Anne Balsamo discusses
gendered and sexualized imagery and discourse that is socially constructed to
fill designed, technological space.
The selection from “
Reading Cyborgs Writing Feminism” a nice job laying out a foundation for the
concept of cyborg, and identifies as the foremost postmodern icon produced by a
combination of cultural fears and desires of our current society. Balsamo goes
on to explain that even within the realm of hybridized technology, stereotyped
constructs of males and females exist, as they do in the natural world.
This made me think
of Laura Mulvey and the feminist concept of the “male gaze” which she
introduced in her essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”. I remember
reading portions of it in a previous Communication class- being exposed to it
helped me to better visualize cyborg images through a feminine lens.
Additionally, I was frustrated by the thought that cyborg images and
manifestations recreate and uphold gendered stereotypes, and I wonder if female
robots, technohumans and cyber women are always going to built to appease the
visual needs of their male counterparts?
Balsamo also writes
that typically, male cyborg characters inhabit standardized masculine traits,
while female cyborgs exhibit traits that are distinctly feminine. It is
interesting to me that in societal sphere where gender can be technologically
enhanced and modified, bodies are still being built and designed with idealized
gender traits. I do realize that designs are innately subjective, but, as
Balsamo claims, they are also imagined due to cultural influences.
- Hannah Guthman
That is an interesting connection to make with Laura Mulvey and the feminist concept of the “male gaze” since Anna Balsamo introduces the idea of "reading the body" and how the body is represented within the culture as well as how it is looked at.
ReplyDeleteI really like the connections that you both make between Mulvey and Balsamo. (One of the important contributions that Balsamo has made in co-founding FemTechNet was to bring feminist media studies and feminist science and technology studies together whenever possible.) The implied issue of what the female gaze's relationship to technology could be is interesting. One of the things I noted in a famous essay about personal computing, Vannevar Bush's "As We May Think," is that the fact that he talks about the "disquieting gaze" of a female stenographer operating a Vocoder machine. Bush's 1945 essay is available online at http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/303881/ It might be interesting extra credit reading for students in this class.
ReplyDelete