Stereotype Sabotage - The paper

Laboratory of Art,Technology and Gender
The Center for Social Sciences and Humanities
Madrid Spain March 2009.

In 2005 I was awarded a PhD from the University of Newcastle NSW Australia and my research, A Data Body Discourse in Image and Text, centered around the adventures and imaging of my electronic entity / avatar the Bimbo Borg, (available at www.bimboborg.org). The Bimbo Borg had many manifestations and adventures including, The Bimboborg does C space, Citizen Cyborg, as a competitor in the Miss Patriarchal Universe competition and finally as a crusader against stereotypes.

Since that time there have been a number of incidents in my real life (as opposed to my screen life) that have prompted me to return to the concept of sabotaging stereotypes. These real life incidents include horrific acts of violence; the massacre at VT, the rape of one my students and the beheading of a student in the building next to where I was teaching.

The director of the Women’s Studies programs, Barbara Ellen Smith, states in a letter to the president of Virginia Tech that; “The violence that this campus has recently experienced is profoundly gendered; it is the violence of men against women and should be recognized and condemned as such. Benign admonitions to "use extra caution" or "travel in a group and use only well-lit pathways," particularly in the absence of any further statements from central administration, imply that women’s own failings are to blame for their victimization.”

Out of feelings of isolation and powerlessness, I have returned, revamped, and reinvested in the Stereotype Sabotage project. This time, directing the research to real people (as opposed to data bodies), in particular young people who are faced with the limiting effects of stereotypes or the stereotype threat. The intention of the new online project Stereotype Sabotage, as it was in the old, is to debunk universal truths, especially metaphysical preconceptions or essentialist views on women, and to insert a feminist agenda within information technology. The information technology employed for the Stereotype Sabotage project are the tools readily available via the Internet; blogs http://bimboborg.blogspot.com, quick video capture via youtube http://www.youtube.com/StereotypeSabotage, social netting working sites, facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stereotype-Sabotage/57019885815 and twitter (http://twitter.com/StereotypeSabo).

According to Brian Solis of techcrunch.com, as of March 10, 2009 175 million users are on Facebook and another six million (and growing) are on Twitter. Stereotype Sabotage has the potential to reach a large audience and perhaps help others who also have feelings of powerlessness due to the limiting / debilitating effects of stereotypes. The project aims to deconstruct gender by exposing patriarchal assumptions and in this way break up coherent systems of meaning and to construct new meanings that constitute women as speaking subjects or as positive feminine subjects different from what is imposed by the dominant paradigm and consequently deliver true agency to women. The dominant paradigm also has an effect on the lives of men, perhaps preventing true male agency and insisting on conformity. Feminism questions all gender constructions and acknowledges diversity. To encourage diversity is to affirm the dignity of all people regardless of race, gender, social class, or other social category, feminism insists on equity for all.

The Internet is now a part of our lived experience. However, this “new media”, abstract arena must be encoded with feminist values to enhance our quality of life. As women, we must fully participate in the disembodied realm of the Internet not as vindication of the Cartesian glorification of male disembodiment but rather in an act of true agency.

The Internet can be a feminist opportunity. On-line, we can develop support networks (facebook, myspace) and establish friendships or relationships (match.com, e-harmony). We can create and control our own avatars (second life). We can express our opinions on our own youtube channel. The information revolution can serve the needs and wants of the entire community rather than women serving mainstream culture. We must be forever vigilant in making contributions to new media information that doesn’t require us to serve the interests of capitalistic consumer society.

The project, Stereotype Sabotage, is a call to arms for people, both men and women to use their own personal voice, true agency, to fight the narrow roles and stereotypes allotted to them. To sabotage the roles that mainstream society will have us live without question. Stereotypes can be changed if we persistently identify them and disempower them. To sabotage a stereotype is to let it become old and tired.

What are the stereotypes that are of concern to the men and women at http://www.youtube.com/StereotypeSabotage.
British people have bad teeth.
People from India don’t eat beef.
Asian men are misogynistic
Short haired, motorcycle-riding women are man-hating lesbians.
Women don’t have a good sense of direction and no spatial perception.
Frat guys party all the time.
Women are not good with technology.
Asians are good at math.
Computer scientist love programming
Computer geeks are male weaklings.
Art education is easy.
Frat guys are all beer drinking sports men
Asian women are gentle and soft spoken
Men from the south love ice tea and country music
Women are beautiful at a size 0 or 2
Big men need to be tough
Women are dependent beings
Women cannot play brass
Women academics are not as good as men at research
Red headed women have bad tempers.

These stereotypes although successfully sabotaged by the participants on the youtube channel are always lurking just beneath the surface of our lives. In fact once you think about it you see these stereotypes everywhere and begin to wonder am I conforming or am I sabotaging and if so why should I bother after all, stereotypes tend to save time.

As ironically stated by the Onion Store, “You're a busy guy. And, while you'd love to, you don't have the time to get to know every person you encounter in the course of your daily life. So thank goodness you have a handy little device at your disposal that helps you know how to deal with just about anyone you come across: stereotypes. Yes, stereotypes are a real time-saver!” the onion store. T-shirt.

In the new on-line statusphere of contemporary living it is so important not to fall into the trap of stereotyping. We must be forever mindful of our words and opinions. As convenient as stereotypes might appear ultimately they deeply affect the people around us and contribute to a world of oppression, suspicion, fear and dysfunction.