Gendered Machines: Body

2020·10.4 MB·English

by  Whitney Humphreys

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Gendered Machines
VOiesad BODY
Just as an ideal fem Sa edt ay
Bss ty et ae lieSa obl ly inven ted to serve male des Es) Gay
technological artifacts, tools and media,
have voeen bus CLO LULELLI the needs of the
hi storically male-controlled
landscape of i nvent LON.
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See
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»* Gendered Machines:
non-human, mechanical objects
that are associated with,
Signifiers of, or assigned a gender.
Gendering Machines: ©
Systems of codifying identities,
deployed to limit the inherent potential
for wunending-possibiite=y=
POmOUnLLO. torougn. categorization,
influenced by tropes in media.
Repeating media representations
act 0 ok understandings of
objecatnd- ~~h poersoonhdood .
Peeve a. polarization 1s > found:
built for service=or= for ponimation =
Nats Seae Eahs Cre pase: Ee* , er r Feared for their power
Paes Bee pe a
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A patriarchal oversimplification
The Mad/Man Scientist
and the Machine-Woman
Allegorically expressed in any attempt
to artificially construct a wi tepro..
the unending techno-~extension of the self
is revealed as acutely gendered,
manifesting as
an endeavor to procreate without a mother,
or in the long-fantasized, masculinist dream
to construct the perfect woman:
obedient, nurturing, and
built to an imagined perfection,
a mechanical bride.

Wifebot is the
new Frankenstein:
An incarnation of
male fantasies of reproduction,
representing man’s need
to impose control over the world,
mastering nature with science,
usurping God and womanhood
by at last claiming the power
to create life.
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In such narratives,
the agency granted
to a robotic woman
incites chaos
to established systems
Gree aatrilarchal order,