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.
Reading Response 10/10
Where to even begin? My first brush with Sheryl Sandberg was a discussion with a friend about the TED talk she gave. My critique of the talk still remains the same in light of the two takes of her book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. Mainly, her view and advice is definitely one-sided in terms of the individual vs. society or individual vs. institution. She focuses on individual change rather than societal, structural, or institutional changes. Annie of the PHD in Parenting blog points out that Sandberg does acknowledge the structural and institutional challenges and the need to change them along with the double standards in the workforce, but I would argue that this discourse of the woman “having it all” in work, family, and parenting through self-change and fighting to work is still problematic. For one, it applies to a small segment of women (educated, professional jobs, middle to upper class, arguably white, and heterosexual). Second, while I am all for positive motivation and promoting self-esteem for women and girls, her framing of women not putting themselves out there or being insecure and afraid to rise in her career as a problem to overcome is troubling. It can be interpreted that females are inherently insecure, timid, etc. and does not question why women do not act this way (external pressures, socialization throughout life, etc.) or why this is a “good” (and marked as masculine) trait for the workplace, which without a doubt has a masculinized ideal worker in mind.
As Kate Losse points out, it is also troubling that this discourse is promoted much more than other feminist ones. It can be risky that this type of advice (which is not completely new) starts acting as the stop gap for the gender and racial/ ethnic inequalities of the workplace and that structural and institutional change is neglected. Losse points out “lean in” circles and Sandberg’s book as a manual is already advocated in corporations and the book’s corporate partners like American Express, Amazon, and Bain. The not too subtle ties of Sandberg’s book and the feminism movement framework with corporations and Facebook are also of interest. I appreciate that Losse points this out and poses the question: “does the corporation that Sandberg leads and in which she is invested have an interest in limiting feminism in this way?” (March 26, 2012). Losse speculate that these ties between Facebook and Sandberg is a way to neutralize critiques of companies like Facebook of having homogenous workforces and people in positions of power as well as promote Facebook as the face of cutting edge new technology in social movements and revolutions. It reminded me of when H&M, the fast fashion giant who is not exactly known for sustainable environmental and social practices, published a sustainability report in 2012. On one hand, it is great that corporations are more interested in social changes and movements and arguably, this might be the only way to get information across and spur change in today’s society and culture. However, I can’t help but suspect the motivation and the extent of change…
***
Other than the gross sexism and misogyny reported in Tasneem Raja’s article (I had a slimmer of hope in humanity when she reported that no one laughed at Van Horn’s fraternity’s recruiting strategy to “‘attract the hottest girls’” joke), the revamping or even re-branding of fields and start ups in technology from geeks to frat boys/ bros is an interesting take. It reminds me that there is indeed a hierarchy of masculinities (and femininities and so on) and asks the question of why a geeky masculinity/ stereotype (which might not be less sexist or misogynist) needed to be replaced with a literal dick-swagging frat boy masculinity/ stereotype that inherently has sexist, misogynist, and heterosexual properties. Is it to attract other men to these fields? A reaction to concerns about the lack of women in these fields? A common remedy for the specter of homosexuality in homosocial settings? I’m curious.
Sandberg Reading Response
Sandberg’s book Lean In stood out to me right away because it uses Facebook, the social network everyone knows about, to get a point across. Facebook is such a successful enterprise, it is a wonder there are not more literature out there that brings its policies into play in other aspects of our lives. A website that appeals to so many people around the world, all with different interests and lifestyles must show that they are doing something right. Sandberg goes into using terminology that Facebook uses to motivate its staff, such as “Done is better than perfect” and “Be bold.” This shows how word choice is so important when influencing large groups of people. This assertive but encouraging vocabulary is bound to stay in the minds of the women Sandberg is hoping to target. Facebook was not a model in the sense that it had an equal distribution of genders and wages, because it had an all male board until 2012 and women still get paid significantly less than women. Sandberg just brings in what she has learned from working with the people side of Facebook and the top-down method of change. The key difference between what Sandberg is calling for and other feminist thought out there, is she calls for women to overcome “women’s universal internal resistance to career velocity.” This goes back to everyone being their own worst critic. According to her, being “in” is all that matters, there is not use in complaining over where exactly you are as long as you took the job. I agree with this in the sense that there is no logic in passing a job over pay or position when being in the company itself is a well-deserved privilege. There will be chances to climb up the corporate ladder and make it easier for other women to get to the point that you are. Sandberg is calling for women leaders to pave the way for others in the field. I do believe that eventually self change will lead to systemic change for when everyone is changing, major corporations do not want to be left in the dust.
Reading Response on Harraway and Halberstam
One of the main points Harraway makes in her essay “A Cyborg Manifesto” is how gender has too much to do with our identity. There is nothing that means “being female”. Rather than picking what they like, people are being forced into preconceived notions of what being a female should be like. She brings in the cyborg by comparing these previous statements about feminism to how nothing is truly “organic” or “artificial.” With all the medical and technological advances out there, the natural and the metal goes hand in hand to help us progress as a society. To make a similar point, Halberstam analyzes the analogy of Eve and the apple. The forbidden fruit has provided Apple with the perfect logo to represent power and network. Eve taking a bite, has turning into “byte” as in computer units of data, which is what Eve sought after originally to quench her curiosity. While eve and the apple represent the relationship between man, woman and god originally, the female cyborg now represents “a mass cultural composition.”
I intend to be a doctor and Harraway’s analysis really stuck with me. She is right in saying that with technology and humans working so closely together, one cannot say which is which anymore. Components of both work together towards a common goal and the strengths of both help achieve that goal. People once used to be afraid of having technology more powerful than us but we are slowly letting go of that fear of lack of control and embracing the future. Similarly, we must not be afraid to drop labels just because it is all we have ever known. We need to see what we like, what we are good at and let that determine our choices, not taking a specific path because that is what has been done in the past.
Reading Response – 9/26
Siobhan Somerville’s “Scientific Racism and the Invention of the Homosexual Body” and Judith Butler’s “Imitation and Gender Insubordination” examined homosexuality in relation to race and labels, respectively. I found it fascinating that the field I am interested in studying, sexology, had its beginnings “circulated within and perhaps depended on a pervasive climate of eugenicist and antimiscegnation sentiment and legislation”, mostly because sexology today tends to be very “sex-positive” (Sommerville, 31). Less surprisingly, Somerville makes a great point that “scientific assertions about racial difference were often articulated through gender” and she brought out the quintessential example providing evidence for this statement, the “Hottentot Venus,” also known as Saartje Baartman. Because Saartje’s genitals and overall body differed from that of the “normal” Caucasian female body, Saartje was exploited and exocticized essentially for being an “Other.” Anytime of I think of Saartje Baartman, I am reminded of a reading, “Hottentot 2000: Jennifer Lopez and Her Butt” by Magdalena Barrera which examines how women of color to this day are still exocticized and exploited by the difference between their bodies and the bodies of “normal” Caucasian women. From personal experience, because I have a large posterior, I am usually harassed by both men AND women because they are just surprised at how large it is relative to my body and their own.
An interesting question was posed when Sommerville asks in reference to Margaret Otis’ account, “Did the girls’ initmacy trouble the authorities because it was homosexual or because it was interracial?” (Sommerville, 34). While homosexuality was deemed as sinful and problematic, lesbianism is to a lesser extent, especially when you examine how popular lesbian pornography is for a straight, male audience today. In contrast, race is more visible, especially between an interracial couple. Because of the visibility of interracial love, it would be more problematic lesbian love than it is for that of a lesbian relationship between a same-race couple.
Switching gears a bit, I’m going to focus on Butler’s statement that “identity categories tend to be instruments of regulatory regimes” (Butler, 13). Being in the closet and coming out of the closet present their own regulations by society. For example, the ambiguity of being in the closet often leads to snooping and curiosity by others. This is evident today by celebrity and gossip magazines that poke at the lives of people who are not overtly sexual or have ambiguous sexualities. This spotlight on the unknown sexuality is often a pressure for that person to come out of the closet and place a label on that person. Once the label is placed on that person, more than often they are known for that specific label rather for other qualities such as being talented. For example, this is currently an issue with actress Michelle Rodriguez who made a statement after nagging media statements on her sexuality.
Haraway & Halberstam Reading Response
The readings by Haraway and Halberstam were a mixed blessing for me. On the one hand, they delved into a fascinating conversation of Marxist Feminism and how technology and postmodernism can fit into this framework. On the other hand, they were quite dense (especially Haraway), not unlike a lot of Marxist literature.
Both authors utilize the objet of a cyborg to examine how the use of technology can be made into a tool to advance feminist thought. The current gender roles of capitalism consist of men being thought of as the ones who hold the intellectual power and dominance over the world, while women are emotional and are in-sync with nature and are dominated. The concept of a female cyborg breaks from these contraints and uses technology to reverse gender roles and put women in a place of intellectual and structural equality. Despite the technophobia of most feminists, technology here is actually being used to level the playing field.
Although I don’t entirely agree with Haraway and Halberstam’s theory, I do appreciate how they are the ones to introduce a counterpoint to the relationship between women and technology. On the basis of our class discussions, as well as various readings, feminists and technology are often antagonistic. Technology is often seen as an extension of male identity and a tool of patriarchy to oppress women. In this alternate view technology can be co-opted by feminists to advance their own views.
Haraway/Halberstam
Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto one of her main points is that “We are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs.” According to Harraway, a cyborg is a “cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction.” Halberstam goes deeply into this, directly citing Haraway’s essay. Halberstam refers to Haraway’s description of a cyborg as “a condensed image of both imagination and material reality, the two joined centers structuring any possibility of historical transformation” and states that it is “particularly useful for feminists who seek to avoid the ideological dangers of recourse to an authentic female self.”
Basically, Haraway is discussing how humans are both natural and socially constructed. These social constructions are what can bring us down. Women specifically strive to achieve the ideal version of what they believe a woman is and should be. Both Haraway and Halberstam seem to describe the cyborg as good but also dangerous – according to Halberstam, the “female cyborg becomes a terrifying cultural icon because it hints at the radical potential of a fusion of femininity and intelligence.”
I found the Haraway reading to be very difficult, and the Halbrstam to be a bit better. While I agree with their point about the views on women and defining gender, it was hard to get through and I’m not entirely sold on the concept of a cyborg or what it means for feminism.
