"First let us postulate that the computer scientists succeed in developing intelligent machines that can do all things better than human beings can do them. In that case presumably all work will be done by vast, highly organized systems of machines and no human effort will be necessary. Either of two cases might occur. The machines might be permitted to make all of their own decisions without human oversight, or else human control over the machines might be retained."

                                          ---Theodore Kaczynski

When we first stumbled across the above passage in a Wired magazine article, we were immediately intrigued, not only by the content, but by the author. Although we seriously doubt the Unabomber ever meant to, we were inspired to consider this as a possible topic for our group project. With the advances of robotics technology, the question of sentient robots and artificial intelligence has been raised as both a moral and social concern, and we were curious to see how robots, which most of think of as mechanical humans, would perpetuate gender hegemony. However, since none of us had any loveable neighborhood robots to study, we decided to analyze several movies and a few TV shows, to see how they confronted the issue. We looked at how they robot's physical appearance, how the interacted with other characters, the types of emotions they experienced, and what their overall gender appeared to be. Originally, we thought it would be easy to come up with three easily distinguishable robot gender groups; male, female, and gender-neutral. We soon learned, however, that such was not the case.

We found some female robots that were easily typecast as the hegemonic female. There was Rosie, from The Jetsons, who, although obviously mechanical, rolled around in a bonnet and an apron tied around her "matronly" figure, doing housework and taking care of the children. In Blade Runner, the "replicant" Rachael at first came across as a poised and well-groomed young woman. After we find out that she is artificial, however, our feelings about her change-she suddenly appears cold in demeanor, and too-perfect in appearance. This feeling is only alleviated when she takes her hair down at the piano and lets a few tears fall-and then, moments later, is roughly coerced into having sex with Deckard, the "blade runner" assigned to "retire" her, now that her emotions are "out of control." We see further perfection at the beginning of Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, when Austin's perfect newlywed wife, Vanessa, turns out to be a "fembot" who tries to kill Austin-but only after she has seemingly mechanical sex with him for an indefinite amount of time (as evidenced by the comment "maybe next time you should try foreplay"). We also analyzed the character Trinity character in the film The Matrix. Although she is not wholly a robot, when she enters "The Matrix," she (as well as the other characters) becomes a digital image, assuming a different appearance and set of skills. When she enters The Matrix, she physically becomes cleaner looking-she wears form-fitting leather-like clothes, her hair slicks back, her face takes on an almost plastic sheen.

We felt that these female robots could be took on a theme of perfection that could be divided into two categories; a mother role, (Rosie), and a sexual role, (Rachael, Vanessa, and Trinity). The former group, we felt, personified the "perfect mother"; a 1950's mentality that our society has continued to uphold, often in a repressive manner. The latter group, we felt begged the question: is it possible then that women could lose their sexual appeal to men due to this "perfect" artificial creation containing all the traits of a human female, but with the added bonus of being an actual object, who can therefore be easily objectified? So, we found a TV show that delved into this question, a Futurama episode titled "I Dated A Robot". From these clips, we concluded that popular culture as it now stands, would most likely stand to perpetuate the hegemonic role of women as "caretakers"; or, objects.

Interestingly, out of all the movies we watched, we only found two characters that we felt were in any way gender-neutral or androgynous. The first was R2D2, from the Star Wars trilogy. We all felt that R2D2 was gender neutral when we discussed the movie before watching it-R2D2's "voice" is just a set of bells and whistles, R2D2 has a nondescript body structure, seems to express concern in a mechanical sense, and interacts with the other characters, really, more like an intelligent puppy than a model of a human. It was especially intriguing, then, when we found that the other characters in the movie refer to R2D2 as "he"; we can only surmise that R2D2 has achieved this gender based on the tasks that "he" performs, which are technically skilled, "scientific" tasks often stereotyped as "masculine" activities. Alternately, we also found the character of Edward Scissorhands, from the movie of the same name, to be a bit androgynous in nature. Although he is consistently referred to as a man, his appearance and demeanor are atypical of the male hegemony. He retreats from any kind of sexual action, and spends much of the movie running away and hiding from the world. We didn't feel as though his actions reflected any gender stereotypes, although we did observe a very innocent, child-like demeanor.

Finally, we observed several male robot characters. The first character we observed was the Pierce Brosnin robot in the Simspons episode "Treehouse of Horror:XII." The robot employs a masculine sense of jealousy and ownership and he plots to kill Homer and marry Marge. He does, interestingly, perform household tasks, and is not masculine in appearance; however his actions, demeanor, voice, and British charm led us to conclude that this robot was gendered male. We also analyzed Terminator and RoboCop, and found the robots in both movies to be very masculine, with large muscles, big guns, and a violent attitude, embodying the ultimate masculine fantasy of an enormous, invincible, fighting machine. They were also devoid of most displays of emotion, which is also a hegemonic masculine trait.

After doing the work for this project, we have all drawn the conclusion that human existence is doomed. As society continues to perpetuate its own flaws while creating "perfection", it manages to put an effective stopper on social growth and equality. So, we suggest that everyone invest in coffee beans and move to Latin America and start a revolution to overthrow capitalism. It's the only solution.

Suggested Readings:
Haraway, Donna. "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist- Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge (1991): 149-181.