(no subject)
Why is it rude not to attribute a gender to a sentient entity, even if that entity has no physical sex?
I was just thinking about it because I'm writing a paper on super-intelligent, reasonably self-aware computers (which eventually go nuts, but that's irrelevant to the topic at hand), and it seems really strange to me how often gender is -- ridiculously, when you think about it -- attributed to machines.
I've noticed that it always seems to happen when the machine speaks with a gender-specific voice. HAL-9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey and the Puppet Master from Ghost in the Shell both speak with male voices and are thus considered male (even though the Puppet Master inhabits a female cyborg torso and is thus, by appearance anyway, blonde and buxom). Joshua from WarGames, on the other hand, despite having a male name, speaks with an unmistakably computerized, genderless voice, and is referred to throughout the movie as "it" without anyone batting an eye.
It got me thinking about it beyond just the context of supercomputers. Referring to someone or something that actually does have sexual organs as "it" seems incredibly cold and disrespectful, as though by denying them a specific gender, one is also denying their value as a person (or thing, whatever they happen to be). I never really stopped to think about that before but now that I do, it's odd. Gender is so ingrained within our culture that it is in fact socially taboo not to pigeonhole everyone you associate with into one of two (kind of rigid) categories. We need gender and we need other people to acknowledge it in order to preserve our identity. We need it so much that we even impose it upon entities that probably don't give a damn about it themselves (like animals), or entities that are by nature completely asexual (like computers). If we don't, no matter how illogical it is, we feel we're not paying them proper respect. Why is that? It doesn't seem like there ought to be anything fundamentally wrong with genderlessness (especially if it reflects an actual asexual state of being!) and yet there is some serious stigma there.
I remember an episode of Star Trek: TNG in which there is a trial to determine whether the android Commander Data is entitled to the same rights and privilages as a human member of Starfleet. His opponent, a little snake that wants to take him apart and use him as a template to create more androids, always refers to him as "it." The effect is repulsive. Data is indeed by design a very gendered entity, but I don't think that's particularly relevant here; even if he had just been a voice in a computer bank, that continual scornful "it" was just another way of saying "You're not a person, you're just a machine -- you aren't worth my time or my consideration" and you quickly learn to hate the guy that says it for his prejudice. Why is that? Yes, Data has a male body and a male voice, but he is, after all, a glorified and mobile supercomputer. I think it's safe to assume that machines, even sentient ones, would have no innate gender identity -- nor even the foggiest understanding of one. It seems to be something that we need, not the computer -- we have no idea how to relate to something that isn't categorized by gender the way we are. Gender and self are so synonymous in our heads that if something is genderless it seems also to have no self, and we just don't know what to make of that.
Of course, it's entirely possible that 4 am is not the best time for philosophical meanderings, but I can't help feeling like it says something weird about our culture that we seem to be psychologically incapable of separating gender from a person or a thing's nature as a person or a thing. What are your thoughts?
I was just thinking about it because I'm writing a paper on super-intelligent, reasonably self-aware computers (which eventually go nuts, but that's irrelevant to the topic at hand), and it seems really strange to me how often gender is -- ridiculously, when you think about it -- attributed to machines.
I've noticed that it always seems to happen when the machine speaks with a gender-specific voice. HAL-9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey and the Puppet Master from Ghost in the Shell both speak with male voices and are thus considered male (even though the Puppet Master inhabits a female cyborg torso and is thus, by appearance anyway, blonde and buxom). Joshua from WarGames, on the other hand, despite having a male name, speaks with an unmistakably computerized, genderless voice, and is referred to throughout the movie as "it" without anyone batting an eye.
It got me thinking about it beyond just the context of supercomputers. Referring to someone or something that actually does have sexual organs as "it" seems incredibly cold and disrespectful, as though by denying them a specific gender, one is also denying their value as a person (or thing, whatever they happen to be). I never really stopped to think about that before but now that I do, it's odd. Gender is so ingrained within our culture that it is in fact socially taboo not to pigeonhole everyone you associate with into one of two (kind of rigid) categories. We need gender and we need other people to acknowledge it in order to preserve our identity. We need it so much that we even impose it upon entities that probably don't give a damn about it themselves (like animals), or entities that are by nature completely asexual (like computers). If we don't, no matter how illogical it is, we feel we're not paying them proper respect. Why is that? It doesn't seem like there ought to be anything fundamentally wrong with genderlessness (especially if it reflects an actual asexual state of being!) and yet there is some serious stigma there.
I remember an episode of Star Trek: TNG in which there is a trial to determine whether the android Commander Data is entitled to the same rights and privilages as a human member of Starfleet. His opponent, a little snake that wants to take him apart and use him as a template to create more androids, always refers to him as "it." The effect is repulsive. Data is indeed by design a very gendered entity, but I don't think that's particularly relevant here; even if he had just been a voice in a computer bank, that continual scornful "it" was just another way of saying "You're not a person, you're just a machine -- you aren't worth my time or my consideration" and you quickly learn to hate the guy that says it for his prejudice. Why is that? Yes, Data has a male body and a male voice, but he is, after all, a glorified and mobile supercomputer. I think it's safe to assume that machines, even sentient ones, would have no innate gender identity -- nor even the foggiest understanding of one. It seems to be something that we need, not the computer -- we have no idea how to relate to something that isn't categorized by gender the way we are. Gender and self are so synonymous in our heads that if something is genderless it seems also to have no self, and we just don't know what to make of that.
Of course, it's entirely possible that 4 am is not the best time for philosophical meanderings, but I can't help feeling like it says something weird about our culture that we seem to be psychologically incapable of separating gender from a person or a thing's nature as a person or a thing. What are your thoughts?