Original Listserv Message (Excerpt)

This is what I have been thinking...

Gender (and race and class and....) is everywhere... it is in everything... it is embodied in our technologies (our toys)... this is MEANINGFUL.... These are not neutral products... they are "of the people" and "for the people" (human productions)....to me, it is interesting to think about "which people?".... now again in class we went to the valuation of these things as BAD or GOOD... even if we didn't go there explicitly... I think that whenever we turn to a critique of something that someone affiliates, identifies, plays with they seem to take it personally.... but should we shut out all critique? or are these the critiques we should pay most attention to?... no matter if we like Barbies and video games or if we dislike them... we cannot deny that gender is present... and this presence is indicative of the power of gender in larger society... to me... avoiding noticing (I am not saying that we should necessarily do anything beyond noticing... maybe this is all of our personal choice... maybe not)...to me avoiding noticing or refusing to recognize any significance is kidding ourselves... (though, I am first to admit that the sugar coating makes living much easier... and a lot of times I like it a lot more....)....

Throughout the semester... we have discussed how technologies embody values and meanings (social construction of technology)... we have contemplated connections of technology with consumerism, capitalism, and democracy... we have thought about progress... and asked progress for whom?... and what does progress mean?... i think that the topics of technologies of play may have touched on the role of desire (for lack of a better word) in all of this... why do we like what we like? obviously this stuff sells... if we like these things so much and we are willing to recognize the meaning in these technologies (with gender etc...) and we don't want to make changes... because we like what we have (I think this is the case for most of us with regards to toys)... what does that mean to our commitment to what we conceptualize as larger issues.... maybe it matters more (or we see that it matters more) that women die from anorexia than it does that Barbie is a very popular toy (but are these things connected)... maybe it matters more (or we see that it matters more) that computer work is considered men's work and is valued more than women's work in society than it does that video games target boys (but these things may be connected)... but what do toys (that entertain) mean for larger incidences of more obvious oppression (that even kill people)...

Maybe we don't want to notice these things and we want to disregard incidences of power and gender and technology because if we notice them, then we might be implored to make change, we might question everything that we are about, or we might realize that we like what we have and we do not want to sacrifice, do, or change anything. (Maybe we count and others don't.) How do these possibilities that I propose relate to the reactions we see in class?

Maybe gender isn't what we should be worrying about... maybe it should be hunger... or maybe something even more fundamental... maybe we should only care about our selves... our country... our personal experiences... our children... I don't know... it may be easier to "live" that way... (but then in the back of my head I think about courage, and hope, and beneficence...)... I don't know... I encourage you to think about all of these things... that's what this class is about....