[Noisebridge-discuss] Gender & Technology followups from 5Mof

[maymay]

On Sep 21, 2009, at 12:14 AM, Sai Emrys wrote:

> Your approach *makes
> people think*, possibly makes them realize their identity is more
> subtle, yada yada self-discovery is nice.
>
> But good-as-in-popular customer service does NOT make people think, it
> stays invisible.

I guess that's why I never went into customer service. :D

> Only genderqueer folk will think twice about a 'are
> you male or female' question. *Everyone* would doubletake a bit at a
> "... or [insert list of other choices]" question.
>
> So here you have a conflict between what might change someone, and
> what they'd find smooth to use.
>
> I suppose one could argue this on world-changing grounds, but OKC
> isn't out to change the world, just to hook people up. (And do you
> think that most people - who aren't already seeking-and-questioning -
> would be changed by such a prompt, rather than just mildly irritated?)

In all practicality, as I've stated before, I'm pretty certain it's  
too early to expect sites like OKCupid to change a fundamental aspect  
of the way they interact with users, for all the reasons you  
mentioned. That said, I don't think it's inappropriate to question the  
fundamentals when they so obviously don't align well with a  
statistically significant portion of the population, both on world- 
changing grounds (i.e., the population of the Earth) and on OKCupid's  
user base grounds.

Trouble is, OkCupid can't possibly know how statistically relevant the  
portion of people who may not neatly fit into Male/Female dichotomies  
are because there's no place for these people to give OkCupid that  
information. This is the same problem with advertiser/marketers and  
forced choice surveys.

To cite a famous example, Star Trek was a spectacularly successful  
show because its demographics (which were young people who were  
driving a lot of economic growth in the 60's—also known basically as  
yuppies) were ideal for the network they were advertised on. However,  
the network cancelled the show anyway because they didn't have this  
information until the Nielsen rating system came about just a few  
years later.[0]

I see an allegory here to the way we're currently dealing with male/ 
female binaries in society, and I think technology is a *symptom* of  
that problem, but also one of many needed inroads towards change for  
the better. I mean…why *not* push for that now? And if not now, when?

>> The dichotomy of "straight" and "gay" is what dominates all  
>> pornography
>> right now. I think that's a problem too,
>
> There's certainly bi porn also. It's fairly limited though.

Having consumed my fair of bi porn, I wonder who that porn is really  
being produced for…. :(

>> but I have a whole other (totally
>> "Not Safe For Work") blog about that topic.[0] :)
>
> Seen it. What does it have to do with sexual orientation though? It
> seems entirely orthogonal.

Oh, I'm just referencing that other blog as a place where I talk (a  
lot) about the differences between straight and gay iconography as  
depicted by the pornography the different cultures create. See, for  
instance: http://malesubmissionart.com/post/93002011/a-man-in-crotchless-leather-pants-leans-back-as 
  (NSFW, of course)

>> Actually what I'm arguing is that the hotspot company in this case  
>> isn't
>> necessarily getting the best data with which to target their  
>> advertisements.
>> I bet it's the advertisers, not the hotspot company, that requires  
>> gender
>> information from them. This is the explanation that Pandora gives  
>> when you
>> create an account.[1]
>
> Sure. So?
>
> That's what their upstream deal is, so that's what they do. I don't
> think they're in a position to argue to the ad company that they ought
> to change their ways because of a tiny population that is anomalous.

Maybe—just maybe—if they changed their ways they would discover that  
what they thought was a "tiny population" wasn't actually so tiny.

>> I'm routinely advertised things that I can only assume are based on  
>> gender
>> norms that I'd never buy in actuality, and things I might buy but  
>> in a way
>> that doesn't end up appealing to me.
>
> And there we get at the question of whether advertising is intended to
> *service* or *form* your desires and identity.
>
> Though I think the intent is usually the former, there's a good
> argument that the actuality is the latter. And therefore, just 'cause
> you're a sissy non-manly man, doesn't mean Axe can't try to convince
> you to want to be by showing you that manly men get laid more.

So, perhaps the anomaly here isn't that I'm "genderqueer" but that my  
desires aren't as moldable by advertising as many other people's are?  
Which brings us back to the chicken-and-egg situation I raised earlier  
in this thread. :) I feel dizzy.

>> Advertisers have historically been slow to adopt new technologies in
>> effective ways (in fact, the industry most successfully doing that is
>> pornography), so I doubt advertisers are likely to adopt new ways of
>> thinking about demographics with anything faster than what will  
>> feel glacial
>> to me. And of course, advertising is merely one use case for having  
>> more
>> accurate gender demographics. (Clothing is another big one.)
>
> Indeed. Further evidence that the thing you originally objected to
> (being asked your binary gender by a hotspot) is not something that
> pragmatically will change any time soon.

Uh, yeah…I've stated numerous times starting from pretty early on in  
this thread that I wasn't expecting it to change tomorrow. The fact  
that I'd like it to change tomorrow notwithstanding. :)

> So why bother with railing against things that don't give a damn about
> your queerness anyway? I think you'd be better off (unless of course
> you simply want to vent, which I suppose is fine) picking more
> malleable targets.

Can you suggest some more malleable targets to me? Could prove useful….

>> So OkCupid's "functionality" seems to straddle the fence between  
>> "doing what
>> users expect" and "providing a filtering scheme," and they're doing  
>> that. At
>> a minimum, *I'd* like to see them add transgender options to that  
>> gender
>> drop down of theirs, but can't judge whether or not this would be a  
>> bad move
>> with regards to what users expect to be present in that field,  
>> y'know?
>
> What transgender options? (There certainly isn't a clear answer to
> what options one ought to pick...)

I'm going to refer you to transgendered folk for an expert answer to  
that question, or—if I manage to engage enough such people in a  
conversation like this—will get back to you about it myself. :) In the  
mean time, here's the only reference I can find about the issue from  
someone who knows more about transgender identity than I do:

http://www.sarahdopp.com/blog/?p=514

> And pragmatically: how many people do you think they'd gain from it
> vs. lose from 'this is too weird for me' dropout?
>
> (Remember, conservatives date too, and are much more numerous...)

So, that's an interesting question. Do you know if OkCupid, or sites  
like it, really have a user base that comprises conservatives so  
significantly that the addition of unconventional gender options would  
damage the site? I don't know, and I wonder if OkCupid themselves  
know, though I imagine they're most likely to. The other day I was  
talking about OkCupid because they recently posted this fantastically  
interesting "Rape Fantasies and Hygiene By State" blog post[1] in  
which they show heat maps of America that depict how many of their  
users answered "Yes" or "No" to the question "Would you consider role- 
playing out a RAPE FANTASY with partner who asked you to?". Emily  
Rutherford, with whom I was having this conversation, made the astute  
observation that perhaps a site like OkCupid would attract the more  
Libertarian users in the more classically red-state areas of America.[2]

>> But I'd certainly love to drop by
>> Noisebridge more often when you're around and talk about such  
>> things with
>> you!
>
> In ASL, perhaps? ;-)
>
> (Fun fact: the ASL sign for 'transgendered' is a derivation of
> "beautiful inside". Sometimes used very ironically.)
>
> - Sai


By the by, sorry I missed ASL earlier tonight. :( But I'll save that  
conversation for the other thread. :)

Cheers,
-maymay

EXTERNAL REFERENCES:

[0] I remember finding an article about this somewhere but somehow the  
only reference I can dig up on Google tonight is this one: http://www.grc.com/sn/sn-198.txt
[1] http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/2009/06/25/rape-fantasies-and-hygiene-by-state/
[2] http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/2211242 Skip to 33:27 in the  
recorded video to see this part of the conversation.