Reading Response 6

While recently reading the article “Lest We Think the Revolution is a Revolution: Images of Technology and the Nature of Change,” written by Cynthia L. Selfe, something clicked in my head and I realized that we are so distracted by our lives that we don’t realize how certain things are targeted to specific audiences. Selfe discusses how advertisers for computers and their parts target men with their ads and commercials. She first brings up the fact that we all agree with the fact that “computer-supported environments will help us create a utopic world in which gender is not a predictor of success or a constraint for interaction with the world.” What this means is that we have created this cultural narrative for ourselves that somehow this computer advancement is going to help us share a non-sexist perfect world between ourselves. Selfe believes that we seem to be so caught up in this idea that we don’t really realize that the advertisements that we are being shown are somewhat sexist. Computer games are designed for boys, computer commercials are aimed mainly at men, and computer environments are still constructed for males. We still see men as the main provider in households all over the United States so many things are target just towards men instead of women. Today, women are making themselves visible a lot more. Women can do whatever a man can do now, so why are we still sticking to our sexist ways? If a man can fix a computer, use it for recreational purposes and do work on them, then a woman can too if she wants.

I can’t even begin to think of a solution to this because we have had these types of stereotypes since the beginning of time. We seem to get a little better with time, but there is always going to be that vision of the working man coming home to the wonderful housewife. Selfe believes that “creating an electronic ungendered utopia means that we might have to learn how to understand people outside of the limited gender roles that we have constructed for them in this country, that we may have to abandon the ways in which we have traditionally differentiated between men’s work and women’s work in the market place, that we may have to provide men and women with equitable remuneration for comparable jobs, that we may have to learn to function within new global contexts that acknowledge women as Heads of State as well as heads of households.” She was able to come up with a number of solutions to think about. It is basically saying that if we put all of the gendered stereotypes behind us, we will be able to grow as a nation because men and women can be equal for the first time ever. A move like that would change our nation as a whole. We would be able to see women in a whole new light. We wouldn’t see the same old vision of them in the kitchen cooking, but maybe by the computer trying to fix it herself without a man’s help.