As a female student majoring in computer science, gender and technology will always be strongly linked for me. As part of a clear minority, there are many times when I have been shocked at the reactions and stereotypes that have accompanied my years in programming classes. (“You’re a girl.” Really? Thank you for that news bulletin.) In a technical major, I am clearly defined as female. Haraway and Lyotard both see the ideas of gender and technology as being very related, yet they take very different stances on the issue of how. While there were certainly times that I wished my gender didn’t define me within my program, somewhat similar to Haraway’s extreme view, Lyotard’s recognition of the importance of both sexes is both more practical and beneficial for our world and advances in technology.
Haraway takes a rather extreme viewpoint, and sees gender as something to be pretty much completely destroyed. She acknowledges gender as part of a person’s identity now, but argues that “Gender might not be global identity after all, even if it has profound historical breadth and depth” (180). Clearly she is pushing for a change. For her, the difference between male and female is just one aspect of the greater hierarchy in life today that needs to be broken down. She sees this hierarchy as one of oppression, and until gender differences are not destroyed this oppression will always exist. Technology then, according to Haraway, is the way in which this can done, through the image of the cyborg. Her definition of a cyborg is very deep and covers a variety of different angles, but one of these is clearly that of a new social reality – “The cyborg is a creature in post-gender world” (150). Her view of a “better” world may be a lot different than what others would choose. For instance, she discusses the emergence of the “Homework Economy” beginning on page 166. Part of the industrial revolution and one consequence of technology, she says, is the restructuring of laboring and deskilling of the work force, making jobs very vulnerable and able to be restructured at any moment. This seems like a very bad thing for the labor economy (especially so for all of the people who are losing their jobs), but Haraway actually seems to be pleased with these changes. She notes that women’s places in the work force are becoming more and more important in both the economy and the home, which is thus breaking down some of the traditional barriers between males and females. In an sense, if its leveling the playing field between women and men, it seems to be ok for Haraway. For her such modifications are something to be embraced, not avoided.
For Haraway, technology, through the cyborg, has the ability to bring some huge changes. She talks about changing what counts as experience, basically restructuring all of life. The boundaries of gender are not necessary, though we may see them as such – “We are responsible for boundaries; we are they” (180). We are in control of the boundaries, and can use technology to remove them. She seems to believe that we can, with the help of technology, completely change the current view of gender, one which is filled with hierarchy and oppression. Gender, however is only the beginning for Harway, and is used as a symbol of all boundaries and hierarchies that exist. “Race, gender, and capital require a cyborg theory of wholes and parts. There is no drive in cyborgs to produce total theory, but there is an intimate experience of boundaries their construction and deconstruction. There is a myth system waiting to become a political language to ground one way of looking at science and technology and challenging the informatics of domination” (181). Through the cyborg and technology, Haraway envisions a utopia without division.
Lyotard almost directly addresses views like Haraway’s when he says, “The notion of gender dominant in contemporary society wants this gap closed, this transcendence toppled, this powerlessness overcome” (21). He, on the other hand, does not seek to destroy these gender differences. He, rather, sees them as essential. While Haraway dreams of a new world that would be better due to the elimination of gender and other boundaries, Lyotard is focused on creating a new world, but is insistent on its failure unless gender did exist. Lyotard’s utopia could not occur without gender. For him these differences are to be embraced, as they are the reason for all thinking. Thinking, he argues, can only be brought about through the desire for something that we lack. “And if we think, this is because there’s still something missing in this plentitude and room has to be made for this lack by making the mind a blank, which allows the something else remaining to be thought to happen” (20). If there was absolutely nothing missing in life, then there would be nothing to think, because there would be no space to fill. The lack brings about desire. Our gender differences are then extremely necessary, because they give us something to lack. Lyotard argues that each gender lacks what the other has, and feels this lack inside, which brings about desire. Without this desire, we wouldn’t have any reason to think or create new things. In other words, without gender, we couldn’t have thought or technology at all.
Within the structure of his essay, gender serves to bring about two different views of the same problem, through the division by “HE” and “SHE”. While both sections address the same fundamental issue, that is, could machines be created to extend thinking past the destruction of humans and the Earth, they clearly argue from a more male and then female point of view. The first section, labeled “HE”, pushes philosophers to realize the importance of creating machines that can think. It enters an argument that is very gung-ho for the use of the technology in this manner, saying that “this and this alone is what’s at stake today in technical and scientific research in every field…” (12). The second section, labeled “SHE”, continues this argument, but in a much more cautious way. Here Lyotard mentions several problems that will be faced along the way of making true human-like machines, including the idea of writing, suffering, and feeling these gender differences mentioned in the previous paragraph. The important part to note is that these two arguments are not meant to function as individual entities but, rather, must be taken together. The juxtaposition of the aggressive and the cautious, the physical and the emotional, clearly highlights the differences that Lyotard sees as crucial to the thinking process. This gender difference is clearly seen by him as necessary to thought, and it is just as necessary to both his argument. Unlike Haraway, who feels we’d be better off without gender, Lyotard recognizes the importance of both halves.
Oftentimes, Haraway’s idea of a utopia may seem like just that – a perfect world where people aren’t defined by their genders. But in reality, this can never happen, and never should happen. It is neither practical nor beneficial to think this way. It is instead important to realize, like Lyotard demonstrates in his essay, the importance of both halves. Without both halves of the argument, Lyotard’s essay would be complete – it would either be too cautious, with too much disregard for the possibility of success, or too optimistic, throwing caution to the wind, without acknowledgement of some very real hurdles that would first need to be tackled. In the same way, technological issues need to be solved with both genders working together. Gender cannot be simply ignored. Women and men bring different things to the table, especially when it comes to solving a technological issue, and these differences are necessary for us to reach our full potential in technology related fields. For a simplified example of this, I turn to the computer programming competitions that I compete in every semester (yes, I am aware of how much of a nerd that makes me). I am on a team with myself and two guys. The different roles we take over the span of the competition can be fit into gender categories. Our team could almost be divided into “HE” and “SHE” like Lyotard’s essay – the two guys steam on ahead, trying to brute force everything in their sight, half-finishing four or five programs, while I’m behind them pointing out what little time we have left or reminding them that we don’t get any credit for the stack of “I-almost-got-it-but-got-bored-part-way-through” or “the-judges-are-jerks-I-never-make-any-errors” programs accumulating in the corner.
In my personal experience, gender has been inescapable, but this is not a bad thing. Yes, some classmates, professors, or random people I talk to may hear my major and automatically jump to conclusions on my abilities or personality based on my gender. Yes, it seems inevitable that I’ll stand out sometimes (I swear I’m not the only one taking notes… but I am definitely the only one color-coding them). But as a girl in a mostly-guy field I bring something different to the table, and according to Lyotard, that’s just what we need.
5 comments:
I enjoyed the intro. I'd like to have seen, though, a little more about what your agreement with Lyotard *means* in the context of your own life and work - obviously you'll get into that, but some hint of it would have made for a stronger introduction.
Your paragraphs on Haraway show a good understanding of her position (although she doesn't exactly think that the new structure in the work force is good - yet she does see it as intimately connected with the cyborg's development). I find your description strangely neutral, though; over these two long paragraphs, I really don't have any sense of what you're *doing* with Haraway. You understand her, sure, but what are you doing with all this information?
Your discussion of Lyotard - and particularly of Lyotard as a response to Haraway - is even better, but has the same fundamental difficulty (for me) as the section on Haraway does.
The most interesting section is certainly where you attempt to discuss your own life through Haraway and Lyotard. It is so abbreviated, though, that it doesn't even begin to scratch its own potential. For instance: you are theorizing, essentially, that a woman programming with a man (or men) can do something more, or something different, than a team of all men or all women could do. What is that thing, though? You start to describe it, but I don't really get it (is it that the men are good at mass-production of bad code, and you're good at making flawed code actually work?).
For my part, I think that this essay needs to be focused more on you, your experience, and your judgement. Your explanations of Haraway and Lyotard are very good - but your fundamental argument is that we should accept L rather than H - you need to focus on showing us why.
Draft #2:
As a female student majoring in computer science, gender and technology will always be strongly linked for me. As part of a clear minority, there are many times when I have been shocked at the reactions and stereotypes that have accompanied my years in programming classes. (“You’re a girl.” Really? Thank you for that news bulletin.) In a technical major, I am clearly defined as female. Haraway and Lyotard both see the ideas of gender and technology as being very related, yet they take very different stances on the issue of how. In my experiences, I have seen how gender differences can work together for the good, something that Haraway ignores and Lyotard embraces. Lyotard’s recognition of the importance of the necessity of both sexes is both more practical and beneficial for our world and advances in technology.
Haraway takes a rather extreme viewpoint, and sees gender as something to be pretty much completely destroyed. She acknowledges gender as part of a person’s identity now, but argues that “Gender might not be global identity after all, even if it has profound historical breadth and depth” (180). Clearly she is pushing for a change. For her, the difference between male and female is just one aspect of the greater hierarchy in life of the past and present that needs to be broken down. She sees this hierarchy as one of oppression, and until gender differences are not destroyed this oppression will always exist. Technology then, according to Haraway, is the way in which this can done, through the image of the cyborg.
For Haraway, technology, through the cyborg, has the ability to bring some huge changes. She talks about changing what counts as experience, basically restructuring all of life. The boundaries of gender are not necessary, though we may see them as such – “We are responsible for boundaries; we are they” (180). We are in control of the boundaries, and can use technology to remove them. She seems to believe that we can, with the help of technology, completely change the current view of gender, one which is filled with hierarchy and oppression. Gender, however is only the beginning for Harway, and is used as a symbol of all boundaries and hierarchies that exist. “Race, gender, and capital require a cyborg theory of wholes and parts. There is no drive in cyborgs to produce total theory, but there is an intimate experience of boundaries their construction and deconstruction. There is a myth system waiting to become a political language to ground one way of looking at science and technology and challenging the informatics of domination” (181).
Through the cyborg and technology, Haraway envisions a utopia without division. Haraway’s definition of a cyborg is very deep and covers a variety of different angles, but one of these is clearly that of a new social reality – “The cyborg is a creature in post-gender world” (150). Her view of a “better” world, however, is definitely not one that we should hastily accept. Advocating gender inequality may seem a little odd, especially coming from a female, but it is necessary to realize that what Haraway single-mindedly views as a hierarchy of oppression is actually an infrastructure on which our world survives. In her push to break down barriers, especially those of gender, Haraway completely disregards all of the benefits that come from differences and disregards the fact that we may very well need the barriers that she tackles.
Lyotard almost directly addresses views like Haraway’s when he says, “The notion of gender dominant in contemporary society wants this gap closed, this transcendence toppled, this powerlessness overcome” (21). He seems to be insinuating that people (like Haraway) are uncomfortable with difference, and instead of dealing with it, run from the discomfort by trying to eliminate it. He, on the other hand, does not seek to destroy these gender differences. He sees them as essential. While Haraway dreams of a new world that would be better due to the elimination of gender and other boundaries, Lyotard is focused on creating a new world, but is insistent on its failure unless gender did exist. Lyotard’s utopia could not occur without gender. For him these differences are to be embraced, and are in fact the reason for all thinking.
Thinking, he argues, can only be brought about through the desire for something that we lack. “And if we think, this is because there’s still something missing in this plentitude and room has to be made for this lack by making the mind a blank, which allows the something else remaining to be thought to happen” (20). If there was absolutely nothing missing in life, then there would be nothing to think, because there would be no space to fill. The lack brings about desire. Our gender differences are then extremely necessary, because they give us something to lack. Lyotard argues that each gender lacks what the other has, and feels this lack inside, which brings about desire. Without this desire, we wouldn’t have any reason to think or create new things. In other words, without gender, we couldn’t have thought or technology at all.
Within the structure of his essay, gender serves to bring about two different views of the same problem, through the division by “HE” and “SHE”. While both sections address the same fundamental issue, that is, could machines be created to extend thinking past the destruction of humans and the Earth, they clearly argue from a more male and then female point of view. The first section, labeled “HE”, pushes philosophers to realize the importance of creating machines that can think. It enters an argument that is very gung-ho for the use of the technology in this manner, saying that “this and this alone is what’s at stake today in technical and scientific research in every field…” (12). The second section, labeled “SHE”, continues this argument, but in a much more cautious way. Here Lyotard mentions several problems that will be faced along the way of making true human-like machines, including the idea of writing, suffering, and feeling these gender differences mentioned in the previous paragraph. The juxtaposition of the aggressive and the cautious, the physical and the emotional, clearly highlights the differences that Lyotard sees as crucial to the thinking process. The important part to note is that these two arguments are not meant to function as individual entities but, rather, must be taken together. The “HE” section could not stand alone and make a full argument. The “SHE” section alone would also be lacking.
Oftentimes, Haraway’s idea of a utopia may seem like just that – a perfect world where people aren’t defined by their genders. But in reality, this can never happen, and never should happen. It is neither practical nor beneficial to think this way. It is instead important to realize, like Lyotard demonstrates in his essay, the importance of both halves. Without both halves of the argument, Lyotard’s essay would be complete – it would either be too cautious, with too much disregard for the possibility of success, or too optimistic, throwing caution to the wind, without acknowledgement of some very real hurdles that would first need to be tackled. In the same way, technological issues need to be solved with both genders working together. Women and men bring different things to the table, especially when it comes to solving a technological issue, and these differences are necessary for us to reach our full potential in technology related fields. Gender cannot be simply ignored.
In the last two years, I’ve had the opportunity to view male and females in the computer science program, and I strongly believe that there is a distinct difference in the way each gender approaches the subject. I’ve seen examples of this gender difference in programming just by observing my peers in the undergraduate computer science lounge. The other day, two girls were discussing the beauty of a string search algorithm – literally, how beautiful it and the logic behind it was. I also heard a female describing her program in terms of poetry, and admiring the fact that, like a piece of writing, it’s easy to determine authorship by writing style. Earlier a girl was freaking out at the white board about how awesome she thought Taylor Series were. Most of the conversations in the female realm is this lounge are very broad and pretty emotional, even in a technological way. The guys are much more apt to discuss hardware, and when they do discuss broad ideas and algorithms, it’s usually always in terms of their uses, not admiring them for their intrinsic values. While some may find it an over-used stereotype, the physical vs. emotional is truly seen along gender lines in that room. The best things can happen when these two work together.
The same aggressive and gung-ho personality found in the “HE” section of Lyotard’s essay I find to be just as prevalent among the male programmers, while the females tend to be more cautious – just like the “SHE” Lyotard presents. For a simplified example of this, I turn to the computer programming competitions that I compete in every semester (yes, I am aware of how much of a nerd that makes me). I am on a team of three with two guys. The two of them are much more experience programmers then me, and are very good at attacking a problem quickly. When a problem needs to be brute-forced, they’re the ones who make it work. Sometimes, though, this approach can lead to them half-finishing four or five programs, with a stack of “I-almost-got-it-but-got-bored-part-way-through” or “the-judges-are-jerks-I-never-make-any-errors” programs accumulating in the corner. I, on the other hand, am much more cautious about starting a program, and end up reading the entire packet of problems a couple times before I choose one. Only after I have mapped out my approach do I begin to write code. Unfortunately, this technique works really poorly for timed competitions, and without the guys I would really get nothing productive done. Together, however, we’ve fallen into a rhythm that works quite well. The two guys can steam on ahead, doing what they do best. I program how I program, and if time becomes an issue one of them inevitably ties up loose ends. And when the half-finished pile becomes too high, I fall into the role of organizer and delegator – keeping track of what’s finished and what’s not, who’s working on what, what’s in line to be done next, and how much time we have left to be delegated to which problems. Were we divided onto teams by gender lines, we would probably fail miserably, but with both sides working together we end up doing not too bad.
In my personal experience, gender has been inescapable, but this is not a bad thing. Yes, some classmates, professors, or random people I talk to may hear my major and automatically jump to conclusions on my abilities or personality based on my gender. Yes, it seems inevitable that I’ll stand out (I swear I’m not the only one taking notes… but I am definitely the only one color-coding them). While there were certainly times that I wished my gender didn’t define me within my program, it also has to define me in order for the infrastructure of gender to bring its full potential to the technological world. As a girl in a mostly-guy field I bring something different to the table, and according to Lyotard, that’s just what we need.
Final Draft:
As a female student majoring in computer science, gender and technology will always be strongly linked for me. As part of a clear minority, there are many times when I have been shocked at the reactions and stereotypes that have accompanied my years in programming classes. (“You’re a girl.” Really? Thank you for that news bulletin.) In a technical major, I am clearly defined as female. Haraway and Lyotard both see the ideas of gender and technology as being very related, yet they take very different stances on the issue of how. In my experiences, I have seen where gender differences exist in computer science and how these differences can work together for the good, something that Haraway ignores and Lyotard embraces. Lyotard’s recognition of the importance of the necessity of both sexes is both more practical and beneficial for our world and advances in technology.
Haraway takes a rather extreme viewpoint, and sees gender as something to be pretty much completely destroyed. She acknowledges gender as part of a person’s identity now, but argues that “Gender might not be global identity after all, even if it has profound historical breadth and depth” (180). Clearly she is pushing for a change. For her, the difference between male and female is just one aspect of the greater hierarchy in life of the past and present that needs to be broken down. She sees this hierarchy as one of oppression, and until gender differences are not destroyed this oppression will always exist. Technology then, according to Haraway, is the way in which this can done, through the image of the cyborg.
For Haraway, technology, through the cyborg, has the ability to bring some huge changes. She talks about changing what counts as experience, basically restructuring all of life. The boundaries of gender are not necessary, though we may see them as such – “We are responsible for boundaries; we are they” (180). We are in control of the boundaries, and can use technology to remove them. She seems to believe that we can, with the help of technology, completely change the current view of gender, one which is filled with hierarchy and oppression. Through the cyborg and technology, Haraway envisions a utopia without division. Haraway’s definition of a cyborg is very deep and covers a variety of different angles, but one of these is clearly that of a new social reality – “The cyborg is a creature in post-gender world” (150). Her view of a “better” world, however, is definitely not one that we should hastily accept. Advocating gender inequality may seem a little odd, especially coming from a female, but it is necessary to realize that what Haraway single-mindedly views as a hierarchy of oppression is actually an infrastructure on which our world survives. In her push to break down barriers, especially those of gender, Haraway completely disregards all of the benefits that come from differences and disregards the fact that we may very well need the barriers that she tackles.
Lyotard almost directly addresses views like Haraway’s when he says, “The notion of gender dominant in contemporary society wants this gap closed, this transcendence toppled, this powerlessness overcome” (21). He seems to be insinuating that people (like Haraway) are uncomfortable with difference, and instead of dealing with it, run from the discomfort by trying to eliminate it. He, on the other hand, does not seek to destroy these gender differences. He sees them as essential. While Haraway dreams of a new world that would be better due to the elimination of gender and other boundaries, Lyotard is focused on creating a new world, but is insistent on its failure unless gender did exist. Lyotard’s utopia could not occur without gender. For him these differences are to be embraced, and are in fact the reason for all thinking. Thinking, he argues, can only be brought about through the desire for something that we lack. “And if we think, this is because there’s still something missing in this plentitude and room has to be made for this lack by making the mind a blank, which allows the something else remaining to be thought to happen” (20). If there was absolutely nothing missing in life, then there would be nothing to think, because there would be no space to fill. The lack brings about desire. Our gender differences are then extremely necessary, because they give us something to lack. Lyotard argues that each gender lacks what the other has, and feels this lack inside, which brings about desire. Without this desire, we wouldn’t have any reason to think or create new things. In other words, without gender, we couldn’t have thought or technology at all.
Within the structure of his essay, gender serves to bring about two different views of the same problem, through the division by “HE” and “SHE”. While both sections address the same fundamental issue, that is, could machines be created to extend thinking past the destruction of humans and the Earth, they clearly argue from a more male and then female point of view. The first section, labeled “HE”, pushes philosophers to realize the importance of creating machines that can think. It enters an argument that is very gung-ho for the use of the technology in this manner, saying that “this and this alone is what’s at stake today in technical and scientific research in every field…” (12). The second section, labeled “SHE”, continues this argument, but in a much more cautious way. Here Lyotard mentions several problems that will be faced along the way of making true human-like machines, including the idea of writing, suffering, and feeling these gender differences mentioned in the previous paragraph. The juxtaposition of the aggressive and the cautious, the physical and the emotional, clearly highlights the differences that Lyotard sees as crucial to the thinking process. The important part to note is that these two arguments are not meant to function as individual entities but, rather, must be taken together. The “HE” section could not stand alone and make a full argument. The “SHE” section alone would also be lacking.
Oftentimes, Haraway’s idea of a utopia may seem like just that – a perfect world where people aren’t defined by their genders. But in reality, this can never happen, and never should happen. It is neither practical nor beneficial to think this way. It is instead important to realize, like Lyotard demonstrates in his essay, the importance of both halves. Without both halves of the argument, Lyotard’s essay would be complete – it would either be too cautious, with too much disregard for the possibility of success, or too optimistic, throwing caution to the wind, without acknowledgement of some very real hurdles that would first need to be tackled. In the same way, technological issues need to be solved with both genders working together. Women and men bring different things to the table, especially when it comes to solving a technological issue, and these differences are necessary for us to reach our full potential in technology related fields. Gender cannot be simply ignored.
In the last two years, I’ve had the opportunity to view male and females in the computer science program, and I strongly believe that there is a distinct difference in the way each gender approaches the subject. I’ve seen examples of this gender difference in programming just by observing my peers in the undergraduate computer science lounge. The other day, two girls were discussing the beauty of a string search algorithm – literally, how beautiful it and the logic behind it was. I also heard a female describing her program in terms of poetry, and admiring the fact that, like a piece of writing, it’s easy to determine authorship by writing style. Earlier a girl was freaking out at the white board about how awesome she thought Taylor Series were. Most of the conversations in the female realm is this lounge are very broad and pretty emotional, even though they appear in a technological way. The guys are much more apt to discuss hardware, and when they do discuss broad ideas and algorithms, it’s usually always in terms of their uses, not admiring them for their intrinsic values.
While some may find it an over-used stereotype, the physical vs. emotional is truly seen along gender lines in that room. The best things can happen when these two work together. This need for gender in computer science runs deep into the logistics behind any program. There’s the physical code that has to be written, and the actual hardware that makes up the machine and interacts to perform tasks. Then, behind it all, are the abstract software principles, the algorithms, and the overall design. These two parts work together to form a system. Without both separate parts, there would be no computer. Thus, it is necessary to also have both sides working on the programs.
The same aggressive and gung-ho personality found in the “HE” section of Lyotard’s essay I find to be just as prevalent among the male programmers, while the females tend to be more cautious – just like the “SHE” Lyotard presents. For a simplified example of this, I turn to the computer programming competitions that I compete in every semester (yes, I am aware of how much of a nerd that makes me). I am on a team of three with two guys. The two of them are much more experience programmers then me, and are very good at attacking a problem quickly. Also, when a problem needs to be brute-forced, they’re the ones who make it work. Sometimes, though, this approach can lead to them half-finishing four or five programs, with a stack of programs accumulating in the corner. I, on the other hand, am much more cautious about starting a program, and end up reading the entire packet of problems a couple times before I choose one. Only after I have mapped out my approach do I begin to write code. Unfortunately, this technique works really poorly for timed competitions, and without the guys I would really get nothing productive done. Together, however, we’ve fallen into a rhythm that works quite well. The two guys can steam on ahead, doing what they do best. I program how I program, and if time becomes an issue one of them inevitably ties up loose ends. And when the half-finished pile becomes too high, I fall into the role of organizer and delegator – keeping track of what’s finished and what’s not, who’s working on what, what’s in line to be done next, and how much time we have left to be delegated to which problems. Were we divided onto teams by gender lines, we would probably fail miserably, but with both sides working together we end up doing not too bad.
In my personal experience, gender has been inescapable, but this is not a bad thing. Yes, some classmates, professors, or random people I talk to may hear my major and automatically jump to conclusions on my abilities or personality based on my gender. Yes, it seems inevitable that I’ll stand out (I swear I’m not the only one taking notes… but I am definitely the only one color-coding them). While there were certainly times that I wished my gender didn’t define me within my program, it also has to define me in order for the infrastructure of gender to bring its full potential to the technological world. As a girl in a mostly-guy field I bring something different to the table, and according to Lyotard, that’s just what we need.
Hey sorry Heather, I procrastinated a bit with writing my essay, ya know who doesn't wanna do an essay on friday night. Anyway, I read yours and it is really good, I like how it was such a personal topic.
This is a really good articulation of your Lyotard-like position: " Advocating gender inequality may seem a little odd, especially coming from a female, but it is necessary to realize that what Haraway single-mindedly views as a hierarchy of oppression is actually an infrastructure on which our world survives. In her push to break down barriers, especially those of gender, Haraway completely disregards all of the benefits that come from differences and disregards the fact that we may very well need the barriers that she tackles." Arguably you could have introduced this idea even earlier, but it works well here. Because so much of the first draft was good to begin with, what I'm *really* looking for here is for a thorough *defense* of this position - show me the infrastructure and the good work that it does.
Your discussion of what goes on in the lounge was interesting. One thing that I'm wondering at this point is what Haraway would say in response -- there was an interesting space here to challenge your own apparent comfort with a highly gendered program. Which isn't to say that you would have emerged agreeing with Haraway - but there are unasked questions here. As an aside, I've found misogyny (not simply difference) to be deeply rooted in the corporate programming environments in which I've worked, so this is of great interest to me.
Your idea of gendered programming, in which hardware=male and software=female, is interesting.
One thing I need to note about the second to last paragraph: my experience is limited, but every woman I've known to work in programming rapidly moved into management. Make of that what you will - but it seems consistent with what you're saying.
Overall: It's an interesting paper, characterized by a strong point of view as well as a great understanding of both texts. I would have liked to see you use Haraway more to challenge yourself, and I would have liked an even more elaborate discussion of the positive impact you see gender having in programming. One obvious unasked question? If gender has a strongly positive role to play, why is the field so male dominated in the first place?
Lots of good work, but I think there are hard questions which you aren't asking yourself.
Post a Comment