JenniCAM

After reading about JenniCAM, here are a few thoughts…

The JenniCAM website can be seen as an extension of women’s magazines. Some theorists have seen these as blurring the public/private dichotomy by bringing traditionally domestic areas (cooking, fashion, family) into the public sphere. Some feminists argued that this was empowering by giving the feminine sphere legitimacy. Others, however, felt that these magazines simply reinforced stereotypical gender constructions, making it harder for women to break into the traditional public spheres of politics, law and “hard” issues.

To me, the JenniCAM site reflects the same dilemmas. In criticising the site, are we maintaining that the feminine, domestic and physical bodies belong only in the private sphere? Or in endorsing the site, are we accepting that the major role for women is related to the domestic and sexualised embodiment? The reality is that each user will bring their own meaning to the site; if users intend it to be, then it can be seen as surveillance or pornography. Others might read it as artistic or empowering. To me, the fact that Jenni is in control is important. Thus while it might be banal, I’m still reluctant to criticise the site.

What does everyone else think?

Workshop Response to Menu-Driven Identities

Question 1.
The very first step when signing up for Second Life is to choose your avatar. The website is structured so that the online representation comes before the mundane and necessary real life details (such as date of birth and gender). Gender, skin colour and age varies amongst the Avatars, however there appears to be no Asian or elderly representations. The “More…” section located underneath the Avatars reassures the prospective users that “You will always be able to change the look of your avatar” whether it be gender, skin colour or shape. The structure of the sign up page assumes that users are desperate to change their appearance and escape from the reality of the everyday.

Question 2.
The sign up page on the lavalife website features an attractive, young, heterosexual, Caucasian couple. However the site itself caters for people of varying ages, races and sexual orientations. Information such as age, height, ethnicity and religion are used to construct the user’s identity. It is assumed that these details will assist people in determining whether they are compatible with someone.

Workshop: Menu-Driven Identities

Question One: Hotmail and Yahoo! request the user’s full name, country, gender and date of birth. However, they only provide a set list of choices, thus making many assumptions about their users’ identities. ‘Country’ doesn’t include non-territorial options, such as for the Roma people, and those with non-specific genders are ignored. Similarly, there is no option for those who do not know their date of birth (like those who had their birth certificates confiscated by authoritarian governments). While Second Life allows you to choose an avatar, it still wishes to know your real-world details. Of course, this information is invaluable for targeted advertising.

Question Two: Lavalife

Lavalife profiles use categories that Lavalife thinks singles would consider important, such as age and religion. Again, these categories are also important for advertisers. The categories seem to offer few choices; for example, body types were slim, average, few extra pounds, fit and muscular. Importantly, however, there is a space for users to write about themselves, while many choose ‘prefer not to say’ for some categories, relegating the importance of these aspects in some way.

Workshop to menu-driven identities

participant: Joanna

Q1. Categories available are name, country, gender and DOB. The presumptions that these categories make about the users can be seen in the advertising that would be sent to each member. Knowing a member is a woman of a certain age and nationality, they can tailor their advertising directly to that member, and as time progresses and they learn more about the member, then the advertising can become more personalised.

Q4. I think the secondlife website is inherently racist as the avatars available are so limited. I haven’t played secondlife, but I’m guessing that “starting look” means you can later alter how your avatar looks, but assuming that the people who join are only either slim young white/black male or slim, young white/black female is not only inherently racist, but also ageist and sizeist. There are so many other possible ways people can look and the options are just not there. They are also assuming that this is how we want to look, and provides an excellent example of the fact that even on the internet you have to look a certain way to be socially acceptable.

My webliography- sorry it's so late!

Webliography: Question 3

Donna Haraway’s figure of the cyborg has been reproduced and reinterpreted through a range of different mediums and genres since it was first introduced in the 1980’s. Although this is the case, the figure of the cyborg isn’t limited to Haraway’s definition; numerous feminist writers such as Anne Balsamo and Chela Sandoval have contributed to discussions about ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’ and concepts such as cyborg feminism. Through the five articles I’ve located, a vast range of viewpoints have been explored in regards to whether the figure of the cyborg contributes to the emancipation of women in terms of science and technology. Furthermore, many writers argue that the interpretation of the cyborg in popular culture, science fiction and academic writing detracts from this concept and prevents empowerment. The five articles I’ve located present a perfect array of perspectives in regards to the figure of the cyborg and its adaptation beyond ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’.

The first article by Joan Blauwkamp and Nicole Krassas would be an excellent starting point in answering the question at hand. The article begins by touching on Haraway’s definition of a cyborg, a ‘cybernetic organism, combining biological and mechanical parts’. By touching on Haraway’s definition of a cyborg, I would attain the necessary background information in order to conduct a comparative discussion. The article then presents an array of interpretations of the figure of the cyborg by feminist writers such as Jennifer Gonzalez. According to Gonzalez, the cyborg in popular culture cannot be considered an opportunity for emancipation; rather, the cyborg erases differences between genders. Furthermore, the opinions of Jenny Wolmark and Anne Balsamo are expressed. The article also presents numerous in depth case studies such as an analysis of Dana Scully from the X Files, as well as analyses of cyborgs in Marge Piercy’s novel He, She, and It, and two Star Trek series, ‘The Next Generation’ and ‘Voyager’. Overall, the article serves to challenge Haraway’s claims. Through presenting case studies and alluding to other feminist writers’ perspectives, the article suggests that the figure of the cyborg is concerning, that it fortifies gender boundaries rather than breaks them. Being an online source, it is important to address the reliability of this paper. The article was located on an academic database and it states that the article was to be presented at an annual meeting of The Midwest Political Science Association in 2006. Due to its scholarly nature, the paper would be useful in answering the question, however one would need to be wary of evidence of bias. Furthermore we know nothing about the authors and their academic credentials so we should be especially discerning when reading the article.

The second source by Anne Balsamo takes my research a step further. Balsamo’s novel, a limited version published online via Google Books, provides a theoretical analysis of the body, the way it can be ‘represented according to broader cultural determinations’ and the way in which the body ‘becomes a bearer of signs and cultural meaning’. Balsamo cites numerous anthropologists and philosophers such as Michel Foucault, Bryan Turner, Mary Douglas and Marcel Mauss. Douglas offers an excellent argument when addressing the gendered body and its construction in culture, stating that the body and its social dimension are intrinsically bound. Balsamo then continues to address Haraway’s ‘A Manifesto for Cyborgs’ and the challenging task of reading cyborgs. The article concludes with Balsamo citing Andrea Huyssen, who claims that ‘the crisis of modernism pivots on the problematic of otherness’ and agrees with Haraway, that cyborgs are particularly emblematic of postmodern identity. Although the limited online version of Balsamo’s novel doesn’t focus on Haraway’s figure of the cyborg, I still find it useful in attaining a deeper understanding of traditional representations of the gendered body and its relationship with culture, identity and technology. In answering the essay question I would endeavour to read the entire novel for a more specific focus on the figure of the cyborg. Due to the online article being a limited version of a novel, and written by a well-known feminist writer, I trust the source’s credibility.

The third article, a limited, online version of a novel by Chela Sandoval, shows another way in which feminists have taken up the figure of the cyborg. The article makes a comparison between Haraway’s cyberfeminist theoretical framework and ‘technologies and techniques from U.S third world cultural forms’, such as ‘women of colour’ and ‘mestizajie’, people of European and Native American origin who adapt to live in Latin America. The article compares feminists of colour as keeping intact ‘shifting and multiple identities’ and cyborgs, similarly as ‘resolutely committed to partiality, irony, intimacy and perversity’. Sandoval refers to Haraway’s use of the term ‘joint kinship’ as ‘analogous to that called for in contemporary indigenous writings’. Further comparisons are made between traditionally oppressed and marginalised groups such as women of colour and Haraway’s figure of the cyborg. I found this article interesting as it presented a completely different take on cyberfeminism and Haraway’s theoretical framework. Similarly with the previous article I addressed, in answering the essay question I would seek to read the entire novel to attain a better understanding of Sandoval’s comparisons. Furthermore, being an online version of a published text by a reputable publishing house, I believe the source to be credible and relevant.

My fourth chosen paper addresses the way in which cyberfeminism can be expressed as a ‘risk’. I chose this article as I appreciated its local, modern take on the subject of Haraway’s figure of the cyborg. Numerous Australian writers are cited such as Susan Luckman. The article stresses the importance of risk taking for women when interacting with technology, and highlights the successes of risk taking hypertext writers such as Teri Hoskin and Melinda Rackham. The article also suggests that the risk in cyberfeminism is the ‘construction and power of women, as the core value of feminism’ being endangered. Furthermore, the article states that in the ‘context of feminism or cyberfeminism, the risks taken by women do not allude to mastery or consolidation, but to transformation and re-evaluation’. Although this article is relevant on a local level, it is not particularly reliable. No mention of the author is made or the author’s credentials. Furthermore, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly where this article has come from. All that I could gather was that it came from an Australian website called ‘Flytrap’, which hosts a range of other academic articles on a range of technology related topics. The information presented in this article, whilst useful and local, cannot be valued as highly as my other scholarly articles.

My final article, written by Francesca Myman, is an in depth case study of the figure of the cyborg in the 1927 film, Metropolis. The article serves as a critique of the sexualisation of the female robot Maria. Here, the reader can see the way in which the female cyborg was represented in the 1920s, before the term cyborg came to fruition. Myman states that the nature of the robot ‘casts a negative light on the general cultural construction of the femme fatale’. My final article presents a useful, in-depth study of the figure of a cyborg before Haraway introduced the term, and the way in which a modern feminist writer has interpreted this figure. Although this is the case, the credibility of the article is perplexing, it appears the article is off the author’s private website. With no mention of credentials or purpose for writing the piece, we once again must be discerning when reading and using the information.
In conclusion, the five articles I chose gave me a range of viewpoints in regards to the adaptation of the figure of the cyborg beyond Haraway’s ‘A Manifesto for Cyborgs’. Due to the articles’ online nature, it was important to be discerning when analysing their content.

Cyberstalking- Gender and Computer Ethics

Summary:
This article argues that the application of feminist theory would be beneficial to the "newly emerging discipline of computer ethics", resulting in an increased understanding of both women's and men's experiences of 'cyberstalking'. The article seeks to explore how computer ethics has responded to "new social and ethical dilemmas" that have resulted from the widespread adaptation of information and communication technologies.

Through her article Alison Adam strongly argues that the inclusion of feminist theory would counter the technological determinism inherent in current views of computer ethics which suggest that computer ethics are siginificantly different from other technologies. Further to this, her argument suggests that feminist ethics can be used to understand computer ethics problems such as the "emergence of cyberstalking" and the extreme forms of harassment on the internet.

This approach to understanding computer ethics argues that the biggest imbalance that exists in the use of information and communications technologies is the difference between men's and women's access to and usage of computers. Through this argument the author suggests that a feminist approach to computer ethics could create "gender-equal ethics, a moral theory that generates non-sexist moral principles, policies and practices".

The new feminist approach is then used to consider online sexual harassment, describing it as "unwanted explicit attention which can be applied by men and women." However, the article then goes on to claim that online sexual harassment is generally the behaviour of men, as a direct result of a society where power relationships put men into superior positions.

Adam uses three examples of cyber-stalking in her article to suggest that cyberstalking incidents merely mirror the harassment experienced by women in the 'real world'. In the cases of Jayne Hitchcock, Stephanie Brail and an unidentified women, men obtained the individual's details and posted them online. Far from advocating the need for the introduction of feminist theory into computer ethics, these cases seem to be simply an expression of the innocence and naivity of computer users in the 1990s.

The article highlights the fact that, whilst both men and women can be victims of stalking and cyberstalking, the majority of reported cyberstalking cases involve women as victims and men as perpetrators. This clearly fails to achieve the identified goal of creating "gender-equal ethics". The article merely reverses the traditional views of computer ethics and does not provide a balanced argument.


Question
Do the views outlined in the article published by Alison Adam reflect the current situation in regards to online harrasment and cyberstalking or have changes in technological advances made this issue one of the past?

Question 2.

Source One [i]
“The Visible Human Project: Informatic Bodies and Posthuman Medicine”
This article written by Catherine Waldby seeks to explore how medicine’s biotechnical innovations are continuously manipulating the forces of life through the use of bioinformation. Furthermore, Waldby suggests to her readers that the well published concept of the biotechnological “Adam” and “Eve”, created by the Visible Human project has been used by many media sources to present audiences with the “new genesis”. The concept of the “ visible man” and the “ visible woman” have made science palatable for popular readership and have helped shift the focus of origin away from the domain of god/ religion towards that of mechanically conceived nature. According to the writings of Waldby, this technological transformation has ultimately resulted in the disablement of the user’s embodied identity and agency, setting about social change. The publication argues that there is a great confusion between “life” and the “illusion of life” as well as the reproduction of an image and the reproduction of life.
The publication is a balanced, well-researched paper that uses a number of reputable sources to establish its argument and possible counter-arguments. It explores how the creation of virtual identity has resulted in the change of social norms and understanding of identity and existence.
Source Two [ii]
Review of “The Visible Human Project: Informatic Bodies and Posthuman Medicine” by Stuart J Murry
This publication written by Stuart J Murry analyses Catherine Waldby’s “ The Visible Human Project: Informatic Bodies and Post-human Medicine” and agrees with her understanding of the notion that the Visible Human Project managed to create “Surrogate” for his actual body. Murry argues that the VHP is just one of many technological advancements that blur the line between the organic and mechanic and between the actual and virtual. This is demonstrated in the division between life and death which has become destabilised by the introduction of new technology which preserves life in situations where it would not have existed before. Through his argument Murry seeks to explore what a “life” or “subject” really is, thus highlighting Waldby’s argument that the distinction between nature and artifice are collapsing and flowing into each other. The newly created virtual world created by Waldby is argued t o be a place of subjective projection and identification where readers are introduced to the “posthuman” thought.

This article expands on writing of Waldby and it highlights her main arguments which are lost in the size and complex language of her publication. I believe that the source would be an ideal reference to identify the authenticity of her arguments and to support the notions being presented.

Source Three [iii]
“How BIOTECHNOLOGY is transforming WHAT we believe and how we LIVE.”
This article establishes how ongoing developments in technology have lead to a social change in the way that individuals identify their religion as well as their identity. The article claims that the introduction of new technologies has lead to changes in psychological and sociological aims. These changes are illustrated through the use of examples of technological developments which have influenced the way that individuals perceive certain elements of life. Primarily, changes in medical science such as the introduction of birth control pills in the early 1960s brought with it a growing acceptance of contraception and family planning, this in turn gave women more control over their bodies and gave the women’s movement a rise to social prominence. Notably, values regarding sex, family and population growth today are dramatically different as a result of the changes which resulted from the development in medical science. Furthermore, the development of the Pill has lead to the invention of subsequent technologies such as ultrasongraphy, which have themselves sparked greater social changes. Ultimately the article demonstrates that society as we know it today will change tomorrow as a result of the technologies assimilated into our culture today adding to the argument that the change in technology is constantly redefining what it means to be human




Source Four [iv]
Transcendental Philosophy and Artificial Life.

“The publication written by Gary Banham intends to establish a connection between artificial life and certain kinds of interpretation of the transcendental philosophy. The overall argument of the publication suggests that the underlying conceptual approaches to artificial life have serious deficiencies and that there is a connection between the project of artificial life and new interpretations of transcendental philosophy. Further to this the article provides its readers with some history of technology, however the main value of the article lies within its explanation of the processes undertaken in the creation of the Visible Human Project. I did not find this article of particular value as it was hard to read and understand and was not easily linked to the central topic. It is filled with complex theories and not enjoyable.

Source Five [v]
“Defining Life, Explaining Emergence”
This article utilises the current understanding that science has of “life” in order to fully apply the principles to the notion that a new form of life is emerging through the introduction of Artificial Intelligence. The source makes a specific argument that Artificial Life demonstrated that science can computationally imitate emergent processes of construction which are sources from nature as the creation of higher levels of organisations. Through this it is argued that something that can be constructed by the replication of the natural process should be able to be explained. The article provides a basic discussion on the current understanding that society has on the philosophy of life. The article was very useful as it discusses the principles underpinning society’s attempt to define life and its focuses on “A-life” as a desirable form of life educates the readers about the effect that technology is having on the understanding of life.


[i] Catherine Waldby, “Informatic Bodies and Posthuman Medicine- Digital Eden and the reproduction of life.” Available from http://books.google.com.au/books?id=queDwq2Ac-YC&pg=PA110&lpg=PA110&dq=The+Visible+Human+Project+and+the+Reproduction+of+Life&source=web&ots=KeEow-rO5g&sig=UPj0oB4REMbfAoGHNpJuON7pxg0&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result , accessed on 27th August 2008.

[ii] Stuart J Murry “ The Visible Human Project: Informatic Bodies and Posthuman Medicine” review, available from http://reconstruction.eserver.org/021/revVisibleHP.htm , accessed on 27th August 2008.

[iii] Fred Edwords, “ how BIOTECHNOLOGY is transforming WHAT we believe and how we LIVE” available from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1374/is_5_59/ai_55722249/pg_2?tag=artBody;col1 , accessed on 27th August 2008

[iv] Gary Banham, “ Transcendental Philosophy and Artificial life.” Available from http://culturemachine.tees.ac.uk/Cmach/Backissues/j003/Articles/banham.htm accessed on 27th August 2008.

[v] Claus Emmeche , “Defining life, Explaining Emergence” available from http://www.nbi.dk/~emmeche/cePubl/97e.defLife.v3f.html#strategy accessed on 27th August 2008.