Technology Diary 4: The Typewriter

This week, instead of trying to come up with a piece of technology off the top of my head, I decided to scan my bedroom for inspiration and settled on a machine that I have a very positive relationship with, but that I realize has a problematic history in regards to gender: the typewriter. As a writer, and as someone who tries to refrain from using digital technology when a simpler tool can fulfill the function just as well, my typewriter has a great deal of value for me. It provides tangibility to both the work itself, as well as to the archiving process. For the same reason, when I write by hand I prefer pens to pencils, as they force me to grant my mistakes the same space I do precision. But after being sadly-not-surprised to learn last week about the historically hidden role women played in early computer programming, it’s difficult for me not to be critical of the typewriter as precursive machine that provided women with access to the modernizing public sphere, but only to a very limited, and limiting, extent.

Ernest Hemingway

Modernizing technological innovations like the typewriter were dually influential as they invited women into professional spaces for one of the first times in history, while at the same time effectively limiting their agency. By placing women in clerical positions, the pattern of menial labor being gendered as female was reaffirmed yet again, despite the new environment. Women’s work as typists was not unlike the work they fulfilled as seamstresses in factories; indeed, it’s no coincidence that many early typewriter models were produced by companies like the Domestic Sewing Machine Co., the Meteor Saxon Knitting-Machine Factory and the sewing subdivision of Remington & Son (Kittler 187).

William Faulkner

Moreover, the typewriter worked two-fold as a contribution to the construction of gendered machines. While it established routine, deskilled typewriting as women’s work, it simultaneously reserved the esteemed association with authorship solely to men (or women willing to take on male pseudonyms). Think of the great catalog of images we have of famous male authors sitting boldly at their typewriters: Faulkner, Hemingway, Kerouac, Bukowski, the list goes on. Portrayed as hardworking intellectual geniuses, these images add to the glorification of the male writer, whereas women have a much harder time claiming that title to begin with, let alone being honored within the field. It’s hard to even imagine an old picture of a female sitting at a desk in front of a typewriter not eliciting the idea of secretarial work.

Charles Bukowski

These historical imbalances are still at play today, especially in within the technology industry. In light of the Rosser reading back from the beginning of the semester, it makes sense that women’s subordinate/subordinating introductions to technology have led to a gender disparity that continues to persist today. In the first chapter of Women, Gender, and Technology she describes how technological designs and their practical uses have, throughout history, been disproportionately created both to satisfy patriarchal constructs, as well as to reinforce them. Indeed, it’s hard not to draw the connection between today’s lack of women inventors and engineers back to the early female programmers who got the short end of the credit stick, and also to the women who preceded them, who were constrained by their jobs taking boring dictations decades earlier.

Works Cited

Kittler, Friedrich A. Gramophone, Film, Typewriter. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1999. Google Books.

Technology Diary: Affirmative Action and STEM

As someone who is fascinated and a student of race relations, I often relate things in this course back to parallels or the intersectionality  of the issues that  people of color face. One hot topic affecting people our age (especially as of late) is affirmative action. Obviously for a general college admissions policy, women are not considered an underrepresented class, as they greatly outnumber men enrolled in school. But when one looks at specific degree programs or specific fields of study, such as science, technology, mathematics, and engineering (STEM), women are severely underrepresented.

To my knowledge, there are no major explicit affirmative action policies to place women in STEM fields both in school and in the workplace, however off-record policies probably do exist (a woman that is applying to a prestigious engineering school that has an almost identical academic record to her  male counterpart, I would argue, has a higher chance of getting in). This then begs the question of why don’t these policies exist, and why aren’t we having the debate?

After doing some research I found some authors debating the topic but nothing really substantive. As a strong advocate of race based affirmative action, I think that gender based affirmative action is absolutely justified and needed in STEM fields. If and when this does happen, it might be interesting to see how the debate will be framed and if gender based affirmative action will be met with the same amount of resistance as raced based.

Here are the articles I found on the issue:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julie-kantor/troubleshooting-girls-in-_b_3623630.html

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/09/30/breaking-the-bias-against-women-in-science

Technology Diary 3: Cigarettes

As a smoker who isn’t “trying to quit,” I do still think it’s important to challenge myself from time to time with scary facts about the tobacco industry that, if I don’t kick the habit right then and there, after learning the gruesome detail, will question my integrity and what I claim to value. And while it may be a stretch to call cigarettes technology, the historical gendering of the product, specifically the tobacco industry’s exploitation of feminist ideals, adds an interesting facet to the discourse around progress within women’s movements.

Prior to World War I, female smokers were associated with “loose sexual morality and even prostitution” (Marine-Street).  Thus, the only women who appeared in tobacco advertisements during this time were depicted as eroticized objects serving cigarettes to men, not smoking them themselves. Then, during the war, the shifting social atmosphere indicated to the tobacco industry the opportunity to loop in as consumers that hefty other half of the population: women. As women moved from the domestic sphere to the public sphere, filling in for all the men fighting abroad, their newfound (relative) mobility and independence made them a perfect target for tobacco marketing.

The association between smoking cigarettes and being independent has always, been a strong one. The irony therein, of course, is that cigarettes are highly addictive and consumers can hardly argue that smoking is an autonomous act. Regardless, the tobacco industry keenly took advantage of this link during and after the war, extending its application to growing and developing feminist values of the mid 20^th century. Natalie Marine-Street, in her article “Stanford Researchers’ Cigarette Ad Collection Reveals How Big Tobacco Targets Women and Adolescent Girls,” emphasizes this very point:

To vanquish remaining cultural taboos, [tobacco companies] appropriated individualist and feminist messages and presented smoking as a way for women to demonstrate their liberation from confining traditions. In an ironic echo of the giant suffrage parades of the prior decade, one enterprising company marched cigarette-smoking women in flapper-style dress down New York’s 5th Avenue. They called the cigarettes the women’s ‘torches of freedom.’ (Marine-Street)

Another point of attack that tobacco marketers used to hook women on their product was to manipulate female’s insecurities around body image. By encouraging women to “Reach for a Lucky Instead of a Sweet,” for example, they purported the idea that women could and should maintain a thin figure by smoking cigarettes (Marine-Street). This campaign has only grown over the years, despite current knowledge about the massive health risks involved in the habit. In the 1970’s, tobacco companies invented “Slims” and “Thins” as a type of cigarette to reinforce their efforts to exploit women’s ideas about beauty and their bodies. Today, we have certainly not overcome such demeaning and underhanded tactics; instead, women are now free to smoke “Superslims.”

More Tobacco Ads targeted towards Women

Works Cited

Marine-Street, Natalie. “Stanford Researchers’ Cigarette Ad Collection Reveals How Big Tobacco Targets Women and Adolescent Girls.” The Clayman Institute for Gender Research. Stanford University, 26 Apr. 2012. Web. 24 Oct. 2013.

Technology Diary 4: Gyms

One thing I’ve noticed is that my gym is basically split by gender. There seems to be a consensus in the gym that the first floor is where everyone goes so both men and women are comfortable exercising there, but when you go to the second floor, you will very rarely see a women there even if the machines on the first floor are all taken. Unfortunately I never use the second floor myself even though there are a lot of machines up there that I enjoy using. The only time I’ll see women go upstairs is to get to the classrooms on the side of the second floor.

I would say  the second floor of my gym is somewhat intimidating. I would say it isn’t due to the machines upstairs being harder are more for men. If anything I would say it’s because they put all the heavy weights upstairs and all the light weight downstairs. So the heaviest weight you’ll find on the first floor will probably be around 10 pounds yet when you get upstairs it’s all 20 – 100 pounds. The way things are set up splits the gym up by gender because the men will more likely want to use the heavier weights. Even if a woman wanted to use one of the heavier weights I feel like they wouldn’t in gym just because the testosterone level is intimidating upstairs. There will be so many guys in the corner with their weights and absolutely no women on the second floor, not even on the treadmills that often women just go back downstairs because they feel out of place.  I remember I went with my cousin to try out the machines on the second floor and I left pretty fast just because the atmosphere on the second floor felt awkward to me.

Even though there are more guys on the second floor exercising, you will always find more women in the classroom.Whenever I go to my yoga class there will only be one or two guys maximum in a class of more than 20. I think it’s interesting to see how some people make not take part in some activities simply because they think that it isn’t for their gender in a way. I think the gym creates more of a gender barrier on what the men and women should participate in and causes people to flock only to certain things. When I took yoga in high school for example where the setting was more loose, half my yoga class would be filled with guys simply because they just naturally signed up for it and there wasn’t this gender specific barrier that was established.

Technology Diary (10/10)

Intersectionality is (now thanks to the third-wavers) a staple of feminism, but this doesn’t just include women of color, ethnic minorities, and lower classes. This also includes women who don’t fit into the media’s body standards of “beauty”. Unfortunately, for the women who are plus-sized, it’s hard to find clothes that are of quality and fit well. There have been start up companies who keep these women in mind, but it’s hard without funds to get good advertising to gain visibility and target this group.

I’ve noticed that even in the plus-sized section, the mannequins are no better accurate representations than the stick thin mannequins in the standard sized clothing sections. In fact, the plus size mannequins look more like the average woman. The reason for that is plus sized mannequins are just standard sized mannequins’ measurements magnified. In any case, the proportions are not accurate and doesn’t speak to the many different body shapes of the plus sized community. The inaccurate and rather lazy modeling of the mannequins leads to an industry filled with ill fitting clothing and baggy pieces as cop-outs. I mean, why would a fat woman want to accentuate her body’s curves? Shouldn’t she just feel ashamed and want to hide her body? (Please read with sarcasm).

Two fashion design students came up with the most accurate size 24 mannequin the industry has seen before. Even though every woman is built differently and retains fat in different parts of her body, they discovered (by using thousands of 3D imaging scans of plus sized women) that the pear shaped body was the most frequently found. These students released a small collection of Baroque inspired clothing for plus sized women called Rubens’ Women that celebrate curves rather than try to hide them.

It seems counter-intuitive that the fashion industry ignore the plus sized buyers since they have 28% of the market’s purchasing power and it’s a gold mine since it remains relatively untouched by designers. It only perpetuates the idea that fat women should be ashamed of their bodies and should not be allowed to take pride in what they wear and have the right to follow fashion. But, if more designers start paying attention to this target, even if just for profit’s sake, it’ll be a huge win for the community and for the intersectionality of fashion.

Technology Diary – 10/17

As these readings have shown, short hashtags can go a long way. For that reason I will be writing about how Twitter has been both campaigning for women online and impeding them at the same time.

Within Marie Hicks’ discussion of the evolution of coding from a feminine to masculine coding in “Brograms and the Power of Vaporware,” she brings up Twitter networks forming around the hashtags #changetheratio and #onereasonwhy. These hashtag campaigns bring up the gap between men and women in the technology industry. In addition, Courtney E. Martin and Vanessa Valenti’s paper #FemFuture: Online Revolution opened up discussion for taking up on the momentum that is mobilizing the online feminist world. Hashtags allow all these discussions to be easily found on Twitter, with each user getting a stage to speak their mind in 140 characters or less (or more if they write multiple tweets). Hashtags have helped conversations get started, especially when an injustice is brought up and the online feminist world becomes enraged. For example, earlier this year #Steubenbille (and currently reflected in #Justice4Daisy) brought up the conversation of injustice that a young girl is slut-shamed for getting raped while the male rapist is glorified for being a high school football star who cannot do any wrong.

However, hashtags can create the opposite situation, even amongst feminists. This is evidenced by Flavia Dzodan’s “US Centrism and Inhabiting a Non-Space in #femfuture.” Judith Butler’s discussion of labels being “instruments of regulatory regimes” comes into play here as Dzodan believes that the label #femfuture creates an inclusion of white, American-centric women while it excludes women of color and non-American. Additionally, many trending topics on Twitter tend to be sexist and misogynist [See examples here]. Fortunately, it seems that the online community of feminists is always live to fight off these trends!

Technology Diary 4: Clinical trials and the Fertility Industry

With all the technological advances happening everyday, people can live healthier and longer lives. This also means that women can have babies later in life and put their careers first and not be bound by nature. Women who cannot have their own biological children can still enjoy raising a family. Those with the means now have more options to select for the embryo that has the best chance of survival or better quality of life. I can appreciate the conveniences that these medical advances offer but upon further investigation, several issues come to my mind.

With the clinical testing, there come many key issues. The institutional Review board exists to ensure that there is no “coercion”, that the women joined the study on their own accord. However, by making compensations so high, many women are swayed by all they could do with that money and they do not think about the long-term consequences. Yes, they are making an important contribution to science and their peers when they donate eggs but who decides these prices? How can something as personal as a woman’s egg be placed on the capital market? But, there is a very real demand, both for knowledge and offspring, which keeps the fertility industry in business. Nor can these risks be explained with any sense of accuracy because the risks are still largely unknown. IVF treatments and other modes of fertility treatments have not been around long enough to know how these procedures affect the body. Many egg donors have experiences lower fertility rates when they are ready to have their own children, starting menopause earlier, and various forms of cancer including ovarian, colon and breast cancers. To ready their bodies to undergo egg donation, women must take large doses of hormones and putting these chemicals in their bodies and messing with the natural order of things has repercussions somewhere down the line. And there are so few IVF regulations in place that women do not know what happens to the eggs that do not get fertilized and get placed into the womb. These can and usually are used for research, which was not the original intention.

Technology Diary 3: Macbook

After reading the article on Sandberg’s Lean in by Kate Losse, I looked at my life and wondered if I’m depending on my Macbook too much. I honestly did not agree with most of Sandberg’s view on how women should solely focus on work and how even one’s family life and even possible children are seen as work. The thought that I would only start a family in order to create more work for myself simply horrifies me. I think Sandberg has good intentions for women in the labor force but her vision of how people’s lives should be seems to be a bit skewed, at least in my opinion. There’s this idea that everything a female should look forward to is work in order to stay in the game with men in a sense. It’s as if she’s out to prove that women can do so much work to society. In a way I don’t see it as taking a step forward but taking a step back. What is the point of doing all this work when you can’t truly be happy. Of course some people may just love working, but they seem to be in the minority especially with the no taking vacations idea.

My Macbook is the one piece of technology that I constantly use. I don’t really watch television and I’m okay without my phone. I would probably go through a lot of trouble and be bored if I didn’t have my Macbook with me at home. The idea that technology allows us to work whenever really does resonate with me. I probably can’t get any work done without my laptop these days. I’ll also stay up all night to do things simply because of the amount of information I can access online and how much easier it is to get work done. You just lose track of time. To think that 6 years ago, I didn’t even have a laptop, and only used the computer to play games and chat with my friends. After reading Losse’s piece about Sandberg, it made me wonder how I would manage with my Macbook. It has essentially become a part of me. The thing for me is that technology is not only about work. I also enjoy watching shows on my Macbook and it’s fun to skype with people on it. I see my Macbook as something that has increased both my pleasure and work life.