Monday, November 3, 2014

Post-Feminism And Personal Computers

In “Cyberspace Meets Domestic Space,” Marsha Cassidy explores how in the 1990s, marketing for personal computers increasingly targeted women, showcasing the computer’s use as a both a professional and a domestic tool. Cassidy argues that in many ways, this marketing strategy echoed the “utopian expectations” of post-feminism, in which women were expected to succeed both in their professional lives and their home lives.  The computer was presented in advertisements as a helpful tool for both of these roles.

Cassidy also describes how early ‘90s PC advertisements placed the computer within a family atmosphere, asserting its place as a tool to help bring the family closer together, not disrupt it. She compares it to advertisements introducing similar technology like the radio, television or telephone, and I was reminded of the TV advertisements we discussed earlier in the quarter, which portrayed the TV as a uniting force to help improve family dynamics, not interrupt them. Both the PC and the TV threatened to disrupt existing gender roles within the family, so advertising for both tried to focus on the device’s uses within the existing family structure.

One of the points I found particularly interesting was this issue of where to place the PC within the home, especially because that’s not something most people think about anymore. When I was growing up, my family’s 1993 Macintosh didn’t fit well in any existing room, so we turned a spare bedroom into the “computer room.” This is no longer an issue, especially when most modern computing is done on portable devices. Cassidy’s arguments about early ‘90s computer advertisements seem particularly dated when compared to modern advertisements for laptops, tablets and mobile phones. The old TV advertisements we discussed in class portrayed the television as an important piece of furniture, and early PC ads portrayed the computer much in the same way. We no longer think of computers or phones as a piece of furniture because these things are now portable. Recent ads for laptops, tablets or smart phones  show them both outside the home and in a variety of domestic settings, championing their versatility.


However, some of Cassidy’s arguments still seem relevant, albeit in different ways. Post-feminist anxieties about how to balance a successful work life and a successful home life still exist, and there still are some anxieties about the role of laptops, tablets and smart phones and how they can be used in both a professional and personal way. I  know many professional women (and men) keep two smart phones: one dedicated entirely to work, and the other for personal use. There are also still some concerns about new technology interrupting existing family structures, which is why ads try so hard to show each new piece of technology as uniting a family. We saw this in advertisements introducing the TV, we saw this in advertisements introducing the PC, and we still see this in modern tech ads. (I thought immediately of the “Misunderstood” iPhone ad from last Christmas, in which the iPhone brings a family together, celebrating existing family traditions and structures.) So while many of Cassidy’s arguments are no longer relevant because technological capabilities have improved so drastically over the past 20 years, the concerns about how new technology fits into an existing family structure are still very present.

7 comments:

  1. I think it is interesting how in order to target women for a product, it must be shown as “domestic.” Speaking about the marketing for personal computers, why can’t it just be professional? Looking at it from another point of view: it would be interesting if a product was highlighted as domestic if it was marketed to men. The description of the marketing of the computers made me think of other advertisements and how they target specific genders. One example is the marketing for baby toys or baby food. I believe the transformation of these advertisements is just starting out. In the recent past all baby advertisements only showcased mothers taking care of the babies. Recently, however, I have been noticing more and more baby ads with the father feeding the child or playing with him/her. It is incredible, however, that we are seeing these changes in the 21st century and not before. I think it is wonderful, although I would not go as far as saying that all baby ads (to stay with this example) should showcase men. In my view, feminism should not have a double standard. If this happened, then a woman wishing to stay at home with her baby could be considered anti-feminist.

    To end my comment, I wanted to mention an advertisement for nail polish, which I thought, was very interesting. It showcased men (from the neck up) being touched by feminine hands with bright colored nails. As their faces are fondled, they say adjectives describing the power of color, and women. There are many versions but some adjectives are “strong”, “confident”, “mesmerizing.” Is the fact that it featured men speaking about women feminist? Or not? What do people think? (Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0uY0uDzkww).

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  2. While I do agree with Devon that the juggling act between one’s working life and home life exacerbated by the computer is still a very real concern, I also think that such dilemmas as they occurred in the 90s need to be put within the larger context of 90s-era computer advertising, which emphasized very similar things to the advertisements Cassidy discusses. Indeed, the personal computer, as detailed in Fred Turner’s From Cyberculture to Counterculture, was heavily advertised in the 90s by various sources (especially Wired magazine) as a tool that could tear down bureaucracies and raise up the individual by enabling economic success in a supposedly "even" playing field, with the integration of the user into an information based economy being a key goal of such rhetoric. Similarly, “magazine discourse,” as Cassidy discusses, advertised the personal computer to women as being both a family tool and something “central to the emergent home office for women just as men,” echoing the aim of integrating users into an information economy present in the pages of Wired (Cassidy, 51). Just as postfeminism suggested that women, in the wake of feminism’s supposed “success,” need only concern themselves with obtaining economic success (as the political work that would allow them to obtain said wealth had already been “done”), personal computer advertisements that suggested a fusion between the home and one’s work fundamentally echoed larger efforts to portray the computer as a libertarian wonder that would allow oneself to gain equality through economic prowess, conveniently avoiding the “corruption” of politics.

    Yet, as Cassidy herself points out, the computer could not both ease women’s labor and serve as a working tool, at least not for most. After all, if, as Cassidy writes, “the computer-enhanced workplace becomes the site of women’s labor for the first and second shifts,” merging the workplace and the home merely results in working women with families being completely exhausted, especially since the introduction of the computer into the household does not fundamentally change perceptions that women are primarily responsible for the home (Cassidy, 53). That Cassidy somehow concludes, then, that “placing the PC on the domestic map […] may signify not a retreat from feminism, but an overdue confrontation with gendered practices on the home front,” seems inexplicable to me, for it flies in the face of the very evidence she presents (Cassidy, 60). True, the computer may not have fit into traditional notions of gender-divisions in the household, but that alone does not guarantee that people will change their views of women as the home’s primary caretakers, for one can come up with a “solution” to the computer’s refusal to abide by normal gender divisions in the home that merely reinforces current gender divides. Indeed, this actually echoes a larger issue with the libertarian ideology of computer advertising. The networking potential of computers might help enable political and social change, but merely introducing them into the home cannot “challenge” political and social norms, especially not when they are simultaneously advertised as being tools for economic success.

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  3. In our class discussion, I remember thinking that I had a similar computer room situation in my house when I was younger. This made it difficult when we had guests in town, but otherwise I spent probably way too long holed away in there playing video games. Eventually, my family got a laptop as well, and since then we’ve always had a computer in the spare room as well as on a desk in between the kitchen and dining room. I had never really thought about this placement, but it does align with what early advertisers imagined the computer as a place to balance work and family duties. My mom stopped working when I was three and my younger brother was born, but still would end up using the computer to send emails, manage the household needs, and find recipes without having to leave the kitchen. I’ll also admit that since I’ve never had my own personal desktop computer and haven’t regularly used one since middle school, it was sort of a shock to go back to thinking about the computer as an immobile object. I also understand what you’re saying about work and personal phones, as my aunt for many years has had both and I’m never sure which number to actually call her on.
    One interesting parallel I drew from the article between early computer advertisements and a lot of advertising for modern technology is this dichotomy between these items bringing people together and also driving them apart. Cassidy talks about a computer ad showing a whole family around the device, but with only the children really participating, and one ad we saw in class showed each member of the family using the computer in a separate frame. A more modern example of this would be comparing the video you posted, which highlights the way that technology brings us together, with the one we watched in class which (unintentionally) shows how technology can drive us apart. Something I think about a lot and which I think has grown out of these early advertising anxieties is how it’s so much easier to stay in contact with friends and family through Facebook and texting, yet at the same time doing so isolates us form those immediately around us. Though I’m definitely guilty of doing this too, I find myself annoyed when visiting with friends and being almost ignored in favor of Facebook or Tumblr or, god forbid, flappy bird. So while the conundrum of how to use technology to balance work and personal life has been mostly solved, we still have this newer issue of how much time and what priority this portable technology should get in our lives.

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  4. I think that it's interesting to compare Cassidy's article to some of the articles we read earlier in the quarter which discussed how early television ads used the same kinds of tactics to target women. As we discussed in class, it almost reads like an update. In both instances, women are used as a target market for these two kinds of technologies. One notable difference, however, is that while television ads focused on integrating themselves into the home, a space traditionally considered female, these PC ads concentrate on integration into both the home and the professional sphere. While possibly carrying fairly high standards for women, who in a perfect world should succeed in balancing home and work, these ads also imply the unspoken expectation that women will still be the primary caregiver or presence in the home, despite the fact that they might be working. I have never seen ads be particularly progressive in terms of gender norms. Although there are more depicting women in the workplace than there used to be, the overwhelming majority of advertisements for domestic-oriented products are specifically targeted towards women (or more usually, mothers). I think that there is still a cultural expectation that women will continue to dominate in the home, despite the fact that they have a choice of whether or not to work. This ties into the idea that work for men is essential, while for women it is optional. I think that computers were never marketed to be an essential for women either, just something that might be convenient.

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