This article was a little hard for me to read. Science fiction is not really my area but I did find parts of this article that tied in directly with what we have been talking about in class relating to gender. I chose one of the chapters to talk about because I thought it would be too hard to talk about the entire article. The chapter that I thought tied in well with the class discussions was ‘Homework Economy’ outside ‘The Home’. This talked about the future and what it looked like for men and women in the work force and I thought it was sad how women were represented in this article and in this chapter. A part of the chapter that had the most affect on me was the explanation of being feminized. “To be feminized means to be made extremely vulnerable, able to be disassembled, reassembled, exploited as a reserve labor force; seen less as workers than as servers; subjected to arrangements on and off the paid job that make a mockery of a limited work day. Leading an existence that always borders on being obscene, out of place, and reducible to sex.” (pg 166-169). I felt like this is defiantly not what the future of women in the work force looks like. Women have been fighting for many years to be treated like equals in the work force and it’s a little disheartening when you read an article like this, even if it is science fiction. Women have been able to juggle home and work over the centuries most of them with great intelligence and grace and I don’t believe that this article paints any kind of truthful future for women in this world.
3 comments:
Holly,
Actually I think you are agreeing with Donna, since she is trying to show the world that women have been type cast into submissive roles and in the work force been overworked, overlooked and underpaid.
The future for women in the future will not be the same as today, partly because your generation is not as sexist as Donna's generation.
I think the article points out exactly what you summarized, that a feminized workforce is replaceable, vulnerable, underpaid and overworked and that women and minorities end up with these types of jobs.
The frustration you feel in reading an article like this is because she does paint a very dismal picture of the life of women as opposed to being a cyborg. Your argument that women have been able to juggle home and work for hundreds of years and should be treated with equality is the feminist argument.
Great post Holly. I think you summarized it well.
Holly~
I think that this articles was hard for everyone to read, at least I know that it was for me. Anyhow I totally agree with you that you felt kind of sad when reading this article as I pointed out in my post as well about how far women have come in their equality rights. But you have to keep in mind that the article was written in the 80's, so it is a little outdated.
I mentioned in my article the part where she talks about video games and how that relates to our class discussions. It never occurred to me though that the part you mentioned, the homework economy, ties into everything we have discussed in class. So good job it definetly got me thinking.
Hey Holly,
I think a lot of the members in our group are agreeing on some of the main points that Haraway is making in her manifesto.
You did a great job of highlighting some of Haraway's points but I might suggest re-evaluating some of the other points she was trying to get across, they seem to be parallel with your own beliefs in how strong and intelligent women of today and yesterday are.
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