2.12.2004
“..he can be profligate and enter material freely.”
On the subject of: http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/computer/bushf.htm
I find it interesting to examine gender roles in this piece, specificly the oft-repeated construsion of “men” as researchers and “girls” (not women, significantly) as, essentially, part of these machines; instruments, if you will. Despite my deep resentment of such sickeningly chauvenistic typecasting (as well as my awareness that most typists in 1945 and beyond were women), it is interesting to consider the bearings of gender constructions as applied to new technology. We can equate the machine with the girl: immature, requiring male development and validation through use. Fast-forwarding into the world of science border-fiction, is it essential that the machine (like women in a patriarchal soceity) remain immature, not develop its own intellect, so as to not escape (hu)man control?
I find it interesting to examine gender roles in this piece, specificly the oft-repeated construsion of “men” as researchers and “girls” (not women, significantly) as, essentially, part of these machines; instruments, if you will. Despite my deep resentment of such sickeningly chauvenistic typecasting (as well as my awareness that most typists in 1945 and beyond were women), it is interesting to consider the bearings of gender constructions as applied to new technology. We can equate the machine with the girl: immature, requiring male development and validation through use. Fast-forwarding into the world of science border-fiction, is it essential that the machine (like women in a patriarchal soceity) remain immature, not develop its own intellect, so as to not escape (hu)man control?
