Feminist HCI (Human-Computer Interaction)

I had a homework assignment asking to reflect upon some readings about Feminist HCI. Here was my response to a 350 word limit submission.

I know this is long. This is not about the grade to me. It's about the message. But before I begin, understand than I have tried my very best to understand females. My mother was a professional soprano who quit her opera singing career to take care of me and spend all her time giving me affirmation, confidence, and a general sense of security. In doing so, I acquired first-hand experience with true feminine qualities that make me whole. I am a human with masculine and feminine traits. Just like females are humans with masculine and feminine traits. But today's society is forcing females to override their femininity with masculinity. Just like how I tried to override my masculinity with femininity in a vain attempt to coerce females into romantic relationships. Because I thought, "Why not be like them so that they can let me inside their lives?" What a joke.

The "New Bottles, Old Wine" paper highlights the notion that a single objective has multiple angles of observation. Like how a migraine can be caused by differences within internal or external factors such as a man with a susceptibility to migraines due to genetics, or a Caucasian woman being assaulted by three African American males who slammed her head with a metal rod. I assume this is to instigate people to see the world from both sides. And I do not disagree.

The "Gender Neutrality" paper offers many suggestions in order to alleviate the polarization of male-female presence in technology. These are visionary suggestions that are not based on facts. As Ecclesiates 7:28 states, "While I was searching but not finding - I found one upright man among a thousand, but not one upright woman among them all." These genetics have been passed down to the currently existing pool of human beings, which have been phenotypically expressed consistently. There are many men who do not code. But even more women who do not code. Many efforts have been made in order to change woman in man's image, but what is woman's image? The image that woman wants for herself? Well, for many, it's a picture of themselves in a bathroom mirror. Not all, but many. And to those many, why does a gender neutral presence in the tech industry matter when they do not even unite their own interests and take action for the better of humanity, rather than their own individual value? I wager that it is because as soon as puberty hits, a pretty girl goes through "yea, I was just doing my own thing, and then all of a sudden, guys started paying attention to me." While as soon as any boy goes through puberty, he has to build muscle, push through daily encounters with failure, and develop a personality that does not depend on the validation of others. And that takes time. A lot of time. So much time that a woman does not have because of her consistently declining physical features that affect her fertility, but more importantly, her ability to retain the attention of a suitable mate that can accompany her throughout her life without the risk of becoming a single-mother due to the differences between males and females in terms of parental investment. One man can have potentially have hundreds of children a year. The same cannot be said for one woman. And for woman to want man to be in her image, is the collapse of society as we see today, with statistics that show lower marriage rates that consistently decline each year. The independent woman with a high salary will never settle for a man that is deemed lesser to her, and so she seeks an already low pool of suitable mates. And what about the ugly woman? Well, a lot of men don't even look at them because unfortunately, she cannot control whether or not she is perceived as ugly since this is decision completely dependent upon men to deem this to be true. One may argue that woman does not need man, but that is exactly the kind of thinking that leads to a child which comes to expect a family to be devoid of wholesomeness because of an incomplete example of parental guidance. What will happen to that child? What would have happened to me if I did not have my own father in my life?

One of the cited references in the Gender pluralism paper dates back to 1988, which was at the time where computers were becoming mainstream and more accessible to the general public. It addresses the perspectives of that time in verbatim. Tying into the "Gender Neutrality" paper, it mentions the difference between men and women of that time who saw computers and what it did to people at that time. Women saw a stereotypical image that they did not like, and therefore disassociated with the start of this technological revolution. And this is because of how the love that a man displayed for an object seemed to be greater than people. They feared becoming social outcasts like these people who spent their late-nights at their terminals without making any friends at university. And although men who did not participate in coding viewed similarly as women did, they had admiration for an individual who chose to spend their intellectual vigor on a learning strategy that differs from their own. But women did not carry this admiration because they didn't even think to care about the long-term consequences of such a powerful influence since the only basis of observations were what was presented to them at the time. And this carries similar sentiment to the girls who grow up ignoring their mother's advice that "It's always the dorks who end up the most handsome and successful."

I will end this long reflection with closing remarks. When the direction of humanity was dictated upon the studies of weapons of war, men would rise up in arms to protect their people. I wish I could say that just as many women did the same as these men, but it was not under my control to determine their long historical course of action. And that is what brings me to my final point, which is that the dynamic of coding is very similar to that of war. It is about control. To gain control is to take risks of losing control. To lose control is to risk life itself. But for one to lose control, another must gain it. And if the one who gains control is not capable of maintaining prosperity and resolving conflicts before they happen, then you get a South Korean female president who listens to a "spiritual medium" that pretended to be the host of her dead mother for guidance on how to lead an entire nation that identifies itself as a global superpower. This happened in our lifetime, quite recently actually.

TL;DR What a time to be alive in this world...