Cyberfeminist?

The readings from the last two weeks, back-to-back, have been interesting in their interaction and mingling with one another as their ideas rub against each another in my mind. Mediating these two books are my experiences with China’s xenophobic attitude towards western game design.

I must admit that, due to illness the first book, Technology and Gender: Fabrics of Power in Late Imperil China, did not start to stick until the end of section 3 and the conclusion. However, what I did retain actually provided a good ground from which to read Domain Errors: Cyberfeminist Practices.

First, China’s Xenophobia…

Over the last few years a difficulty in publishing Western video games, especially MMORPGs, has become more and more prevalent in China. The concern for China has been that Western video games largely do not have or carry within them the cutural mores of china, obviously. The concern for china is that the nation will lose or surrender its cultural identity to western media. This is seen as especially pointed with the youth of china given its fascination with the “Western Dream”.

There are two particular instances over the last couple of years that are of interest. The first is about a Chinese company, Aurora Technology, started developing a technology that would prevent males from playing female avatars. The goal was to create an automated system that would “check” gender via webcam using topography software to determine sex. Apparently this was met with little success given the gender determination is done via manual webcam confirmation through a customer service system. As of this week that program has been launched causing inappropriately gendered avatars to be suspended and/or deleted.

The second instance of interest is the delay of the distribution of the recent World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. The expansion was launched in the west in November of 2008. In China the launch was suspended, as were existing services and game operations for WoW, due to what the Chinese government termed “inappropriate content” mainly dealing with the inclusion of particular images and stories about undead (the term undead is especially volatile in this) and animated skeletal representations. This is so much of a controversy that the original Chinese publisher has lost its licensing (and subsequently is facing bankruptcy) which has now been passed onto another. The same week services were resumed under the new company the Chinese government announced that it will be monitoring business transactions between Chinese and Western digital entertainment companies and will reserve the right to prevent transactions between them in interests of cultural stability.

What this has to do with Technology and Gender: Fabrics of Power in Late Imperil China, at least my reading of it, is China does not seek to control using technology as much as it seeks to control technologies. What keep ringing in my mind when reading this book is women are largely viewed as resources, technologies, “intended” for the generation of male heirs.

The ability to carry a fetus to term by a woman seems to be the “infliction” of reproduction as a “woman’s realm” though men are reproducers as well. In China, reproduction was/is seen as a resource exploitable by men… women are an exploitable resource to be used in perpetuating their paternal line, to carry on the name of the male.

Yes, women do contribute to the financial income of a given family, but their primary purpose is to have and/or raise male heirs. This is especially notable in infanticide and polygamy. Both can be seen, when women are framed as technologies for reproduction, as necessities when the reproductive technology is not “working as intended”

One of the general tones of Domain Errors: Cyberfeminist Practices carries this sentiment as well; the sentiment that women are limited in “use” as home makers and “baby machines”. Domain Errors seeks to reappropriate woman’s identity from the patriarchal matrix. Humorously and earnestly, I perceive cyberfeminism, as it is framed in this book, not wanting to rewrite the figurative “Woman User Manual” as much as burn it (allusion intended).

An interesting concept that colored my reading of Domain Errors, some what, was the idea of “outing race” in the anonymous Net. For me it converted to “outing race/gender/sex/sexual orientation”, which is something I have brushed up against frequently in my personal research. For many these identities are sacrosanct and often very guarded by those who seek to keep them. Often, when these hidden identities are revealed, the act of “coming out of the closet” is only done with complicated contracts/promises to support the maintenance of a desire for continued community anonymity.

Something that once again arises for me in Domain Errors is that race/ethnicity and women are reduced, by patriarchal capitalism, to sets of “target audience”. The questions I come to, again, as I always seem to, are: Why can’t they be merged? Why can’t the Net be a general appeal? How can we alter new media/media to be a general appeal?  These are not hypothetical questions. They are questions I actually want an answer to.