Reflections on reading “TechnoCapitalism Meets TechnoFeminism: Women and Technology in a Wireless World” in Labour and Industry by Judy Wajcman 2006.
In the text Judy Wajcman states that Cyberfeminists regarded Internet and virtual cyberspace as the end of embodied basis for sex difference. And still today the idea that the Internet can transform conventional gender roles is a popular theme in postmodernism, according to Wajcman. “In cyberspace, all physical, bodily cues are removed from communication. As a result, our interactions are fundamentally different because they are not subject to judgements based on sex, age, race, voice, accent or appearance.” It says in the text that the Internet is providing new opportunities for women, but these new opportunities are just ways of hiding who you are because it is still held in lower regard to be a woman or anything which is not a white middle aged successful male with a good income.
The text was written some years ago when anonymity on the Internet was still common. I feel that this anonymity has been lost and today it is more common that you are encouraged to reveal your identity. Along with this anonymity the freedom of not being confronted in a certain way because of who you are has been lost. Even though this freedom did not solve the actual problem, that people are not regarded as equal, it could be argued that this freedom was perhaps playing a role in the process of making women act and take place.
But moving away from the text and to my posthuman site Hornsberg strand. My thing is the concrete deck meandering along the waterside. It is the line between the water and the land. As I realised in my earlier text The continuous ongoing my thing is not a thing but a part. It is a part of the in detail planned park next to the water. The park is part of the new development area Hornsberg and is playing a major role in the plan of transforming the former industry site into a desirable housing area and at the same time gentrify the surrounding areas.
The definition of a desirable housing area, according to Hornsberg, involves luxury and total control. The park is planned in every detail which makes it look artificial. Along the seaside there are lots of restaurants and on top, expensive apartments with large balconies facing the water and the setting sun. Everything is made to make one think of a luxury recreation resort.
The municipality could argue that the park is free for everyone to use, but the restaurants and the expensive apartments suggest that it is not free and made only for a certain group of people that are willing to pay. This suggests that the municipality made this investment to be able to sell the land at a higher price. And it also says something about what kind of people they want in their city, people who can pay for themselves and who do not need any help from their government.
Lovisa Wallgren
archandphil 
November 12, 2014 at 8:47 pm
Maybe the plot with the new housing projects and landscape are in itself inhumane or at least less human if one thinks of what the Cyborgs redefined what it was. Maybe the sense you have of the civic space not being entirely public even though it should is because of the conceptual idea that almost gets as anonymous to the citizens as the pseudonyms at the web.
November 13, 2014 at 10:17 am
Or maybe it is because the conceptual idea is too strong and to present and that makes one feel trapped in the idea and the space does not feel free fore one to interpret or use as one wish, and that makes the sense of the civic space as not being entirely public.