Women and New Information Technologies

My paper looks at how the profit driven market often influences the technologies that are prevalent in the female dominated private sphere. This video is of a gas refrigerator which funnyily enough was the leading refrigerator brand into the 1920's, however, because there was interest by electric companies gas refrigerators were evenutally suppressed making way for the profitable, yet environementally unfriendly electric refrigerator.

I decided to post the introduction to my paper because it incooperates many ideas that been learnt in Cmns 455 throughout the semester: The paradox of gaming is that it allows for the transgression of gender identities while simultaneously promoting a fantasy world based on historically ascribed gender roles and stereotypical feminine and masculine characteristics. On one hand, the internet and gaming technology free women from their dominant role in the domestic sphere by allowing them to take on different identities regardless of gender. However, because games are predominantly designed by men, and often adhere to the traits regarded as feminine, the question must be raised of whether this can therefore truly be described as gender parity? Or is it simply another facet of the long history that men have had controlling the technologies that inhabit the private sphere? With those questions in mind the purpose of this paper is to describe the male dominated gendering of domestic technologies while analyzing how such practices have filtered into the digital gaming world. To extend that point, through both essentialist and cyberfeminist points of view, this paper will analyze the degree to which the male dominated gaming world reflects the stereotypes and capitalist mindset that has been historically entrenched within Western social structure.

Although not directly correlated to my paper, this video does epitomize the how the historically female dominated domestic sphere and trangressed into the digital world. The video portrays universally accepted female stereotypes and then associates the womens productivity with tasks that are performed in the house.

Here’s a vid I made (for fun) last year setting the movie "Fight Club" to Britney Spears’ "Circus". My goal for this video wasn’t feministic; I just wanted to take two highly disjunctive pieces of pop culture and somehow work it into a cohesive whole. But I guess I could say that in this video, Tyler Durden’s extreme machismo has been redefined in terms of Britney’s aggressive assertion of female sexuality. Or maybe the other way around...

- Gen

JOhanna S

Wow what a semester!

I like this class and the term paper because of the choice I could make about what to write about.  The options were endless but I did manage to pick a topic and theory to focus on.  I choose women in the workforce and the theory of the glass ceiling.  This topic was of particular interest to me because I myself might experience gender discrimination in the workforce.  The barriers I chose to examine are the structure of the workplace being very masculine, the pay gap between men and women as well as the issue of motherhood becoming a barrier in women’s advancement in their careers.  I did a case study of three women who have broken the proverbial glass ceiling and they are Ann Oakley, Margaret Boden and Hillary Rodham Clinton.  I ended my paper by suggesting many reasons women are beneficial to employ as they make great leaders.  I enjoyed writing this paper and this semester, the course was interesting and fun. 

Johanna S    

I remember getting linked to the Buffy vs. Edward video when it first came out and being uber impressed by it. At the time I assumed it was a girl who made it, so it was pleasantly surprising (and surprisingly jarring) when I read this week's article and found out it was made by a guy (Jonathan McIntosh, pictured here). Props to him for the amazing work, it just goes to show that guys can be great feminists too.

On a related note, I find discussions/commentaries in video parody form to be so intriguing - they're appealing to a very common public but speak to important issues that seldom really get brought up in the popular media or in everyday discourse. Awesome.

- Gen

This week the Taylor article particularly enticed me. The premise of this article came early on when Taylor stated the questions asked by de Castell and Bryson in regards to

"who interests will be served in making use of the purportedly "essential" differences as a basis for creating "girl friendly" computer mediated environments? Most importantly , are we producing tools for girls, or are we producing girls themselves by, as Althusser would put it, "interpellating" the desire to become the girl? by playing with girlish toys, does the girl learn to become the kind of woman she was always already destined to become?"

and extended them to apply to his own research asking the questions

"How can we do research and write on the subject in ways that do not prioti essentialize or assume difference through the very construction of our projects, the formulation of our questions, the performance of our ethnographies and interviews? And what does research into gender and computer games look like if from the outset it reflectively and progressively confronts and deals with the always present production and performance of gender?"

I thought these questions were effective in representing the purpose of the article and I liked how he explored the case study of Edu=art as a way to extend the point that in order for women to be accepted as gamers there needs to be change. Change that Edu-art is looking to enforce, through special gaming events, that women are equal to men in the gaming world its just that male gamers need to recognize it and be exposed to it.
Another interesting aspect of the article were the gendered technologies described, such as the DS lite, and the emphasis on exposing games to girls as a method to nurture more girl gamers. Taylor puts forth the notion that there may not be a high interest in girl gaming because girls are given the impression, whether through media or through the industry itself, that games are not made for them. One thought that I had while reading this article that it seems as though girls are being included more than ever in the gaming world, at least more so then when I was elementary school; that although they are being told, through these games, how to act and the appropriate way to be a girl, these games are introducing them to skills necessary to be active participants in the male dominated gaming world. Furthermore, I don't know if there is anything wrong with girls playing with "girly" toys and that that activity could potentially lead them to the women they were destined to become. Caitlin

JOhanna S

I like this article because the argument is clear and in some way, for me, it just makes sense. Although the author talks about her work too much, I see at the end of the article the reason for this, she is very accomplished. The analysis she develops is very in tune with our class as gender roles are discussed over the topic of video games. Using the Sydney Australia video game club as a research method Walkerdine discovered the many ways girls try to ‘perform’ both feminine and masculine roles. One of the more interesting ways girls perform a feminine role is by picking “cute and cuddly avatars” (Walkerdine, 523). This is a way for girls to play a ‘boy game’ as a girl, even though “both girls and boys talk about female avatars as have less power” (Walkerdine, 523). The most obvious example of this is Princess Peach; she has fewer powers than the male avatars and is often the topic of discussion amongst boys as a ‘poor character’. It is interesting that girls have the option to pick male avatars, however in order to perform like a girl they more often than not choose a poor character, a female avatar. The article suggests that girls like female characters that possess both female and male characteristics. By this I believe have a female look but still have power like “the sisters from Charmed” (Walkerdine, 524). Why does there have to be a choice or balance between feminine and masculine characteristics?

JOhanna S

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