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From: gsh@cbnews.att.com (Gigi S. Hanna)
Newsgroups: comp.society.women
Subject: Re: Women's Language and Computing
Message-ID: <5662@ecsvax.uncecs.edu>
Date: 25 Oct 88 20:01:48 GMT
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The article I'm addressing was uneasy about the implications
of Cixous' women/language theory.  The various French feminists
have been tending for a long time toward theories about the
"universal feminine", and feminists around the world are in
disagreement about the political consequences of espousing
this "feminine" rather than insisting on "equality" (disregarding
difference) in the male world.

But I think that when we define certain qualities as masculine
or feminine, we always do so in a male language context.
So that the outcome always regards the masculine qualities as
BETTER in terms of political power, and the feminine qualities
as better in terms of human/spiritual power.

I say that there are aspects of ourselves, both men and women that
remain unknown to us because of our male language and our
EVALUATION of masculine/feminine qualities.  The feminist language
theories can only point out to us the inadequacies of our language
and often they attempt to destroy that language in order to see
what's behind it.

To relate this to artificial intelligence:  I don't think it's
possible for AI to surpass our own intelligence.  If we are
going to base it on "logic" (as it seems we must currently),
aren't we going to build into it the same biases, evaluations,
blindness of our own logic/language.

The question is not whether women can perform in the realms
we've decided to call masculine (or vice versa), but how can
we look past the language to find out what we can REALLY do
(both men and women) without the restrictions of that language.

geeg