Notes from Day 7: Collecting our thoughts

Below are the notes from the questions raised by Anne to help us begin collecting and connecting our ideas.

1. How do you define gender?

• Gender is fluid
• Gender is a spectrum
• gender is a continuum
• a socially/culturally constructed representation or performance, perhaps in harmony or at odds w/one’s biological sex
• a socially constructed and fluid representation of one’s masculinity or feminity
• how we think of ourselves in relation to or in contrast to socially constructed “norms” for men and women
• personal state of mind
• a social construction of our experience as individuals
• an english word we use to
• a socially constructed classification for sexed bodies (minds too?)
• more complicated than genitalia
• genders are infinite

Social vs. individual construction

Biological vs. mental/philosophical

2. How do you define technology?

• technology is developed by humans to assist them
• anything invented by humans
• something capable
• what humans had
• system or systems that alter our body and/or perception
• any tool we use to define or express ourselves
• any advancement in humanity
• anything that makes life easier
• catalyst
• anything constructed
• making something easier for humans
• what humans had conscious thought in making

human involvement

materiality

3. What’s the relationship between them?

• technology is a means for societal & individual repression and expression of gender
• inextricably linked but different
• both are programmable
• impact each other
• technology has
• they use each other
• technology offers alternate paths for gender
• technology is wrapped up in our cultures def. of gender norms
• symbiotic relationship
• technology is used to more smoothly adhere to what we believe is correct for our gender

4. What do you know?

• That a Y chromosome doesn’t make someone male
• gender isn’t either/or
• gender is many things to many people
• being female is to lack a y chromosome
• that technology is just as hard to define as gender
• we can break the system
• the significance of race and socioeconomic status
• our gender and identity are separate
• male and female are unstable
• cosmetic surgery is a form of passing
• gender is more contingent that I thought
• being feminine is not to lack masculinity

5. What questions remain?

• What is the difference between butch and trans?
• Will technology ever make gender distinctions obsolete?
• Does gender really exist?
• Is everything a type of technology
• Can technology perpetuate gender stereotypes?
• Will we ever break the stereotypes?
• How does one decide that they feel male or female?
• How are different forms of passing related or not?
• Is there a true natural selft that could/should show our gender?
• Can gender create technology?