Two interesting articles from MIT Technology Review:
Eva Modebadze wrote an interesting article in relation to the current protests for abortion rights in Poland. The following is a quote from her article on foucaultblog, in which she recaps the argument on the interlinkages between the construction of gender, sexuality and the nation state:
Gender, sexuality and nationalism are all socially and culturally constructed in oppositions, sometimes not necessarily binary. The nation consists of sexed subjects who are part of culturally constructed hierarchies, and these relationships always involve power. By the control over sexuality and reproduction, the authority to define what is right and what is bad for the nation lies mainly within patriarchal notions of nationalism. Since nationalism is about difference, it is equally exclusive where hierarchies are constructed along the lines of gender, class, race or sexuality. The rise of nationalism enhances the politics of exclusion and takes different configurations in different settings.
The Tropes vs Women in Video Games project is a fantastic series of video about “sexist patterns associated with female representations in games, and to illuminate how these patterns reinforce and perpetuate harmful attitudes about women in our culture”. I watched part one (embedded below) on “Women as Background Decoration” in games. And part two, which centers more representation of male violence against women in video games.
Via The New Inquiry, “TNI Syllabus: Gaming and Feminism”.
Helen Lewis writes at The Atlantic magazine about how “Pandemics affect men and women differently”.
The coronavirus crisis will be global and long-lasting, economic as well as medical. However, it also offers an opportunity. This could be the first outbreak where gender and sex differences are recorded, and taken into account by researchers and policy makers. For too long, politicians have assumed that child care and elderly care can be “soaked up” by private citizens—mostly women—effectively providing a huge subsidy to the paid economy. This pandemic should remind us of the true scale of that distortion.
Having fun looking at two posts from Sociological Images on gendered products:
Looking at a keynote presentation of Lisa Nakamura at the transmediale 2018 “Call Out, Protest, Speak Back”. She focuses on the importance of critical race and feminist theory for understanding contemporary culture of digital technologies. Interesting use of Audrey Lorde’s quote that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” and how we can’t fix technology with more technology.
Leila McNeill at The Baffler writes on the mythos of the male scientific genius and the moral license given to them: “Feynman, who died in 1988, is only one of the famous male scientists now sparking heated debates over the question of whether it’s possible, or even desirable, to separate the science from the scientist. Even as several high-profile scientists have lost their jobs due to charges of sexual misconduct over last few years, #MeToo has not much altered the science professions, and it likely won’t until the culture of science is dismantled and rebuilt from the ground up. Part of this process must include a serious reconsideration of how we’ve regarded abusive male scientists in the past—and how we have allowed such figures, in turn, to control the story and direction of science.”.
A Short Video Introduction to Hilma af Klint, the Mystical Female Painter Who Helped Invent Abstract Art via [@openculture] (http://www.openculture.com/?p=1059102).
Openculture on the creation of a new online database with works from overlooked female artists from the 15-17th century. More making invisible works visible?
A good example of invisible work - The History of Female [Movie] Editors.