Halberstam/Haraway Reading Response

I find both Haraway’s and Halberstam’s view on cyborgs and the way technology has affected women very interesting. Haraway’s reading is filled with metaphors and comparisons. I think it helped that I read Halberstam’s reading Haraway’s since she simplifies and explains parts of Haraway’s work in her own work. I really like how Halberstam’s reading connected both the readings together for me.

One of points I found interesting was when Haraway says, “I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess.” This goddess refers to this idealistic image given to women, how they should behave, ideal way to look, gender roles etc. And this cyborg is the outcome of what technology has done to feminism. In our readings, I would say they would both agree the female cyborg is somewhat robotic yet human at the same time. When I thought about whether or not I would want to be a goddess or  cyborg, I honestly didn’t know what to pick. Would I want to be oppressed into a role and image or would I want to be living a life that may not necessarily seem like a quality life where I would just focus on work. I ultimately picked the cyborg since I would probably already be considered one by Haraway with my dependence on technology.

It’s also interesting to see how cultural feminists see the automated gender as male science. The female cyborg is seen by some a symbol of male technological aggression against woman. I’ve never actually seen it that way and it’s quite interesting to see it from their lenses. People always say we live in a world created by men. These female cyborgs in a sense are being shaped by the development of technology which is essentially a male dominated field. I could see how people could see how these female cyborgs are being created by men essentially but I honestly think seeing technology as an aggression against women is entering paranoia.

I was also intrigued by Halberstam’s opening with the concerns of technology. The first concern of how computer may be taught to stimulate thought is already happening, but I’m not sure if it’s really much of a concern really. Robots will never be able to tears and simply emote like a human being would. There’s always the risk of a robot being too emotional and malfunctioning. The second concern being robots replacing human in the workplace. It simply doesn’t make sense for me that robots would eventually replace humans in the workplace. How would society even function? What do people do all day? How do people get money if they’re not working? All I can think about is unemployment skyrocketing and the government being totally against this idea.

Reading Response: Brograms and #femfuture

“Brograms and the Power of Vapoware” by Hicks and “US Centrism and inhabiting a non space in #femfuture” by Dzodan both highlight ways in which technology is NOT intersectional and leaves people out. The Hicks article discusses the “bro culture” involved in STEM jobs and computer programming, and how it leaves women out in a field that they actually used to be dominant in. The Dzodan reader takes another approach, discussing how United States centered online feminism leaves out women of color and groups from other countries.

Both of these articles touch upon something that many humans just tend to do, which is leave people out, unfortunately even in spaces like the Internet which should be a place open to everyone. The culture surrounding many technology jobs today “furthers the privilege that is already on top” by making these spaces solely for white, upper middle class, men. Anyone who argues against this is met with extreme online sexism and harassment.

Dzodan discusses a different side of it, in which she and other people are kept out of US centric feminism, and their ideas and opinions are ignored and not touched upon. She describes herself and others like her as “outsiders who have issues that are alien to online feminism.” Although perhaps they are not faced with harassment such as the women who protest the situation in technology jobs, they are completely ignored and unheard, which in many ways is not much better.

To go on from here I think that an important question is how can we make the Internet and jobs in technology better feminist spaces?

Reading Response to Kate Losse

When I first heard the title of the article “Who Wins from Leaning In?,” I thought the term “leaning in” referred to something else entirely. I thought it referred to women “leaning in[to]” male superiors to advance their position or get their way, but I’m glad I was wrong. Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In suggests that the problems women face in the workplace and career advancement aren’t caused by institutionalized discrimination, but “women’s reluctance to accept accelerating career demands,” and encourages women to work faster and more to get ahead (Losse). This, to me, sounds like an oversimplified and traditionally male response to women’s woes about peering through and hitting the glass ceiling. Working harder and more might help someone advance professionally, but I imagine people like to do more than work. Sandberg’s advice is appropriate for those of all genders, women, men, and everyone in between who are very ambitious and want to get ahead, but it’s not an appropriate solution to the discrimination against women in the workplace. Losse experienced discrimination in the very company for which Sandberg works and whose experiences she rights about in her book; she was promoted to a more demanding position but wasn’t given a raise because it “wouldn’t be fair to the other engineers who haven’t had a raise” (Losse). She “needed to work for less so men wouldn’t feel resentful,” which is a little ridiculous; I haven’t heard of men being that sympathetic or sensitive to women, who do the same jobs, are paid less, and might be a little resentful that they’re paid less for equal labor(Losse).

Cyborgs, affinity, connection (Class on 10/10)

I’ve really been looking forward to class tonight. After class, I intend to turn this into a full blog post, Now what we have had class, I want to expand on this based on our conversation.

We started class by watching this wildly popular recent clip of Louis CK.

http://youtu.be/5HbYScltf1c

We divided into small groups for conversation about the clip and then came back together to report back and talk about how it related to our recent class readings. Now, Louis CK might not seem like an obvious point of entry for discussing cyborg feminism, but his piece speaks to a few things:

• Anxiety about over-connection to devices
• Anxiety about losing abilities to empathize
• Anxiety about being alone
• Conjecture about what it means to “be a person”

So what we found is that he posits that being alone–sitting by yourself–is what it is to be a person, which is in many ways a very dualistic conception of personhood: one person who is distinct and independent, with very solid boundaries. He thinks that being bound to digital networks and devices makes us less human, less empathetic. Yet if we think about Haraway and Halberstam, the cyborg has the potential to disrupt dualistic thinking because of its porous boundaries. One important aspect from Haraway that we discussed was her belief in the cyborg’s ability to choose affinities, rather than be bound by older systems of nuclear/patriarchal families. (Interesting, too, that the Louis CK piece is prompted by his understanding of how parents should handle social and mobile media.)

We also talked about our own attachment to devices and how we use them, and we segued into some of the pieces about work by talking about the way that mobile media is increasingly blurring the boundaries between labor and leisure. We’re going to pick back up on that in our next class–on Oct 17. I can’t wait.

Reading Response – 10/10

In Halberstam’s “Automating Gender: Postmodern Feminism in the Age of the Intelligent Machine,” she mentions that Susan Bordo criticizes Donna Haraway for multiplicity (448). This critique of multiplicity can extended to the discussion of whether women can have it all: Do women lean into one identity (ideal worker or ideal mother) or do they try to balance the various identities they have? “Feminism’s Tipping Point:Who Wins from Leaning In?” and “Lean In? Sure – Been There, Done That – Now What?” deal with the issue of leaning in into a man’s sector of work and the myth of having it all.

Kate Losse describes her experience of attempting to lean in alongside the experience of Sheryl Sandberg, author of Lean In:Women, Work, and the Will to Lead and Facebook COO. Sandberg blames women themselves for not advancing in the corporate world instead of institutional sexism. However, Losse’s experience as Mark Zuckerberg’s speechwriter maps out how Sanberg’s feminist advice is not the case. Losse moved up in position, yet she did not earn more than male engineers because her promotion and a salary raise would be seen as threatening. As Losse notes, leaning in benefits the company than the workers and it appears that no significant changes have really occurred under Sanberg’s leadership for women at Facebook.

Alternatively, Annie discusses how she too could have had it all, but instead of leaning in for the long run, she leaned back to allow herself personal growth rather than stability for herself, her family, and her company. Instead, she now has her own startup where she can work more than she would if she were still at her old job and still have more vacation time as well. As she states, “I wanted to work somewhere where I would be recognized for my abilities, not somewheer where I’d have to wage war against the patriarchy each and every day.”

That leads me to the sexism discussed in Tasneem Raja’s “‘Gangbang Interviews’ and ‘Bikini Shots’: Silicon Valley’s Brogrammer Problem.” Brogrammers and their language make me feel unwanted in a field of computer science. The language especially is violent (i.e. gangbang interviews, hogramming) and it’s not fair that the lack of female programmers is leading to issues such as that of the Siri example Raja uses. If women could lean in, I’m sure they could if there wasn’t sexism to face in the field.