of course, it's useful to think about technologies & tools as gendered
artifacts,
securely nestled in everyman's-land: determining agency within the tools and
technologies (AI, eg) is a kind of
masculinist projection in the wave of women-technologists... sure,
women can have agency, but the tools are still men's. AI is literally configured
and programmed
in traditions of rational/logic structures, which privilege men's
"superior" "intelligence:... and so on. It's a patriarchy kind of thing.
Domination. all
that political stuff. The very practice of *discussing* the issue betrays
the male-squirm: can humans and nonhumans have the same agency?
translated: can our tools have pricks?
HISTORY TRIVIA: In the 1950s, Xerox Corp. hired a little group of hot-shot
computer whiz-kids to hole up in a tech-lab in Colorado, and... well,
design the damned future!!
So, these Xerox kids (*the only computer-research team working in the
corporation sector at that time who employed women as active researchers*)
came up with object-oriented
language, and the beginnings of the Intel chip.
Xerox said, "not what we wanted" (translated: we don't understand what
you've done)
Steve Jobs trots down, sees what they've done, "gets it" and, voila: Macintosh.
diane
"Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right."
Ani Difranco
*********************************
diane celia hodges
faculty of education
university of british columbia
vancouver, bc canada
tel: (604)-253-4807
email: dchodges who-is-at interchange.ubc.ca