Technology Diary – 9/19

Like Caroline, television is one of the technologies in Panem that I use today in the United States. However, I thought it would interesting to explore the issue of “voyeurism” of reality television. The idea of The Hunger Games is that of punishment of the twelve districts for rebelling, serving “as a yearly reminder that the Dark Days must never be repeated” (Collins, 18). However, while it serves as punishment for the twenty-four children/young adults that participate every year, whether they die in the Games or suffer from emotional trauma for winning, for the citizens of the Capitol and the people watching in the twelve districts of Panem, The Hunger Games serves as entertainment.

During the 74th Hunger Games, Katniss is extremely aware that there is an audience watching her every move. After being hidden and overhearing the conversation between Peeta and the Career Tributes, she knew that “the minute I hit the ground, I’m guaranteed a close-up” and that the “audience will have been besides themselves, knowing that I was in the tree , that I overheard the Careers talking” (Collins, 163). In addition to being watched constantly, the Gamemakers have the ability to control the fates of the tributes, as they are able to create action when the Games are becoming mundane. For example, Katniss realized that the “unnatural” blaze that surrounded her were “human-made, machine-made, Gamemaker-made” (Collins, 173). Lastly, Katniss understands that the audience loves romance, the idea of the “star-crossed lovers” from District 12 could save their lives when she and Peeta almost consume the poisonous nightlock berries, since she knows that “without a victor, the whole thing would blow up in the Gamemakers’ faces” (Collins, 344).

The viewing of the Hunger Games is not unlike reality television programming today. Now the audience can watch the every move of the participant (as in the case of Big Brother’s live feed of HouseGuests). Gamemakers and viewers hold the key to a player’s fate (i.e. American Idol, Dancing with the Stars). Americans feed off of drama presented on reality television. According to Psychology Today, “Reality TV allows Americans to fantasize about gaining status through automatic fame.” Similarly, one can say people in Panem fantasize about living in danger through the Hunger Games. This would especially be true for the children who are old enough to get reaped and must prepare for next year in case they are chosen. For the citizens of the Capitol, it may be for similar reasons, except they’ll never be in danger of ever participating in the Hunger Games.

Technology Diary 9/19

*Late post because I changed my topic halfway through…*

The technology I would like to focus on this week is fashion or clothing in general. I admit that clothes are not the first thing that comes to my mind when I use the word, “technology.” It seems to have been with us, humans, since our evolutionary ancestors lost their thick body hair and needed something external for protection. In short, clothing has been with us for a very long time especially if you compare it to computers or smart phones. Not to say that clothing does not include “technological advances:” we can look at the huge range of fabrics that were invented in the last hundred years and the importance and effects of clothing related technologies such as the cotton gin that inevitably crops up in every American history class.

However, you can definitely apply the framework Rosser used in discussing feminism and technology to clothing and fashion. The perspectives about women in the technology workforce can be applied to clothing especially at the manufacturing level. Issues about the workforce that makes clothing are the same as the ones about the workforce that makes our electronics (highly gendered and colored, issues of pay, safety and health…the past garment factory fires this year). The question of technology design in clothing and fashion might seem like the opposite of the issues Rosser raises, but it can be agreed upon that there is a gender skew in both industries and a point of interest would be how women are viewed and treated in the male dominated technological design field and how men are viewed and treated in the female dominated clothing design field. The last part of Rosser’s framework, technology use, probably brings up the most obvious gendered aspects in the technology of clothing and fashion.

I am not dismissing other parts of what de Lauretis calls “representation,” which as a process and product constitutes the construction of gender, such as posture, language, actions, roles, and the other countless things we use to represent gender. However, at least in our society and culture, I feel that clothing is a huge component in this (physical) representation. There is the easy fruit: which gender can wear certain clothing items (suits, pants vs. dresses, skirts) or colors or styles, etc. without being called out in our normalizing society. I also argue that clothing/ fashion framed as technological use is a huge component in The Hunger Games. There is a reason why there is a role of a stylist for the Games and it seems that they receive as much attention as the role of mentors from the tributes as well as the amount of detail Katniss/ Suzanne Collins gives to descriptions of the various outfits in the book. The book also seems to bring up two views toward fashion/ clothing as technological use relevant to our society and culture.

The first view would be that fashion is frivolous. It is obvious that Katniss distains the residents of the Capitol by calling out on their devotion to their clothes, make up, and use of surgery to alter their bodies and preserve the image of youth. It is no surprise that Katniss warms up to and respects Cinna, who is described as being much less flamboyant, when at best she would view the rest of the prep team as “an affectionate trio of pets at the end of a particularly difficult day” (Collins, 2008, p. 253). Attuned with our class’s discussion, class is a huge cause of this view: residents of Districts like District 12 have to worry about getting enough food for the day, not which outfit to wear that day. However, the view that fashion is frivolous seems tied to gendered views found in our own society and culture. Katniss overhears one of the Careers complaining, “[Katniss] seemed pretty simpleminded to me. Every time I think about her spinning around in that dress, I want to puke” (Collins, 2008, p. 162). This statement has similar connotations about fashion/ attention to clothing (especially by a female) to the ones brought up in our society such as being a simpleton, materialistic, and unimportant. There is also a tie to the view that females are inherently more interested in fashion, clothing, and appearances even though all sexes and genders use this technology. This is probably also connected to the generalization that almost anything where women supposedly dominate is cast off as less important, serious, etc.

The other view present in The Hunger Games can be seen as the flip side: fashion is political, especially as a tool. Despite, Katniss’s distaste for the seemingly frivolous prep concerning her apperance for the pre-Games ceremonies, she takes Haymitch’s advice to let the stylists do whatever they want to heart. She admits that Cinna’s design choices results in “a very calculated look” and “nothing Cinna designs is arbitrary” (Collins, 2008, p. 355). It is obvious that fashion/ clothing is an important strategy of survival especially for tributes that are disadvantaged from lack of training with weapons and physical strength. The flaming outfits for Katniss and Peeta in the Opening ceremonies were meant to be eye catching to rally up interest in the audience that will lead to sponsors. The fact that the stylists for Katniss and Peeta decided that all the outfits worn by them (even in their “downtime”) should match or complement each other was meant to promote the two as a pair, a deviance from the all for one mentality of the Games and later as visual backing of them as lovers. This theme seems to continue in the rest of the trilogy (spoilers courtesy of Wikipedia) as fashion/ clothing becomes a point of resistance beyond the Hunger Games.

A side note (as if this post is not long enough, sorry), I mentioned in the forum that I never read the trilogy before this course or even watched the movie, but it is hard to not miss the promotion for the upcoming movie, Catching Fire. To me there seems to be slant towards promoting the trilogy through high fashion/ costumes and some quick googling revealed that a fashion line tied to the movie is being launched. I wonder if this tie-in/ marketing technique (introduction of capitalism and consumerism into this conversation) plays down the political and resistance themes of the trilogy and throws fashion/ clothing as technology into the frivolous category.

Technology Diary 1

One thing that has really caught my attention lately are computers and being able to use a computer and deal with software etc. There seems to be this assumption that girls aren’t as good as guys when it comes to using computers and fixing problems related to it. I remember when I went on vacation with my friends to California and we encountered flight issues due to the plane having mechanical problems. Because of this we had to go to customer service and request for a flight change. While we were waiting online my friend noticed that all the employees were female and automatically said, this is going to take forever, cause they’re all woman so they probably won’t be able to fix our problem as fast. Honestly I was offended at the moment, and was shocked by his assumptions. Due to this we got into a heated debate and then when we finally got to the counter, one of the woman had issues with the computer and needed another women to help her fix it. My friend was quick to point it out to me how she as a woman made a mistake but paid no attention to the fact that it has been another woman to fix the issue.

The computer software industry is definitely dominated by men even today, but it has somehow turned into a women are incompetent with computers situation. Even my brother automatically assumes that if there’s an issue with the computer then the issue must be with me and my inability to use it correctly. In my household it seems as if when I fix something with the computer, I was probably lucky but on the other hand my brother is known as the computer pro. It makes me wonder if other females are put down in terms of their technological capabilities by guys, even guys that they are close with.

But it also makes me wonder if this problem is caused by us and the way society is. I for one am guilty of asking my guy friends on more than one occasion to fix technological issues even when I’m fully capable of figuring out how to fix it myself, and have female friends who are just as capable of helping me out. From what I’ve seen it’s quite common for girls to ask guys to help them out with this kind of stuff but very rare the other way around. So it makes me wonder if I myself have built this generalization.

Technology Diary (9/12)

I also wanted to discuss some of the issues that riddle the video gamer subculture like Pranitha. Being a woman and being accepted in the geek culture is like a Catch 22. You’re one of two tropes; you’re either good-looking and seeking male attention or you’re unattractive and completely shamed for not looking like a comic book heroine. Either way, you’re not a true fan. The subculture is just so blatantly and unapologetically sexist in the way that women are hostilely interrogated to prove their knowledge of a fandom. Why can’t women be accepted as fans instead of having to prove it? Men are automatically assumed to be genuinely interested and accepted.

This issue is also rooted in how gendered the gaming industry is and has always been. From a young age, toy retailers advertise video games heavily as a masculine hobby. The outrageous violence and themes of war and car chases and explosions are deemed “masculine” things than make boys into men. Mostly all the women portrayed in video games are scantily clothed and used as sex objects. In Grand Theft Auto, a player gets points for raping a woman on the street! Not only does this tell young boys that it’s okay to dehumanize women and they’ll be rewarded for it, but it also speaks to the kind of power and hyper-masculinity that characterizes the male gender.

Fans are not the only ones that suffer from sexism in this subculture; designers face a sexist industry as well. Jean-Max Morris, video game developer, faced this problem when he tried to get a company to sell his game, Remember Me. Remember Me is a video game with a strong female protagonist dressed appropriately for her missions as she tries to regain her lost memories by hacking others’ and remixing them. His game was rejected on the premise that having a female protagonist wouldn’t sell and that Nilin, the main character, would have to be gendered as a male. The reasoning that men are the only ones who should be playing video games, and these men only want to play as other men completely ignore and reject all the female gamers. Not surprisingly, women are not properly represented in this industry simply because games targeting them are already considered dead on arrival when really they’re not even given the chance to be funded and released.

It speaks volumes how an 18-25 male market is considered the prime target audience when an all women market is still considered niche.

If you’re a female gamer or just want to watch a funny girl’s spin on the sexist industry, I recommend this!

Technology Diary 1: Algorithms

After reading through the Technology Diary entries posted so far, with particular inspiration coming from Vita (on BIC “For Her” pens) and Cynthia’s (on Gillette Venus shaving razors) posts, I wanted to dig a bit deeper into the dark world of marketing. Vita and Cynthia’s diary contributions are particularly valuable because they provide examples of technologies that yield different versions to market towards females and males. And yet, the differences are so superficial that it is often difficult to understand why distinct versions are necessary, or more importantly, how they are taken seriously. For consumers, maybe it stems from societal pressures to conform to rigid gender roles. For producers, profit incentive seems to play a large role, as both Vita and Cynthia point out the cost discrepancy between gendered versions of ultimately identical products.

Changing the scope slightly, I’d like to take a look at a different type of marketing, one that has gained enormous popularity in the past five years and drastically changed the way we browse the Internet: algorithmic marketing. Back in 2011, a political activist named Eli Pariser gave a TED Talk on just this issue. He stressed that search results, like advertisements, can now be tailored to users based on various facets of their online identity. He cited Facebook, The Huffington Post, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Yahoo News, some of the most widely visited websites, as companies that employ such personalized and personalizing algorithms to shape user experience and access of information. According to Pariser, Google’s algorithm “considers” 57 different traits when cultivating specific results for specific people (and how interesting that list of traits would be!). Clearly, gender certainly plays a role here, but is just one of many characteristics used to distinguish search results from user to user.

Pariser also pointed out a key flaw in the automation of cultivated results by exposing a dilemma discovered by researchers at Netflix regarding users’ queues: because algorithms build cases based on what users click first, they ignore the “epic struggle going on between our future aspiration selves and our more impulsive present selves. We all want to be someone who has watched Rashoman, but right now we want to watch Ace Ventura for the fourth time” (Pariser). In other words, algorithms fail to take into account the complexities and multiplicities of our tastes and interests. Another problem with this format is that users have no say as to how their results are shaped, nor can users gain access to the vast amount of information that is filtered out in the process. These issues hark back to Rosser’s critique of the separation between creator and user in technology design. The creator assumes authority over the standard of usage, while the user remains unconsulted and in the dark. Furthermore, because these algorithms rely on a combination of objective (physical location) and socially constructed (gender) traits, they surreptitiously reinforce the influence of the latter.

Pariser, Eli. (2011, March). Beware: online “filter bubbles”. TED Conference, Long Beach, CA.

Below are two TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Talks on algorithms, from two very different perspectives:

Eli Pariser: Beware online “filter bubbles”

Kevin Slavin on How Algorithms are Changing Our World

Healing and the Hunger Games

Healing is a recurring theme in the Hunger Games.  The ways in which medicine (ranging from wild herbs to high-tech ointments and cosmetic surgical procedures) is used changes according to class and gender.  To me, this relates to the way medicine has been practiced based on class and gender.

Katniss’ mother is a healer, and her sister, Primrose, seems to be becoming one too.  Many people in District 12 turn to Katniss’ mother for help with their sicknesses and injuries.  She’s taken as an authority because she has the knowledge and experience necessary to help them.  People are treated on their kitchen table in the Seam.

In the Capitol, the little that we see of medicine is high-tech and complicated.  After the Games, Katniss and Peeta are completely anesthetized and their bodies are “redone” by nameless doctors and surgeons in lab coats.  Katniss’ hearing in her left ear, made deaf by a bomb blast, is even restored.

In our world, healing came from a women’s task to a men’s profession.  This is shown most clearly in the field of obstetrics.  Midwifery, once a respected, yet low-paid task, held only by women, has been mostly replaced by obstetrics, which introduced men into the field and subsequently raised the pay and turned it into a profession.  Medicine went from the familiar—a local & experienced, but also maybe not so well trained, doctor—to the unfamiliar—hospitals with many specialists.

Medical care also differs by class, race, and sex.  While class has an obvious impact on the quality and accessibility of care one can receive, race and sex can also have more subtle impacts on treatment.  Studies have shown that women and minorities often get sub-standard care because their questions and health conditions simply aren’t taken as seriously by doctors (an extreme example of this is in the case of Henrietta Lacks, a woman who was told very little about the cancer that ultimately caused her death).

The Hunger Games and TV

There were a lot of pieces of technology that I felt I could relate to the Hunter Games, but the one that jumped out at me the most, of course, was television. The Hunger Games was aired on TV so that everyone could watch, and included a lot of elements that actually apply to television today. In the Hunger Games, the culture of the Capitol thrives on looking at people and what they do, similar to what’s on TV today. A very popular genre of TV currently is reality television. Everyone loves watching what people do in their lives, examining and placing judgment on their relationships, their friendships, their jobs, and everything else. In Panem, the Hunger Games is one gigantic reality TV competition. Residents of the Capitol are excited to watch the interviews of contestants in a quick talk-show type format where they can discover what the tributes are like and feel as if they really know them. The contestants are paraded around in various outfits, all in preparation for the main attraction: the Games themselves. The Games are absolutely horrible because everyone watches a selection of teenagers prepare to kill each other. It’s clearly much worse than the dance shows and talent shows of today, but perhaps Suzanne Collins is using the Games to critique these reality shows, and the culture we have today. We love to watch the lives of others, but it is for our own entertainment. We don’t really necessarily care about the people we see on TV – but we watch them anyway.

One difference I think that was in the Hunger Games favor, though, was that I noticed that the Games were not very gendered. There was one male and one female tribute chosen from each district, and they were treated basically the same regardless of gender. This is very different from television we experience, where big topics of conversation are regarding the outward physical appearance of women, where women and people of color are not represented, and where sexist and racist jokes are considered to be an acceptable form of comedy.

Technology Diary 1: Facebook

For this post I decided to go for more of a software aspect of technology rather than the more concrete hardware. Facebook, with over a billion users, a movie about it, an extremely valuable stock, and a key part of the Millennial generation’s social fabric, it is a piece of technology that plays a major role in our society.

When most people interrogate Facebook, they often look to its role in cyber bullying, political revolutions, online sexual predators, or just the way its changed the way that people communicate. Absent from the mainstream discussion is gender. Sorry to disappoint some readers, but I am not going to talk about how Facebook enables feminists around the world to unite and build an online coalition to seek a more egalitarian world, this may be true and a point of very interesting and important discussion, but I want to first address the elephant in the room, the way people of different genders use the website.

Disclaimer: The statements I am about to make are obviously not absolute and there are tons of exceptions. These are just trends based on what I’ve observed with my friends use of Facebook.

Growing up and to this day, I’ve always had a lot of friends that were girls (this is probably because  I have a large group of all-girl first cousins whom I’ve always been very close with). As a result I’ve been able to gain a better understanding of the differences between the ways women socialize and men socialize, this knowledge extends to social media.

When I use Facebook, as most other men do as well, I use it primarily as a means of communication. I keep in touch with friends from high school and abroad, I share the occasional funny or interesting video or link, coordinate an event, and comment on the occasional photo or post. Aside from that I post pictures of vacations or significant events in my life, but not excessively at all, and I rarely ever tag a picture of myself.

For girls, on the other hand, Facebook is far beyond just a means of communication, it is a determinant of  social status and hierarchy. Because of this the ways girls use Facebook is much more calculated. For example a fair amount of my friends have had mini crises over what their new profile picture should be out of fear of being judged. Moreover, there is apparently a set of etiquette for girls on the website that does exist for guys. It is an expectation for things like commenting or liking other girl friends’ profile pictures and praising them on their attractiveness. If this expectation is not met it is taken as an insult or betrayal.

Because of the lack of expectations for me, as a man, Facebook can be a place of relaxation, procrastination, distractions, and a nice way to just veg out. I cannot imagine that this experience is identical to girls that practice the mainstream Facebook expectations, and it would seem that it could just be an added form of stress. (Maybe this is why I’ve noticed that out of my friends who deactivate their Facebook accounts, the majority of them are girls)

Overall, it seems that a certain set of expectations exists for women (specifically teenage girls) on Facebook that does not exist for men. This creates almost two different Facebooks, divided by gender into different uses, user expectations, and codes of conduct. And it is  proof that no matter how our technology changes, our cultural norms and expectations will always continue to shape it.