you diplomat you! ;-)
>
>It must be the case, given their cultural coevolution and the ways these
>notions have been used interdependently over centuries, that gender
>ideals and ideas of Agency have become semantically and ideologically
>linked. Active/Passive is a reflex of the traditional Masculine/Feminine
>dichtomy; and Agentive/non-Agentive is very deep in the semantics of
>most grammars (certainly English and its Indo-European cousins).
>
>The same kinds of arguments that Walkerdine makes regarding the links of
>Rational/Emotional to Scientific/Intuitive to Masculine/Feminine would
>seem plausible for Agency issues as well.
it would seem to me that agency is activity, which takes place in
socio-cultural/historical contexts - so that it is enmeshed in those
historical practices seems rather obvious, yes.
I would have to say, (against my better judgement I might add), that
reducing these to dichotomies still privileges a particular kind of
organizational practice -
dualities are easier to manage,
but tend to erase differences. The masculine/feminine dichotomy
exists insofar as it is perceived as useful, I think. So, what I mean is,
to really understand the
gendered features of our techno-landscapes, it is perhaps prudent to understand
the effects of the Rational/Masculine as historical devices, but perhaps
not quite so artefactual as the technologies themselves.
smartspeak. what the hell did I just say? I know:
>Turing believes machines think
>Turing lies with men
>Therefore machines do not think
>excerpt: Alan Turing letter to Norman Routledge, 1952
that's a footer on Mary Bryson's email sig...Turing is a possible example
of all that is potentially queer about technology. Don't you think?
Mary?
>
>When thinking about robots, for example, especially threatening or
>powerful ones, is there not an implicit sense (and explicitly in
>fiction) of masculine gender and dispositions? Contrast the most common
>artifact of large scale to take feminine gender, the ship, which can be
>boarded, must be steered, is important mainly for its interior, and has
>little connotation of autonomous agency. (Perhaps the historically
>accurate contrast with ship is the locomotive engine ...)
ah! just watched the 1956 film, "Forbidden Planet" - Robby the Robot, who
later went on the great fame in the TV series, "Lost in Space"... was
framed in every aspect as a relationship between the great White master
(Walter Pidgeon)
and the obedient loyal noble black slave (Robby)... there are elements of
colonialism in all that too: the desire to cotnrol the workforce by a
simple command; even trained
not to kill humans (every "white man's dream", perhaps?)
>
>So when we think about tools, including intelligent agents in the AI
>sense, and about the moral and political dimensions of agency, I think
>we may be in for some interesting surprises about the connections to our
>notions of masculinity. These presumably carry over into design issues
>as well. I'm not prepared to take these up right now, but I hope we
>will keep coming back to them.
>
>JAY.
...throughout that film, I was struck by how it was organized and directed
and written and acted in a 1956 context of 'everyman's desire' ... it
interests me, personally, the way desire is wrapped up in all of this...
that AI represents a desire, just as
willing agency into furniture and PCs betrays a desire; BUT whoa now hey
there y'know I think that perceiving agency as essentially interactive has
some value... I'm just not entirely clear on the concept, perhaps.
"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