dichotomies...

I've been doing a lot of reading lately about technology, sociology, and gender. This is really interesting stuff! Who would have thought - starting 7 years ago in a music degree in piano - that I would be so interested in the social aspects of technology...but it's very fascinating. It's mostly common sense when you think about it, but we take technology very much for granted. Especially when it comes to how it perscribes gender roles.

Admitedly, I'm sure everyone has questioned at some point why there are such distinctions between girl and boy toys (especially in youth), but it really is amazing the extent to which these differences socialize us into our stereotypical gender roles.

The dichotomies of men/woman, technology/organic, nature/city are played out endlessly in the field of technology: men use technology as a way to gain power over nature (or woman). They mark themselves as the object of power over technology, and subsequently, women accept the normalized role of the technophobic. Power relations being played out in such simple items as electric shavers.

But if technical competance is the domain of the male - where men can tinker - where does the iPod fit? There are no discernable parts that can be taken apart and re-assembled. Without risking sheer failure of the device, there is really no good way to see what goes on inside. In this sense, it would be a very feminine device. What are the implications for women and the acceptance/usage of technology, then? Is the iPod an easy/appropriate way for women to usher themselves into the realm?

Another note/dichotomy: cyborg/goddess. The feminist association with the goddess has traditionally been pitted against the vision of the cyborg. But why can't a woman be both?