Abstract
The masculine attributes of computers have been legend in feminist critiques of technology. Men, the arguments go, have misappropriated its development over the centuries. Their machinations with machinery have led them to construct an alter ego of male proportions, manifesting itself in the persona of the computer. ‘For men only.’ Including their hard disk potential, the invitations offered by the computer appear as macho and exclusive to men as those offered by pornographic magazines.
The computer was the brainchild of male engineers and it was born into a male line of production technology. The fact that it has a keyboard rather like a (feminine) typewriter keyboard confuses no one for long. When a computer arrives in a school, for instance, boys and girls are quick to detect its latent masculinity … It is not surprising if … boys soon elbow themselves forward and the majority of girls retire from the field.2
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Notes
Lloyd, A. and L. Newell, ‘Women and Computers’, in W. Faulkner and E. Arnold (eds), Smothered by Invention (London; Pluto, 1985). Can words alone be blamed for divisions of labour?
Cockburn, C., ‘A Wave of Women: new technology and sexual divisions in clothing manufacture’ in her Machinery of Dominance. Women, Men and Technical Knowhow (London: Pluto Press, 1985). Cockburn notes that women are moving into ‘men’s’ spheres in the clothing industry (p. 73).
Haddon, L., ‘Electronic and Computer Games. The History of an Interactive Medium’, in Screen vol. 29, no. 2, (Spring, 1988) pp. 69–70. L. Haddon’s research into the phenomena of computing reveals that the marketing of home computers in Britain, unlike the United States, has been as ‘computer’ rather than ‘games machine’. Likewise, home computer magazines have tended to be less hobby orientated and more sophisticated in their approach to the product and user.
Lawrence, D. and M. England, Good Housekeeping in MS DOS (London: Sunshine, 1986). The front cover shows a broom sweeping up old floppy discs.
Mitter, S., Common Fate Common Bond. Women in the Global Economy (London: Pluto Press, 1986). Mitter suggests that: ‘The creation of a new proletariat is in fact part of a wider management strategy that affects not only the Third World but also the First. It is a strategy that deliberately seeks a “flexible” workforce in order to undermine the power of organized labour’. (p. 1).
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© 1990 The Editorial Board, Lumière (Co-operative) Press Ltd
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Knight, M. (1990). Is the Micro Macho? A Critique of the Fictions of Advertising. In: Day, G. (eds) Readings in Popular Culture. Insights . Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20700-8_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20700-8_15
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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