Reflection 8

I agree that we are cyborgs. Technology has almost become a part of us. Phones are our extensions and we can actually feel handicapped without our phones. Things like hearing aids and glasses actually fit into us and improve our capabilities. In the future this hybridization might increase with more technology and less human body. Like Donna Haraway has pointed out, it’s interesting to think if cyborgs can merge races & genders. The popular classifications of race are mainly based on skin color, with other relevant features like height, eyes, and hair. These superficial physical differences are determined by only a minute portion of the genome. We as a human species have been estimated to share 99.9% of our DNA with each other. The few differences that do exist reflect differences in environments and external factors, not core biology. Hence it can be seen that race is a social construct. The social construction of gender is demonstrated by the fact that individuals, groups, and societies ascribe particular traits, statuses, or values to individuals purely because of their sex, yet these ascriptions differ across societies and cultures, and over time within the same society. Such social constructs would become irrelevant in the case of cyborgs. The intervention of technology is already bringing us closer as a single human race. People from remotest villages in India can watch the Instagram reels and relate with, for example the father jokes from the US. The main divide between the gender roles was because of the roles associated with innate biological differences. As technology helps in transcending them, the gender roles will diminish. There is hardly any division of work according to gender roles in lesbian and gay couples. Usually both of them contribute to the household works.

I resonated with the fact that it is a man’s world. Men have designed most of the social systems and institutions. These designs are man-centric and not human-centric. They aren’t fully compatible for women and the queer community. The beauty standards of women are judged according to a way in which they should be pleasurable to men. One example of this can be, in many cultures societal beauty standards encourage women to remove bodily hair but men are hardly encouraged for the same. During medieval and early modern India, in many communities widows were not respected and were forced to live a life of austerities. They hardly had any rights. Remarriage of widows was prohibited. They could only wear colorless clothes and eat tasteless food. Whereas a widower could remarry immediately after his first wife’s death and lead a completely normal life. This practice stated that a woman was considered incomplete without a man. She had to depend on a man for her happiness. The transgender and intersex community of India was called ‘Hijra’ community and the word was used as a cursing word. During the pre-colonial period, the Hijras held important positions in the court and various facets of administration and they are also mentioned in ancient scriptures. But under colonial rule, the British authorities tried to eradicate and criminalize the Hijra community. It makes no sense for punishing people for the way they are born. This shows how colonial definitions of gender interfered with the gender definitions of different cultures. We can see how ‘white-man-centric’ designs replaced the man-centric designs of different cultures.

I wonder how genderless societies would be. The main aim of genderless societies should be fully allowing the individual expression in the most authentic form. One interesting experiment is Sweden’s gender neutral schools. It’s goal was to free children from social expectations based on their sex. The teachers avoided using the pronouns “him” and “her” when talking to the children. Instead they referred to them as “friends”, by their first names, or as “hen” -a genderless pronoun. The books had been carefully selected to avoid traditional presentations of gender and parenting roles. Most of the usual toys and games that could be found in any nursery were there — dolls, cars, sand pits, but they were placed deliberately side-by-side to encourage a child to play with whatever he or she chooses. The boys were free to dress the way they wanted and play with dolls if they liked. The conclusion of this experiment suggests that though we are genetically prone to immediately ascribe gender categories to others, the socialized differences can be mitigated. Compared to children from traditional preschools, children from gender-neutral schools were more likely to play with unknown children of another gender. The children from gender-neutral schools also held fewer gender stereotypes, like only girls can play with dolls. One of the students from Sweden’s first preschools focused on gender equality, said she gets upset when she looks at photos of friends’ babies, with boys dressed in blue and girls in pink. Though the children were introduced to gender stereotypes outside the school, the impact of social construct of gender was minimal on them. It didn’t change their likings, but allowed everyone to express themselves in the most authentic way.