response 6

Claire Janigo

Anna Wolf

English 100a

20 February 2010

Writing Response 6: Cynthia Selfe’s

“ Lest We Think the Revolution is a Revolution.”

The essay written by Cynthia Selfe, “Lest We Think the Revolution is a Revolution,” is a powerful piece in the successful way in which it enlightens readers on influences, good and bad, that technology has incorporated out of societal norms. Selfe points out that despite the many advantages with the growing media and technology industry, there are flaws in the practice that are hidden beneath layers of attractive ideals. Technology has learned to incorporate societal norms within their messages, including gender rules, racial diversity, and common wealth in order to sell an ideal that will most likely be accepted and encouraged by viewers.

One of Selfe’s main focuses in her essay was put on gender roles. People like to believe that men and woman have equal access to the same opportunities and interests as to not discriminate. Yet despite these ideals, the marketing for technology still discriminates between the use of devices between men and woman. Gearing more of the homemaker, mother and wife properties towards the woman, and marketing men rising up in the working world. Selfe observes, “… woman use technology within a clearly constrained set of appropriate settings: to enrich the lives of their family and to meet their responsibilities at home- as wife, as mother, as seductress, as lover… as secretaries, executive assistants, and loyal employees… Men in contrast, use computers at home to expand their personal horizons beyond current limits- for excitement, for challenge, to enhance their own private lives as explorers, pioneers, and builders… to support their historical constructed roles as bosses, leaders decision makers”(Selfe, p. 207). Although technology is selling the ideal circumstance that men and woman are equally capable of using it, the activities marketed are separate for men and woman and continue to follow the American culture generated roles for men and woman.

The idea that gender is not an issue with technology is an ideal that Americans like to believe because of societal instinct to be accepting and open towards innovative ideas. The marketing is clever in the way that it supports equality progress while still supporting the internalized gender roles in American society of woman as homemaker and man as hunter-gatherer. Technology sells the idea that it is a leader in the movement towards equal gender rights, but at the same time only reinforces the already internalized roles. Therefore, because the marketing reflects society the roles of genders will have to be internally changed in society before technology will successfully market and sell the idea to viewers. Despite the fact the Americans love to believe in change for the better, internalizing and practicing change comes at a much higher cost to their current comfort. This laziness seen in society is what the technology marketing feels off of, telling people they can be part of a change by keeping up with the latest gadgets