Gender Technology+Cyborgs
Wednesday, August 26, 2009 by jotaylor
A horrifying moment at work for me recently was the discovery that we are selling the boy/girl gender pregnancy tests. This sort of technology (DNA predicting technology to be exact), is a gender test which states that it produces a 90% positive result in testing the gender of an unborn foetus.
The first thing people notice about our identity is our gender, and if a person’s gender is doubtful then there is immediate unease within the social scene. As we are currently seeing in the news with winning South African athlete, Castor Semenya who has been submitted to a gender test. As she is considered to look manly, it has also been revealed in a previous test that Semenya had a testosterone level three times that of normal women.
Semenya like many other athletes constantly aims for higher, faster, stronger and above all self enhancement. I would like to suggest that these athletes are after an improved self or in reality a genetically modified self. And by using enhancements which involve DNA altering technology, these athletes are actually a form of cyborg. Not a sci-fi cyborg which stereotypically involves alienation, but involving extension to the body through the addition of technology. Cyborgs are also reliant on technology to survive, as in this case athletes are dependent on technology to expand their careers. For example machines which monitor their bodies allowing them to improve their performance.
I suppose in the end, in this day and age it is ‘the image that counts.’ So what do you think male or female? There is a fifty-fifty chance, right?
The first thing people notice about our identity is our gender, and if a person’s gender is doubtful then there is immediate unease within the social scene. As we are currently seeing in the news with winning South African athlete, Castor Semenya who has been submitted to a gender test. As she is considered to look manly, it has also been revealed in a previous test that Semenya had a testosterone level three times that of normal women.
Semenya like many other athletes constantly aims for higher, faster, stronger and above all self enhancement. I would like to suggest that these athletes are after an improved self or in reality a genetically modified self. And by using enhancements which involve DNA altering technology, these athletes are actually a form of cyborg. Not a sci-fi cyborg which stereotypically involves alienation, but involving extension to the body through the addition of technology. Cyborgs are also reliant on technology to survive, as in this case athletes are dependent on technology to expand their careers. For example machines which monitor their bodies allowing them to improve their performance.
I suppose in the end, in this day and age it is ‘the image that counts.’ So what do you think male or female? There is a fifty-fifty chance, right?