"Many of the analyses reviewed earlier expose the
symbolic association be-tween rationality and masculinity. However, since human development is shaped by society and culture, those symbols have repercussions for real, concrete human beings. We are constituted as knowing agents by symbolic representations, social practices, cultural discourses, and our structural positioning. Consequently, the ideal of detachment and the separation of reason from emotion that the rationalist world view promotes have been instrumental in constructing gendered aspects of the social order, in particular the subjectivities of Western privileged white men."
In layman's words, a tenet of one part of feminism is that our language is shaped in such a way that it oppresses women and sets men as the ruling part of society. Sort of like the idea in Orwell's 1984 that we modify language to not have the ability to express dissent.
This is presumably a suggestion that the same principles be applied to programming languages. I read it as satire of the feminist idea that language is inherently oppressive. Are you sure it's not a joke?
Comments
This is not a joke.
Well, actually it is, but it's not intended to be. Some background reading:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/187505014/Representing-Reason-Femi...
"Many of the analyses reviewed earlier expose the symbolic association be-tween rationality and masculinity. However, since human development is shaped by society and culture, those symbols have repercussions for real, concrete human beings. We are constituted as knowing agents by symbolic representations, social practices, cultural discourses, and our structural positioning. Consequently, the ideal of detachment and the separation of reason from emotion that the rationalist world view promotes have been instrumental in constructing gendered aspects of the social order, in particular the subjectivities of Western privileged white men."
In layman's words, a tenet of one part of feminism is that our language is shaped in such a way that it oppresses women and sets men as the ruling part of society. Sort of like the idea in Orwell's 1984 that we modify language to not have the ability to express dissent.
This is presumably a suggestion that the same principles be applied to programming languages. I read it as satire of the feminist idea that language is inherently oppressive. Are you sure it's not a joke?
I'm not 100% certain, to be honest. The best satire tends to be like that, I guess :)