{"id":55200,"date":"2013-05-25T12:00:30","date_gmt":"2013-05-25T17:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=55200"},"modified":"2013-05-25T17:14:11","modified_gmt":"2013-05-25T22:14:11","slug":"the-problem-with-fembots-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2013\/05\/25\/the-problem-with-fembots-again\/","title":{"rendered":"The Problem with Fembots&#8230; Again"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2013\/05\/19.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-55202\" alt=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2013\/05\/19.jpg\" width=\"557\" height=\"140\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2013\/05\/19.jpg 557w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2013\/05\/19-500x125.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 557px) 100vw, 557px\" \/><\/a>I know this is boring and it should go without saying, but apparently it <a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2008\/04\/14\/a-metaphor-for-gender-relations\/\">hasn&#8217;t been said enough<\/a>: this idea that fembots are the perfect women is just wrong. \u00a0It suggests that men want someone over which they have perfect control. \u00a0And that&#8217;s creepy&#8230; and boring.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s an example of the phenomenon (via\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.about-face.org\/kia-chalks-up-another-ad-as-a-sexist-fail\/\" target=\"_blank\">About-Face<\/a>):<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_WWXio6-9fQ\" height=\"315\" width=\"560\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>That part where they make eyes at each other, he instructs the GPS to take them home, and she hits the button to heat up her (cold, hard) &#8220;seat.&#8221; \u00a0Just&#8230; ew.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s another especially troubling example, sent in by a reader. \u00a0It&#8217;s some sort of ad for Play Station 3. It features a fembot being assembled and &#8220;woken.&#8221; \u00a0The narration explains that she will\u00a0&#8220;cook, watch the house, take care of the kids&#8221; and be &#8220;entirely at your disposal as a sexual partner.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>At some point the fembot realizes she is being sold and expresses shock and disappointment. \u00a0The man in charge explains, &#8220;Of course you&#8217;re merchandise, baby.&#8221; \u00a0When she says that she&#8217;d thought she was alive, he labels her &#8220;defective.&#8221; \u00a0That thought was not &#8220;part of the protocol,&#8221; he says, &#8220;You&#8217;re not supposed to think at all.&#8221; \u00a0He then decides to destroy her, but\u00a0succumbs\u00a0to her pleas to let her &#8220;live&#8221; after all. \u00a0Again, a super creepy story about the ideal woman.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em id=\"__mceDel\"><object width=\"560\" height=\"315\" classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/lhoYLp8CtXI?version=3&amp;hl=en_US\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><\/object><\/em><\/p>\n<span class=\"ft_signature\"><em><a href=\"http:\/\/lisa-wade.com\/\">Lisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/American-Hookup-New-Culture-Campus\/dp\/039328509X?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0\">American Hookup<\/a><em>, a book about college sexual culture; a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Gender-Interactions-Institutions-Lisa-Wade\/dp\/0393931072?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0\">textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/lisa-wade.com\/intro\/\">Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a><em>.\u00a0You can follow her on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/lisawade\">Twitter<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/lisawadephd\/\">Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I know this is boring and it should go without saying, but apparently it hasn&#8217;t been said enough: this idea that fembots are the perfect women is just wrong. \u00a0It suggests that men want someone over which they have perfect control. \u00a0And that&#8217;s creepy&#8230; and boring. Here&#8217;s an example of the phenomenon (via\u00a0About-Face): That part [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[55,2087,290],"class_list":["post-55200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gender","tag-gender-masculinity","tag-sciencetechnology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55200"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55204,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55200\/revisions\/55204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}