When searching for contemporary examples of gender diversity, I came across an article about Norrie May-Welby, the first person in the world to officially have a non-specified gender. http://current.com/news/92329547_meet-the-worlds-first-legally-genderless-person.htm

Our discussion in class on Wednesday displayed a general discomfort with gender & sexual binaries, yet there was no single, effective plan of action presented. To be honest I don't think there is one way to solve the problems presented by these binaries. It is impossible to encourage every member of our society to be on board with a new ways of thinking about gender and sexuality. Even if one found a way to do it, there would still be many people who refused to embrace this new world of blurred boundaries. However, I do believe that education is vital. Perhaps humans require labels to make sense of the world, perhaps labels are evil and only serve to divide us; either way I think it is too radical to attempt to eradicate them altogether.

....where are the women in wikipedia?

Today in Anne Dalke’s section of discussion, we were talking about religion and how to reconcile foundational, non-narrative stories (like the Book of Genesis) with non-foundational, narrative stories (like perhaps that of evolution). I identify as agnostic and became less and less religious as I grew up, but my mother is a reborn Christian. Whenever anyone in the family was sick or something was wrong, she would tell me to pray before I went to bed. As I got older and questioned God, you would think I would have stopped praying; but I also didn’t want to stop hoping for people’s well-being even though I wasn’t sure there was a god.

I'm going to start off my saying that the term 'identity strip poker' was coined by my theatre professor. Although it was in a slightly different context, I think that it comes in handy explaining the things that I will highlight in this post.

Day5
Since MissArcher posted very thoroughly first I will add my notes in bullet form to give main ideas.

-Begin by going over posts about control; raise the question of whether man or machine is in control of a cyborg relationship and the possibilities of controlling other people

-Split up into pre-designated groups to discuss binary categories. Each group has 15 minutes to discus the uses,damages, and possible future of the categories. Group must then decide if they would keep the categories or change them. If they change the categories then Anne asks how they would implement this change in the world today.

Group 1 Masculine and Feminine Genders

Day Five
Classroom: we’re stuck here, so we will cope.

Our celebrations and resistances of Haraway and Clark’s boundary blurring:

Let’s pay attention to these other points of view. Concerns about control, machines vs humans, humans vs other humans through machines…conflicting views about our connections with machines. Still questioning if we are intrinsically technological or if that’s something we could, or should separate from. Does technology change us? Physically?

Group presentations of discussion:

After class today, Liz and I went to a faculty meeting, where one of the items of business was the Tri-co Digital Humanities initiative. Conversation was kicked off w/ this l'il video, Introducing the Book, which I thought you all might enjoy as much as the faculty did. It highlights --and spoofs--some of the conversation we've been having, perhaps especially Cara's observation that in rejecting one kind of technology we are always clinging to another, more familiar one.

Just in case, I figured I'd post my reading notes on Roughgarden if any of us should need them.

Joan Roughgarden. Introduction and Part One: "Animal Rainbows." Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. 1-181

Introduction