SI28-Radio-Worm/Week7

Radio-Show/Week7

The seventh radio show was themed around feminism. Barbara, Sibyl and Youjung talk about their own experiences with feminism, and how it can relate to writing machines and technology.

Hosts

Barbara, Sibyl, Youjung

Youjung, Barbara and Sibyl hosting the 7th radio show

Recap of the Show

Introduction

🎵 Boyish - Japanese Breakfast

Session 1 | When did you first start engaging with feminism?

Youjung

I first encountered feminism in 2018, when I was a university student through the Me-too movement. I was introduced to feminism for the first time. The feminism I encountered was questioning the things that I had silently tolerated as a woman and beginning to speak up about them. For me feminism is breaking free from roles and expectations, I'm still breaking away from it. In the future I'd like to go further than binary perspectives and blur the boundaries.

Sibyl

For me, my first real encounter with feminism happened in college. I remember my professor saying that feminism isn’t just about helping women —it’s also about helping people included man break free from the constraints of the patriarchal system. That was the moment when I truly started to understand what feminism meant.I remember that back in middle school, my understanding of feminism was still stuck in the idea of men and women being opposed to each other. But now I know that feminism isn’t about dividing the genders — it’s about helping the “vulnerable” groups in society gain the rights they deserve.

The first feminist book I ever read was Disgust Against Women by U/e/no Chizuko. Looking back at my notes now, I can see how many cynical comments I wrote in the margins. For example, I wrote things like: “When a man gets angry because someone insults his mother, it’s actually because insulting his mother means insulting his own birth — that’s why he reacts with anger.” And I added so many exclamation marks! Hahaha.

Ueno Chizuko writes that “from the moment a person is born, their worth already differs according to gender — there is no clearer or more straightforward expression of misogyny than this.” Her argument exposes how gendered value is imposed at the very starting point of life.

Barbara

I grew up in the southwest away from all the feminist gatherings, so my exposure to it came largely from the internet. Particularly through Tumblr, fandom spaces, video games, because of this I witnessed the anti-SJW movement, rise of online alt-right, gamergate.

I wrote my high school thesis on sexism in video game communities & design.

During my bachelors a lot of my friends started experimenting with their gender identity and coming out as trans. And it made me realize the definition of gender is not set in stone at all.. Made me think about my own gender: Am I a woman? Why am I a woman? how do I define it? how do I express it? how is it influenced by my position in society? What language do I use to express my gender? What is this binary thinking and do I agree with it?  It's so difficult to find answers to those questions and I think I became very frustrated on multiple dimensions with being put into boxes.. I hate that feeling, I want to break free from it. Reading A Cyborg Manifesto by Donna Haraway which introduced me to cyberfeminism as a whole gave me a lot of answers and inspiration.

Session 2 | A Cyborg Manifesto

Barbara

Read the first paragraph on Wikipedia on A Cyborg Manifesto by Donna Haraway:

"A Cyborg Manifesto" is an essay written by Donna Haraway and first published in 1985 in the Socialist Review under the title "A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s." In it, the concept of the cyborg represents a rejection of rigid boundaries, notably those separating "human" from "animal" and "human" from "machine." Haraway writes: "The cyborg does not dream of community on the model of the organic family, this time without the oedipal project. The cyborg would not recognize the Garden of Eden; it is not made of mud and cannot dream of returning to dust." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Cyborg_Manifesto

What are our own takeaways on A Cyborg Manifesto?

Youjung

Cyborg is a blurred boundaries of technology/machine and human. Technology is integrated into our lives and we are all in a sense cyborgs. It disrupts this binary and reality into a fluid and multiplicity. Binary not only includes male/female but also self/other, west/east. Before reading this essay, my perspective on feminism was more of women fighting against men and social assumptions. But after engaging with Haraway's text, I realized that feminism can also be dissolving these boundaries and embracing fluidity. Also reminded me of She Unnames Them, by removing the titles it blurs out the line and become more closer to the opponent.

Sibyl

another branch of cyborg feminism

“Glitches” are usually just errors /a system can’t handle, in Russell’s theory, a glitch means a way to push back against rules, labels, and the control placed on our bodies. She believes the digital world creates an escape route — a space where people can rebuild who they are and step outside the limits of race, gender, and the physical body.

📖 She Unnames Them - Ursula Le Guin

📖 The Second Sex – Simone de Beauvoir

This challenges binary ways of thinking, like nature and culture, men and women, or humans and machines. It shows that life is diverse and that identity can change. It reminds me of Beauvoir’s famous line: “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” Gender is not decided by biology. It is shaped by society, by culture, and by what people do in their daily lives.

Session 3 | Protest in South Korea

Youjung

Last winter, when president Yoon Suk-yeol declared martial law, Korea's democracy faced threat of going back to military dictatorship. People poured into streets to protest. What stood out was that the demonstrations were largely led by 2030 young women, many of them familiar with K-pop culture and digital activism.

These people gathered through twitter, discussing when where to meet and what to bring. Twitter has been a space where k-pop fandom culture thrives. Naturally, it's also a place where feminist discourse grows and circulates. Fangirls, twitter users, young voters who endured Yoon's gender splitting election promises.

This is where I saw a connection with Donna Haraway's cyborg feminism. There was this sentence "Cyborgs are ether". We become cyborgs not only through machinery but also through networked being. Cyborgs gathered with glowing plastic wands in hand. Resisting in a playful yet powerful way, and they made protests into concerts. And after months of protesting Yoon was impeached by the National Assembly.

Protest has also evolved, it became a cyborg gathering. Networked bodies, online communities and glowing devices merging together authoritarian power.

This song was played widely during the protest, it carries a message about changing the world and moving towards something better.

🎵  다시 만난 세계(Into the new world) - Girl's Generation

Session 4 | How do we write about machines?

🎵 Plays audio from a scene from movie Ex Machina in which 2 men discuss designing robots with gender/sexuality for their own sexual interests

Written by Barbara in 2023 while working on her game Intertwine:

In Ex Machina, character Caleb remarks that AI robot Ava exhibits remarkable “non-autistic” behavior, because she was able to respond to him by making a joke. Her creator Nathan also found it very important to program her as a cisgender, heterosexual woman instead of a “gray box”.

Sexuality, gender and neurotypical behavior are framed by these men as necessary components to make the AI seem more human, as well as disguising her robotic components through clothing and artificial skin. But in real life countless people exist who are asexual, autistic, don’t conform to binary gender categories, and/or whose limbs or organs have been replaced by artificial ones. Does that make them less than human, also?

On the one hand, equating marginalized people to robots is offensive. It’s a way to continue the dehumanization and objectification of our identities. It frames us as Other, less than human. But on the other hand, I have always really resonated with cyborgs, aliens, robots and monsters. I find them liberating, in a way. How beautiful it is to not fit into the neat categories and boundaries that the West has imposed on our world. To make bigots uncomfortable just by being your unapologetic self. I will not change myself just to be human enough in their eyes. I am redefining what it means to be human.  

Barely a decade ago, Silicon Valley men like Elon Musk and Bill Gates were releasing panicked statements about future artificial intelligence “killing us all”. Fast forward a few years and they are now at the forefront of AI development. Why?

Sci-fi depictions of super-AI threatening human existence aren’t really about AI at all.

“It's certain men’s displaced anxiety upon realizing that women and people of color (AN: and disabled people, and queer people, and workers) have, and have always had, sentience, and are beginning to act on it on scales that they’re unprepared for. There’s a reason that AI is almost exclusively gendered as female, in fiction and in life. There’s a reason they’re almost exclusively in service positions, in fiction and in life. I’m not worried about how we’re going to treat AI some distant day, I’m worried about how we treat other humans, now, today, all over the world, far worse than anything that’s depicted in AI movies. It matters that still, the vast majority of science fiction narratives that appear in popular culture are imagined by, written by, directed by, and funded by white men who interpret the crumbling of their world as the crumbling of the world.” - Monica Byrne

However, now that real world AI is being used to sharpen the blade of capitalist oppression in their favor, the same billionaires and tech bros can’t hop on board of its train fast enough. Suddenly it’s the best thing to happen to us since the invention of the internet.

“I’m not very convinced by claims that A.I. poses a danger to humanity because it might develop goals of its own and prevent us from turning it off. However, I do think that A.I. is dangerous inasmuch as it increases the power of capitalism. The doomsday scenario is not a manufacturing A.I. transforming the entire planet into paper clips, as one famous thought experiment has imagined. It’s A.I.-supercharged corporations destroying the environment and the working class in their pursuit of shareholder value. Capitalism is the machine that will do whatever it takes to prevent us from turning it off, and the most successful weapon in its arsenal has been its campaign to prevent us from considering any alternatives.” - Ted Chiang

Barbara

Interesting duality of reading the movie Ex Machina as a feminist narrative but also perpetuating this centering of the cisgender male perspective. The violent ending can be interpreted as cathartic violence against the oppressor or "scary ai is going to kill us all".

Sibyl

I thought we could analyze this movie, because I saw an interpretation about it. It talked about why Eva also wants to kill the guy who helps her escape.

Youjung

Does if the sensors between her legs makes her happy, does she masturbate? Is that feature structured to pleasure herself or to pleasure men? Is her sexuality just a manipulation tactic to escape the building? Feminine aspect was described to manipulate and deceive. What is the motif of assigning gender to AI? For better experience or for manipulation/profit?

🎵  Like You - Miss Grit (3:50)

Session 5 | Women's Contributions in Scientific Research

Sibyl

Recently，I read a scholar who talked about gendered labor in the history of science. She said that mushrooms were seen as “low-level” plants at that time. Because of this, the work was given to ENTRY-LEVEL female scholars who were not allowed to join the main academic group. One of them was M. F. Lewis. She presented her research through illustrations. From the layout of her watercolor paintings of mushrooms and the way she organized her classifications and catalogues, it’s clear that she aimed to make her scientific work more accessible and easy to understand.

The ironic part is that, to this day, we still don’t know what her initials stand for — which names the M and F actually represent.

Even though women were limited in where they could work and study, they still found ways to shine. They made their own space, showed their talent, and created value in the places society pushed them into.

🎵  她-andr

Session 6 | What does feminism mean to you?

Barbara

To strive for a world in which we can all be free to be ourselves without fear and without oppression. Nothing should be considered superior to anything else. And this goes not just for gender, but also sexuality, race, class, neurotype, species, all these binaries, all these us vs them mentalities, can and should be shattered. They are all in support of the patriarchy.

Sibyl

For me, we are still living within a patriarchal system, and at this point, many women don’t even know what feminism is. What I want to do is help more people recognize women’s strength — their contributions, their efforts, and their worth. Even though women are often constrained by the social protocols and expectations placed on them, and even though society is full of restrictions on women, I want people to see that despite all these barriers, women can still shine.

Youjung

I'm still learning feminism and trying to break free from the expectations. While preparing for the radio show, I realized that I was distant from it for a while. Moving away from academic background and encountering inequality at work or social background, I lost the spirit to fight back or talk about it.