the reason Jay attributed this distinction to Turkle is
cuz of an article she co-authored with her ex, Papert, that was
published in Signs, where they make a (fatal) distinction between
hard and soft mastery of computers.
guess who gets to be "hard".
not a skill-testing question!
it is probably importnt to notice here that in fact if the
distinction being made is a binary one, like "the 2 genders", then
it is sex being referred to, and not gender.
and when white straight folks talk about gender in terms of hard and soft,
like Belenky et al women's ways of knowing do-do, they are really talking about
white heterosexist constructions of masculinity and feministy as polar
opposites.
just ask a bunch of dyke computer freaks how "soft" they are in relation
to computers
silly really
Mary
"contra naturam!"
Associate Professor, Education/UBC
Principal Co-Investigator: GenTech Project
http://www.educ.sfu.ca/gentech/index.htm