{"id":5816,"date":"2009-01-11T06:37:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-11T11:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=5816"},"modified":"2009-11-27T04:08:32","modified_gmt":"2009-11-27T09:08:32","slug":"robosapien-and-femisapien-gender-in-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2009\/01\/11\/robosapien-and-femisapien-gender-in-design\/","title":{"rendered":"Masculinity and Femininity in Robotics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beth sent in a link to WowWee<\/a>, a company that makes robot toys, including Robosapien<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The description of Robosapien:<\/p>\n

Robosapien\u2122 is a sophisticated fusion of technology and personality. Loaded with attitude and intelligence, Robosapien is the first robot based on the science of applied biomorphic robotics. With a full range of dynamic motion, interactive sensors and a unique personality, Robosapien is more than a mechanical companion — he’s a multi-functional, thinking, feeling robot with attitude!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is also a female version, called Femisapien<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the website:<\/p>\n

Intelligent and interactive, RS Femisapien\u2122 speaks her own language called “emotish” which consists of gentle sounds and gestures. There is no remote required; interact with her directly and she responds to your hand gestures, touch, and sound.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So the default robot is male, with the female being not a female Robosapien but rather an entirely different product. And the photos and descriptions of Robosapien emphasize aggression, movement, personality, and “attitude,” while Femisapien speaks “emotish” (seriously?), which is “gentle”–a characteristic that seems to be missing from Robosapien, who is dynamic and, um, maybe shoots lasers from his hands.<\/p>\n

It’s a nice example of gendered assumptions being built into product design and marketing. There’s no particular reason that the male and female versions of a robot have to look so very different, but even if they did, the decision to associate one with words and characteristics that evoke emotion and gentleness and the other with aggression and movement isn’t accidental; it’s a result of how we think about males and females.<\/p>\n

For another excellent example of the men are people and women are women thing, see this post<\/a> on the Body Worlds exhibit.<\/p>\n

NEW! <\/strong><\/span>Kyle M. sent us a link to his post on the advertising for the sci-fi show Surrogates.\u00a0 He makes some great observations<\/a>.\u00a0 I noticed, too, that the way in which the robotic components of men and women were designed differed slightly in gendered ways.\u00a0 The “spines” of the men are significantly more robust than the thin, spindly spines given to the female characters.\u00a0 Notice, also, that the way in which the models are posed emphasizes women’s thinness (in all of these ads, she is positioned sideways, minimizing her size) and men’s broadness (positioned so that the width of his body is emphasized).<\/p>\n

\"surrogates_poster_3-535x156\"<\/p>\n

\"surrogates_poster_2-535x156\"<\/p>\n

\"xsurrogates-3\"<\/p>\n

\"surrogates_poster_6\"<\/p>\n

\"xxsurrogates_poster_5-205x300\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beth sent in a link to WowWee, a company that makes robot toys, including Robosapien: The description of Robosapien: Robosapien\u2122 is a sophisticated fusion of technology and personality. Loaded with attitude and intelligence, Robosapien is the first robot based on the science of applied biomorphic robotics. With a full range of dynamic motion, interactive sensors […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[218,55,2103,2096,2087,290],"class_list":["post-5816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bodies","tag-gender","tag-gender-bodies","tag-gender-femininity","tag-gender-masculinity","tag-sciencetechnology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5816","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\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5816"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16506,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5816\/revisions\/16506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}