Is Alexa a Setback for Feminism?
Serena Wong

19 March 2018

Voice-activated personal assistants like Alexa and Siri are becoming increasingly popular, both with tech companies trying to capitalize on a new market and with consumers looking for a little help in their day-to-day activities. While the assistants each try to differentiate themselves in someway, there is one inescapable commonality: they are all female.

In this Atlantic article,Ian Bogostexplores why this might be, and what it could indicate about personal assistants and the tech companies behind them. With personal assistants, Bogost argues, we are playing into the stereotype of women slotted simply to service and subservient roles, eager to please. Ultimately, these personal assistants are "doomed to fail" as they fall short of the expectation of perfection.

Read the full article here:https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/01/sorry-alexa-is-not-a-feminist/551291/

Comments(1)

Harold G. Neuman's picture

Harold G. Neuman

Tuesday, March 20, 2018 -- 11:08 AM

My wife has one of the Google

我妻子有一台谷歌机器。我的儿媳有Alexa。我们的家人和朋友的小圈子里也有Siri设备。我想有人可能会把这些机器的“女性气质”等同于对女权主义观点的抨击，但我发现这有点牵强。到目前为止，还没有任何评论，从我们所知道的关于这一现象，所有迹象表明，这些项目的所有者都很满意他们的表现。我认为这里有一个区别:所谓的私人助理是半复杂的玩具，正因为如此，它们比其他任何东西都更适合给它们的主人娱乐。这也说明(我认为)女性比男性更喜欢这些设备(以我有限的经验)——我不能代表成千上万的其他买家，我也不是人口统计学家。想想流行文化现象衍生出的各种放纵。人们对技术着迷，技术官僚乐于提供各种新颖而富有想象力的小发明;某人和小部件。 As long as there are buyers, there will be sellers. Fulfillment is such a pleasant sounding word. Those who are worried about the furtherance of feminism can hang on to their money---as easily as anyone else. Someone's not gonna like this. I'm sure of it.

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