBanshee, for one of her independent projects.
I find this image to be an excellent blend between a classy take on feminine beauty, and the incorporation of technology into that beauty.
Also, it is an interesting suggestion present in that the woman is both using technology, and IS technology.
At first when asked to come up with an image for my utopia with gender and technology i had a hard time coming up with one, then i realized that is because i really like where i am now. I am comfortable in this place where women can be interested in whatever they want to be interested in, such has technology (e.g. computers). I realize that i have had a privileged upbringing where 
i was allowed to be interested in whatever i wanted to be interested in, and thusly didn’t really even notice technology genderizing me. I notice things after the fact, like the fact that it is odd that i am a woman really interested in computers and multimedia in general. So my utopic image is an image of a group of women working on very nice computers without any help. This is my utopia, and my reality. Women are all different and some may be afraid of technology, math and science (see comic), but some women really enjoy working on and/ or with computers. Making all of these different terms to describe why people do things and why things are the way that they are will always be subject to pit falls.
oh and one more foxtrot for good measure:
Hello, my name is Ashley and I am a junior at Bryn Mawr majoring in Anthropology. I find it to be extremely funny how everytime I tell people my major they give me this confused gaze and say “that’s an interesting major, what made you choose that?” I assume that immediatly they think of bones and picture me somewhere making discoveries of fossels. I find myself having to always explain that this is not all Anthropology majors go on do; there reaction then turns from a slightly confused state to one of interest. After I complete my undergrad degree, I plan on going to grad school to get my MBA in marketing which is why I became interested in taking this course.
I am very interested in this class because it will explore the connection between gender and technology. This is definetly something that has a great impact on our everyday lives but we never really take the time to step back and analyze what is really going on an how these images in the media are minipulating our views of gender. I am very excited to learn more about this topic and hope that I will leave with a better understanding of how I can utilize my Anthropology background and my interest in marketing to gain a better perspective of the actual affects gender has on technology and vice versa.
I apologize for putting a link instead of posting the photo. It’s on Flickr with all rights reserved so I can’t reproduce it here.
My Utopic Imagining of Gender/Technology
As I was perusing the Halberstam reading, I was struck several times by the idea of random interference, which is analogous to human desire, and also by the view of postmodernism as chaotic and unshaped. I was especially drawn to the bottom of page 448: “The concept of the unified bourgeois subject… has been shot through with otherness and can find no way to regroup or reunite the splinters of being…”
That quote made me think of an image like this.
I found this idea to be analogous/similar to concepts in Halberstam’s postscript: “This does not imply that differentials of knowledge, responsibility, and power no longer exist; rather they can no longer be assumed. Instead they shift and flow and develop…” and ” Such a theory shows that we are already as embedded within the new technologies as they are embodied within us.”
There’s an overarching idea here of chaos and randomness and the mixing together of everything that was once separate, everything that we used to have labeled and organized in little boxes. And the entities acting within this new chaotic world can be impulsive and spontaneous. All of this impulsiveness and spontaneity leads to more mixing and more chaos. Being an impulsive person, I find this chaotic world pretty utopic.
The Flickr image and the image above embody this chaos and also depict what came before the chaos. In each there is a central focus, a source, which I see as the way the world was before the blurring of the lines began. The Flickr image, more than the image above, represents something concrete being blurred and by the time you get to the present day (aka the foreground of the picture), you can barely make out what the letters in the words are, the lines are blurred, the rules have been broken/are being broken.
results for “magazine ad” google image search
