Category Archives: Student Essays

Wonder Woman: A Poor Representation of Feminism

by Li Yuxuan

Wonder Woman, a 2017 American film, became the highest grossing female superhero movie in history. Certain moviegoers regard Wonder Woman as a feminist movie which promotes female independence and power. As the director Patty Jenkins said to Variety, Wonder Woman is “the success of feminism.” However, the movie also triggered criticism of Wonder Woman’s identity as a feminist. For example, in an interview with The Guardian, director James Cameron views Jenkins’s vision of Wonder Woman as “an objectified icon” and “a step backward.” In “How Wonder Woman Is, and Is Not, a Feminist Superheroine Movie,” Kyle D. Killian also points out other aspects of Wonder Woman’s deficiency. Taking these arguments into consideration, I would like to ask, in what way is the film Wonder Woman representative, or not, of contemporary American feminism? In this research paper, I identify the answer by analyzing how the camera captures Wonder Woman’s physical appearance, how she obtains her superpower in contrast to the original comic version, and how her identity compares with recent female superhero characters. Contrary to the popular perception of Wonder Woman as a model feminist movie, I argue that the film does not meet the ideals of contemporary American feminism. Specifically, the film objectifies Wonder Woman under the male gaze, panders to patriarchy, and lacks intersectionality.

Produced by DC Films, Wonder Woman is the fourth installment of the DC Cinematic Universe adapted from the comic of the same name. The film tells the story of how Princess Diana of Themyscira, later known as Wonder Woman, discovers her full powers and true identity when fighting alongside men to end all wars during World War I. As the daughter of Queen Hippolyta, Diana was raised on the hidden island of Themyscira, which is the home of Amazonian warriors created by Zeus to protect humanity. On learning of the world war from the US pilot she rescues, Diana “ventures into the world of men to stop Ares, the god of war, from destroying mankind” (Kolpaper.com). In the final battle with Ares, she learns that she was the daughter of Zeus and achieves the ultimate victory. In addition to the exhilarating plot, Wonder Woman is also the highest-grossing film directed by a woman. The director, Patty Jenkins, was named by Time magazine as a runner-up for the Time Person of the Year in 2017. The film not only grossed over $821 million, but also gained a largely positive reputation. For example, on Rotten Tomatoes, a review-aggregation website with over 26 million visitors per month, the film holds an approval rating of 93% with an average rating of 7.64/10 (Rotten Tomatoes.com).

However, despite its reputation among certain moviegoers, Wonder Woman also received a lot of criticism. Although Wonder Woman is directed by a female director, the film still exists under the male gaze where women are objectified to satisfy a male audience. Some people argue that Jenkins’s direction “points a way forward toward the possibility for women directors” (Zacharek). While it is true that a female director directing a big-budget blockbuster film indicates a recognition of women’s ability, such progress does not go far enough. How so? The main character in Wonder Woman is shot with strong visual impact which conveys erotic cues to a male audience. In “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Laura Mulvey, a renowned feminist film theorist, describes such phenomenon as “women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness” (19). She also introduces a term to explain the reason behind this visual effect: the film is under the “male gaze.” To be succinct, Mulvey points out that the images, characters, and plots in most commercial films inadvertently privilege the male audience to offer “visual pleasure.” Although Wonder Woman is directed by a remarkable female filmmaker, it still presents the main character under the male gaze. For example, Gal Gadot, the actress who plays Wonder Woman, has a charming appearance with a slim figure, fair skin, a noble nose, and double eyelids. In addition to her appearance, her costume also objectifies her. Wearing a bustier and shorts, Wonder Woman’s body shape is intentionally flaunted on the screen. Even in action scenes, the shoots focus on her face and thighs to show how beautiful and sexy the character is. As Killian stresses, “that should not be the focus of a kickass heroine – her beauty, bone structure, and sexiness – if she is to be a feminist icon” (59). Bustier and bare thighs are not the necessity of a female superhero, but they do offer visual pleasure for the male audience. In this case, Cameron gets it right because Wonder Woman does become an objectified icon with strong erotic impact under the male gaze.

However, some film critics defend the sexualized image and refuse to admit Wonder Woman is an objectified icon. Zoe Williams, for instance, disagrees with Cameron when she writes, “this isn’t objectification so much as a cultural reset: having thighs, actual thighs you can kick things with, not thighs that look like arms, is a feminist act” (par.3). In this way, Williams denies that the exposure of Wonder Woman’s body objectifies her as a woman. Admittedly, Wonder Woman is a powerful superhero whose thighs are literally powerful weapons. In this case, the film takes this female audience perspective into consideration. However, this does not spare her from objectification under the male gaze. The film still caters to the male audience through the overexposure of her body. Such exaggerated exposure is unnecessary because it by no means makes her stronger, but, rather, makes her more attractive in the eyes of men. Therefore, it is overly optimistic of Williams to claim the sexualized image as “a cultural reset” rather than objectification.

Jenkins also responds to Cameron’s criticism by stressing that critics should not focus on the appearance of Wonder Woman. As she says to Los Angeles Times, “When people get super critical about her outfit [meaning Wonder Woman], who’s the one getting crazy about what a woman wears?” However, the sexualized image itself will diminish the belief in gender equality. In “The Empowering (Super) Heroine? The Effects of Sexualized Female Characters in Superhero Films on Women,” Hillary Pennell conducts a psychological study on the short-term impact of sexualized-heroine images on women. Pennell invited 82 female undergraduates from Midwestern University in the U.S. to participate in an experiment, in which participants were instructed to conduct a survey adapted from the Attitudes toward Women Scale (AWS) by Behm-Morawitz and Mastro, which includes items like “Men and women should share household work equally,” and “Men are better at taking on mental challenges than women,” after watching clips of sexualized female superheroes. Volunteers were asked to rank the items from “strongly disagree” (1) to “strongly agree” (7) (Pennell 217). The higher the number is, the less egalitarian attitudes toward women it demonstrates. The result shows that, compared with volunteers who did not watch the clips, “the exposure to the sexualized-heroine images of women in superhero films decreases egalitarian gender role beliefs and body esteem” (Pennell 212). In this case, even if Wonder Woman is not a vulnerable female victim, her sexualized image under the male gaze will weaken women’s belief in gender equality and lead to self-objectification. Since Wonder Woman is a box-office film, this psychological influence may affect millions of women. Therefore, as a feminist movie directed by a female filmmaker and released nearly 40 years after Mulvey’s study, Wonder Woman’s failure to escape from the male gaze demonstrates that it is a poor representation of contemporary feminism.

Besides the objectified character, Wonder Woman’s adaptation in the plot also reflects a retrogression. Compared with the original comics, the film’s adaptation of the source of Wonder Woman’s superpower indicates a submission to patriarchal society where women are defined by men. In “Wonder Woman’s Lib: Feminism and the ‘New’ Amazing Amazon,” Paul Kohl refers to Simone de Beauvoir’s feminist theory to demonstrate the original version of Wonder Woman created by William Marston in 1941 as progressively feminist. As Beauvoir states in The Second Sex, women have always been defined as the subordinate “other” by male domination in social practice. However, as Kohl points out, the original version of Wonder Woman challenges the male definition of women because “Wonder Woman’s birth is an all-woman affair” (95). Because Wonder Woman was born and raised in a world where men do not exist, Marston creates a symbol subversive of patriarchy. Women’s power is not defined by men, but comes from women. However, such resistance is greatly weakened in the 2017 film. Instead of being created out of clay by her mother and given a soul by female deities (Kohl 96), the film sets Wonder Woman as the lovechild of the god Odin, and she, thus, inherits her superpower from her father. This change in the origin of Wonder Woman’s superpower implies that “women have gained only what men have been willing to grant” (Beauvoir 19). While the original version breaks down the idea that only men have power, the film regresses to the patriarchal norm that women’s power is given by men. Killian agrees when he writes, “she [Wonder Woman in the 2017 film version] becomes more powerful than she knows because of the identity of her father, [and] what could be more patriarchal than that?” (60). Some people may refute such arguments because Wonder Woman finally beats the male villain in the movie. Admittedly, such a plot point reflects the courage, strength, and power of women. However, Wonder Woman remains under patriarchy because her victory is based on what she is given by men. Therefore, compared to the original comic book version, Wonder Woman is a poor representation of feminism because it does not break the male definition of women. The film instead submits to a normative patriarchal society.

Aside from the sexualized visual effect and plot adaptation based on patriarchal society and its expected norms, Wonder Woman falls behind the third wave of feminism due to a lack of intersectionality. In “Superheroes and Third-Wave Feminism,” Neal Curtis demonstrates the relationship of the 21st-century superhero industry with the third wave of feminism. Curtis identifies “a broader engagement with the intersectional axes of class, sexuality, race, ethnicity, disability, and complex gender politics” (382) as the core of the third wave of feminism, which began in the early 1990s United States. The recent trend in superhero comics reflects such intersectionality. Curtis mentions Kamala Khan in Ms. Marvel, which debuted in 2014, as an example. As a “young Muslim woman, a Pakistani-American, a working-class millennial generation” (Curtis 382), Khan engages broader groups of women into the discussion on intersectional women’s identities, which is consistent with the third wave of feminism. However, compared with the female superhero image in contemporary comics, the film Wonder Woman fails to keep up with this evolution. While Killian demonstrates this backwardness from the perspective of heteronormativity (61), I believe the limit on race is more obvious evidence for the lack of intersectionality. Although the actress playing Wonder Woman is Israeli, her appearance is that of a typical white woman: pale, slender, tall nose, and long hair. Moreover, the main characters in the film are all played by white people. Some may argue that this is because the story is set in England during World War I. However, even in the birthplace of Wonder Woman, a fictional ideal matriarchal society, only a few people of color are shown on screen, they only appear for a few seconds, and they have no impact on the plot. In addition to sexual orientation and race, Wonder Woman also fails to engage women from different classes. As the princess of Amazon, Wonder Woman was born in a privileged class. She does not earn a living by working, nor has she suffered from class discrimination. Hence, such a privileged character is less likely to resonate with the audience, especially women from the working class. In general, what Wonder Woman reflects is not gender equality for all women, but feminism for heterosexual, privileged, and fair-skinned women. Therefore, compared to many current female superhero characters, Wonder Woman neglects the intersectionality among different groups of women, and, thus, falls behind the third wave of feminism.

In conclusion, Wonder Woman does create an inspiring female superhero who is powerful and empathic, but this so-called representative of feminism does not meet the ideals of contemporary American feminism. The character is objectified by the male gaze to please the target male audience, and the sexualized depictions reduce the target women’s belief in gender equality. Meanwhile, the adaptation in the source of Wonder Woman’s superpower implies a submission to men who define women in patriarchal society. Last but not least, the feminism promoted by Wonder Woman is limited to a certain group, lacking intersectionality among race, class, and sexuality. Such identification provides moviegoers who believe that Wonder Woman is a symbol of feminism with new perspectives to view the film, thus inspiring them to reevaluate the impact of Wonder Woman on disseminating feminism in current society. There is no denying that Wonder Woman brought broad public attention to a rising generation of superheroines, such as in Captain Marvel released in 2019, and Black Widow scheduled to be released in 2020. However, if fans and critics regard Wonder Woman as a model of contemporary feminism, the stereotype of feminism is likely to be limited to such “equality” within white elites who succumb to patriarchy and hinder the real social practices of equal rights for most people in the world. Therefore, it is important to reflect on the poor representation of feminism in Wonder Woman and rethink the depiction of a progressive feminist character in commercial superheroine films.

Works Cited

Curtis, Neal, and Valentina Cardo. “Superheroes and Third-Wave Feminism.” Feminist Media Studies, vol. 18, no. 3, 2017, pp. 381–396., doi:10.1080/14680777.2017.1351387.

Freeman, Hadley. “James Cameron: ‘The Downside of Being Attracted to Independent Women Is That They Don’t Need You’.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 24 Aug. 2017, www.theguardian.com/film/2017/aug/24/james-cameron-well-never-be-able-to-reproduce-the-shock-of-terminator-2.

Jenkins, Patty, director. Wonder Woman. Mondadori, 2017.

Killian, Kyle D. “How Wonder Woman Is, and Is Not, a Feminist Superheroine Movie.” Journal of Feminist Family Therapy, vol. 31, no. 1, 2018, pp. 59–61, doi:10.1080/08952833.2018.1556487.

Kohl, Paul. “Wonder Woman’s Lib: Feminism and the ‘New’ Amazing Amazon.” The Ages of Wonder Woman: Essays on the Amazon Princess in Changing Times, edited by Joseph J. Darowski, McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2014.

Kolpaper. “Wonder Woman Wallpaper – KoLPaPer – Awesome Free HD Wallpapers.” KoLPaPer, Kolpaper Wallpaper, 16 Mar. 2020, www.kolpaper.com/2497/wonder-woman-wallpaper/.

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Visual and Other Pleasures, E-book, Palgrave Macmillan, 1989, pp. 14–26., doi:10.1007/978-1-349-19798-9_3.

Pennell, Hillary, and Elizabeth Behm-Morawitz. “The Empowering (Super) Heroine? The Effects of Sexualized Female Characters in Superhero Films on Women.” Sex Roles, vol. 72, no. 5-6, 2015, pp. 211–220., doi:10.1007/s11199-015-0455-3.

Setoodeh, Ramin, and Ramin Setoodeh. “‘Wonder Woman’ Director Patty Jenkins on Equal Pay, Hollywood Sexism and James Cameron’s Nasty Words.” Variety, 11 Oct. 2017, www.variety.com/2017/film/features/patty-jenkins-wonder-woman-hollywood-sexism-equal-pay-james-cameron-1202583237/#article-comments.

Woerner, Meredith. “The World Needs Wonder Woman. Director Patty Jenkins Explains Why.” Los Angeles Times, 30 May 2017, www.latimes.com/entertainment/herocomplex/la-et-hc-wonder-woman-patty-jenkins-20170530-story.html.

“Wonder Woman (2017).” YouTube, YouTube, 15 May 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd1aEcZsLtQ.

Zacharek, Stephanie. “‘Wonder Woman’ Review: Gal Gadot Is a DC Marvel.” Time, 1 June 2017, www.time.com/4799963/wonder-woman-review/.

Science as a Social Construction

Image credit: Elena Dagan

by Wang Xinyu

Read the Faculty Introduction.

“The whole of science might be an error!” This astonishing saying comes from the 1959 book The Logic of Scientific Discovery written by Karl Popper, one of the most influential philosophers of science in the 20th century. By extensively criticizing the mainstream scientific methods of inductivism and empiricism, he proposes falsifiability and testability as the only demarcations of science and non-science, thus supporting the notion of absolute objectivity of science. Surprisingly, this striking notion gained wide acceptance among eminent scientists in the middle of the twentieth century. The Nobel Prize winner, Peter Medawar, even states, “There is no more to science than its method, and there is no more to its method than Popper has said” (Mulkay 1). However, does the acknowledgement from prestigious scientists such as Medawar necessarily mean that Popper’s methodology is groundbreaking and worthy of widespread adoption? Especially in an ever-changing era, with more and more intertwined global issues like climate change and public health concerns, is the simple rule of falsifiability still valid and powerful enough to deal with these complex scenarios? This question matters a lot to the future path of the development of science. To answer this question, I will examine Popper’s philosophy of science closely, and bring critics, such as Thomas Kuhn and Bruno Latour, into conversation. By challenging Popper’s pursuit of absolute objectivity in science, I argue that science is a socially-constructed concept, which is affected by factors such as power games and multiple interpretations. These social dimensions influence both the formation and perception of science.

In the first place, Karl Popper denies traditional scientific methodologies, such as empiricism and inductivism, because of “an asymmetry between verification and falsification” (Popper, The Logic 19). Popper argues that traditionally, scientific theories are verified by many successful cumulative experiments. However, in Popper’s eyes, if the results of one of these experiments are faulty, the entire scientific theory is proven false. In this sense, “theories are therefore never empirically verifiable” because it is always possible for “an empirical scientific system” to be refuted by experience (Popper, The Logic 18). Moving away from inductive logic, Popper looks for a criterion of demarcation for scientific epistemology, which turns out to be testability and falsifiability. Following this definition, any scientific theory should have the potential to be disproved with counterexamples. Hence, we can only accept a developed theory tentatively if the current “critical efforts are unsuccessful” and we maintain “an eagerness to revise the theory if we succeed in designing a test which it cannot pass” (Popper, “Conjecture” 28). Furthermore, once the theory is falsified, we regard it as a mistake and abandon it immediately, thus making progress in our scientific discovery. He believes that only in this way can we obtain absolute objectivity in science and distance knowledge from subjective social factors. In Popper’s own words: “I shall try to establish the rules, or if you will, the norms, by which the scientists are guided when he is engaged in research or in discovery, in the sense here understood” (Popper, The Logic 29). Despite his good intention and seemingly reasonable approaches, the concept of falsification is quite problematic and the pursuit of absolute scientific objectivity is unattainable.

By emphasizing unreliable factors in an experimental procedure, the results of an experiment can be proven unsound. Since Popper bases his idea of falsification on the reliability of these experiments, the evidence that Popper uses to reject a scientific theory can also be refuted by using his logic. In response to this critique, he just calls it “a form of metaphysics” and claims that “you will never benefit from experience” in thinking that way (Popper, The Logic 28). This is actually a weak and unconvincing defense, as the point when the theory is truly falsified remains unclear. And the lack of criterion for valid falsification makes everything count as science, as long as we try really hard to reject it using empirical evidence afterwards. In this sense, falsifiability loses its meaning as the demarcation of science and non-science.

Thomas Kuhn, another great philosopher of science, explicitly denies the validity of falsification from a different perspective. In his book The Structure of Scientific Revolution, he points out that even if falsification is valid in most cases, we cannot use the “emergence of an anomaly or falsifying instance” to reject the whole theory (146). Instead, true falsification is more like “a subsequent and separate process,” which might be called another “verification of a new paradigm over the old one” (Kuhn, “The Structure” 147). To some extent, a successful falsification in Kuhn’s mind should be based on the establishment of a new paradigm. A successful falsification does not necessarily mean that the challenger knows why the old theory is wrong or how the correct one should look. Instead, the over-emphasis on a contingent falsification exempts the scientists from making continuous efforts to build the new paradigm, as it is always easier to find a single counterexample than to establish a whole new system. Even worse, the focus on falsification confines one’s thinking within the others’ seemingly mature model. This adherence makes it even harder to make breakthroughs. Therefore, the excessive emphasis on falsification actually hinders the development of science. From these two aspects, we can clearly see that Popper’s failure to define valid falsification and his over-emphasis on the notion of falsification make his philosophy of science logically flawed.

These logical fallacies are deeply rooted in Popper’s understanding of how science progresses and how he defines already falsified theories. In his opinion, progress is only made after a developed theory is falsified, which can be considered as a simple linear model. And once the old theory is falsified, it is identified as a mistake. However, most scientific work happens in the process of trying to improve or supplement existing theories, not to falsify them, although falsification may sometimes be the result. Furthermore, many groundbreaking scientific discoveries are entirely independent of previous ones and approach the nature of the world from a completely different perspective. A perfect example would be the relationship between Newton’s Law of Motion and Gravity and Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. Einstein’s research on the nature of time and space is neither built upon Newton’s theory nor meant to falsify it. However, Arthur Eddington, an English astronomer, observed the contradiction between the two systems and proved Einstein’s theory to be more accurate (Valtonen 44). Following Popper’s definition, Newton’s theory should be identified as a mistake and abandoned thereafter. But, in fact, Newton’s theory is still taught everywhere and helps people understand motion and gravity, as it can apply to most cases in our daily lives. It is unfair to say that we are passing down a meaningless mistake from generation to generation.

Besides the theory’s absolute accuracy, other social aspects, such as usefulness to society and its courage of innovation, should also be considered when we decide whether to preserve or abandon the theory. Even already abandoned and outdated theories, such as Ptolemaic astronomy and Phlogiston theory,¹ should not be characterized as mistakes, but as “an amazing piece of puzzle solving” (Kuhn, “Logic of Discovery” 11). The way they organized available data was perfectly scientific at that time. Those who make “mistakes” in science are actually brave scientific innovators, who describe and explain nature to the best of their abilities. The neglect of other possible development models and the rejection of predecessors shows that Popper’s philosophy of science ignores the actual practices of scientific discovery.

The reason why such a great philosopher of science considers the development of science in such a simple way is that the whole set of Popper’s scientific epistemology is built upon his ideal that science should be detached from society. However, this notion turns out to be impossible, as the development of science inevitably involves human factors, which is proven by Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar in their book Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Science. Based on their careful observation of daily practices inside the laboratory, they found that the production of scientific knowledge in such a comparatively pure and closed space is still “disrupted by the intrusion of external factors” (Latour, Laboratory 21). These factors involve the collision of different ideologies, the conflicts of scientific methodologies, and the personalized interpretation of the specific phenomenon. In order to eliminate the conflicts between methodologies and reach an agreement, scientists need to deploy their persuasive skills, like discussion. Thus, the laboratory can be seen as “the organization of persuasion through literary inscription,” which, according to Popper’s rule of demarcation, belongs to the non-science field (Latour, Laboratory 44). Furthermore, the motivation behind these scientific experiments is also highly intertwined with social factors. When scientists are asked about what motivates them to do science, the most frequent three answers are internal satisfaction, personal credibility, and material rewards (Latour, Laboratory 190). Obviously, the latter two are achieved through active engagement with society. The original incentives for doing science fully illustrate that the intention of most scientific activities is already influenced by social factors from the very beginning. In such a way, social aspects are an inseparable part of science.

Outside of the laboratory, the construction of science is even more complex, as the formation of scientific consensus is no longer limited to the space of a single laboratory. “The interpretative flexibility” is displayed throughout the spread of science (Pinch 409). With this statement, the scholar Trevor Pinch explains that different “social groups,” whose members share “the same set of value,” may develop different opinions towards the same scientific rule based on how the research procedure is narrated and how their personal interests relate to it (Pinch 414). At the same time, this social mechanism also eliminates interpretative flexibility and closes the debate by accepting the one theory that passes the evaluation of the “Core-set” scientists, who are “intimately embroiled in scientific controversy” (Pinch 425). The formation of this Core-set group and the process of evaluation can be very obscure, and inevitably involves many subjective factors. Ironically, what Popper is doing is to influence the “Core-set” scientists’ epistemology of science. He takes a sociological approach to fight against social influence on science. Popper’s attempt fully illustrates that we cannot avoid social aspects when pushing science forward. Thus, we can convincingly conclude that science is defined by people and the cultural environment it exists in.

Since science is deeply affected by these social factors, both the scientists and the public have the obligation to spread science and understand it in a proper way. Otherwise, misunderstanding of science could also cause problems to society in return. For example, if we adopt Popper’s point of view in the problem of global warming, we would say that the claim that it is caused by human beings might be falsified at some point in the future. Thinking in this way, there is no point in us taking preventative measures, as any effort we make today may turn out to be useless later. In other words, “dangerous extremists” can use the “sword of criticism” and take falsification as a valid excuse for our nonfeasance (Latour, “Why” 227). When we push the critical spirit of falsification to the extreme, we may easily slip into the moral hazard about social issues that are inextricable from science. “The lack of scientific certainty” should not always be “the primary issue,” especially when the critical spirit encourages us to “fight the wrong enemy” (Latour, “Why” 231). The uncertainty should not keep us away from the problem; instead, it should encourage us to take a close look at the problem. Popper’s total denial of inductivism and empiricism has driven him down the wrong path. Rather than subtracting these methodologies from the category of scientific approach, he should try harder to explain the conditions under which they might be renewed. Constructive criticism should lead to further possibilities, not merely subtraction; otherwise, it would only impede the progress of science and the often complex implementation of scientific principles and discoveries into society.

Applying the characteristics of a good criticism, I am also exploring a way to integrate Karl Popper’s philosophy of science into the broader social context. The most valuable insight that Popper provides us is the critical spirit in scientific discovery, but he pushes this notion to the extreme, taking falsifiability as the only criterion. The oversimplification and the overemphasis on falsification would be unrealistic in the actual practice of science, since science is highly intertwined with complex social factors in both its origin and its spread. Therefore, the key is how to apply critical thinking to science properly from a sociological perspective. On the one hand, we should promote this kind of critical thinking to fight against the deliberate manipulation of science and to pursue scientific objectivity. For example, some businessmen urge some so-called scientists to give out certificates and make use of the title of “science” to promote sales of their health care products, which turn out to be useless or even harmful. In this case, truthful and objective scientific knowledge from science education should enable people to see through the trick. On the other hand, objectivity should also be considered in a way that is combined with actual situations to avoid detachment from reality. The pursuit of absolute objectivity can lead to not only moral hazards in global issues, but also problems in cultural encounters. Let’s take “gender” as an example. According to Popper’s philosophy of science, “male” and “female” might qualify as just two categories with clear biological distinctions. By contrast, considering the social perception and construction of “gender,” allows us to see the biases embedded in simplistic dichotomies. Nowadays, “gender” is interpreted in an individualized way with more and more people choosing to define, perceive, and illustrate it in their own ways. Therefore, the awareness of social factors in the construction of science is an important element to help science keep pace with the era and, at the same time, maintain its objectivity in a reasonable way.

Endnotes

¹ Ptolemaic astronomy is the theory that Claudius Ptolemy synthesized to explain the motion of the stars, sun and planets, in which the Earth is in the middle of the rotating universe. The phlogiston theory is a superseded scientific theory that postulated that a fire-like element called phlogiston is contained within combustible bodies and released during combustion.

Works Cited

Kuhn, Thomas S. “Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research.” The Essential Tension: Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change. University of Chicago Press, 1977, pp. 266-92.

—. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press, 1962.

Latour, Bruno, et al. Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts. Princeton University Press, 2013.

Latour, Bruno. “Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 2, no. 2, 2004, pp. 225–48.

Mulkay, Michael, and G. Nigel Gilbert. “Putting Philosophy to Work: Karl Popper’s Influence on Scientific Practice.” Philosophy of the Social Sciences, vol. 11, no. 3, Sept. 1981, pp. 389–407.

Pinch, Trevor J., and Wiebe E. Bijker. “The Social Construction of Facts and Artefacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology Might Benefit Each Other.” Social Studies of Science, vol. 14, no. 3, Aug. 1984, pp. 399–441.

Popper, Karl. “Conjectures and Refutations.” Philosophy of Science A-Z, 2007.

—. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. Routledge, 1992.

Setargew Kenaw. “Psychoanalyzing Historicists?: The Enigmatic Popper.” Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift Für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie, vol. 41, no. 2, 2010, pp. 315-322.

Valtonen, Mauri, et al. “From Newton to Einstein: The Discovery of Laws of Motion and Gravity.” Three-Body Problem from Pythagoras to Hawking, Springer, 2016, pp. 31-49.

Internet: The Machinery of Global Division

Student Essays, Vol. 4 No. 1

by Ryan Hoover

Read the Faculty Introduction.

In the spring of 2014 in Fort Lauderdale, Brisha Borden and Vernon Prater were both charged on separate counts of petty theft for $80 worth of goods. They were both assigned algorithmically generated risk assessment numbers on a scale of 1-10 by the local police to determine the likelihood of criminal re-offenses. One-time misdemeanor offender Borden received a 9 (high risk), while convicted armed robber Prater received a 3 (low risk). If it is true that the internet has such innovative technologies, like predictive algorithms, then how are there such wide discrepancies in various groups’ experiences with such technologies? In her 1985 piece “Cyborg Manifesto,” Donna Haraway examines the tensions between technology and race, gender, and societal status. In Jenna Wortham’s 2016 article “How an Archive of the Internet Could Change History,” she looks at the potential of the internet as an equalizer for marginalized groups. Both Haraway and Wortham believe that the internet and similar technologies are an impetus for the enrichment of the human/cyborg kind. However, their hopes are overly idealistic as they overlook two key obstacles. First, they neglect the reality that internet access is asymmetrical given physical and societal barriers. Second, they overlook the fact that internet infrastructure itself is racially biased due to the underrepresentation of people of color in the development and testing of algorithms.

Donna Haraway’s manifesto claims that technology will equalize people across lines of race, gender, and societal status. She introduces and develops the idea of the cyborg as a postmodern and postgender being where humanity and technology merge. By doing so, Haraway challenges the suffocatingly restrictive societal constructs of gender, race, and class; she proposes the cyborg as a “powerful infidel heteroglossia” (Haraway 68). The usage of the term “heteroglossia” implies that the cyborg is a symbol for a new language that usurps the sexism, racism, and classism of conventional society. Interestingly enough, the Encyclopedia of Postmodernism defines “heteroglossia” as the understanding of language as being controlled by two opposing forces—one being the dominant, central, centripetal and the other being dominated, outside, and centrifugal (Taylor). This definition of heteroglossia is noteworthy because it connects the language of oppression to the societal oppression that exists in present day society. Haraway’s notion of an “infidel heteroglossia” is one that sees the new language of cyborg, a language that intermingles humanity and technology, equalizing all people into a middle ground. In Haraway’s ideal reality, this cyborg language desegregates the core and periphery, so that all can exist on one equal plane. The cyborg supposedly dissolves societal barriers to women and people of color, so that everyone can obtain equal opportunities with technology. However, Haraway’s vision of a future in which the traditional institutions are challenged by a unified cyborg language is an idealised one; Haraway makes suppositions about the possible societal effects of these emerging technologies.

Likewise, Jenna Wortham, a present day media writer and woman of color, argues that the internet is a tool for equalizing marginalized groups by allowing underrepresented voices to be heard in the cacophony of history. Wortham examines how archiving the internet, as done by Wikipedia and Rhizome, provides a voice for previously peripheral groups. The idea of a single history is completely flawed in Wortham’s eyes, and she instead subscribes to the notion of a “multidimensional ledger” perspective on history (Wortham). The term “multidimensional ledger” refers to the differing perspectives of people that the internet accommodates to be seen and heard in a more interconnected post-modern society. She uses Wikipedia as an example to demonstrate how previously underrepresented people can have a platform to voice their perspectives on the internet by freely editing articles and historical chronicles. The multiple identities of previously underrepresented groups and the overlap between their identities create an “entangled histor[y]” that is told somewhere between fact and fiction to weave a more nuanced view on history (Wortham). The past for Wortham is not easy to understand, which is why she believes that a diverse chorus of voices needs to be heard: a similar melding of core and periphery languages must happen. Wortham equates this entanglement of histories to the scientific topic of quantum entanglement. She states that just as two particles may be interdependent on one another’s state, so too does the “fact” of history become interdependent on the people telling the stories and stories that are being told (Wortham). In other words, if a teller of historical “fact” is biased in any way, then the reality of history will become warped and entangled with that person’s biases. The teller of the internet’s history are algorithms, which are inherently biased by the fallible humans who created them.

Although Haraway and Wortham may be correct about the potential of the internet to be an equalizer, they fail to consider barriers to reaching this potential. Firstly, they disregard the physical inaccessibility that disproportionately affects people in developing countries. While oftentimes in Western pop culture the future is discussed as a distant concept like in the shiny, floating cars of the Jetsons, “[T]he future is already here; it just isn’t evenly distributed” (Chen & Wellman). Deeply ingrained racism, sexism, and classism have proliferated the global society. While in recent decades great strides have been made, because of the internet there is a widening split between the interior (white, rich, men) and the exterior (people of color, poor, women). The split between these social stratas is directly reflected in the previously mentioned definition of heteroglossia. While the information age has made internet accessibility commonplace in affluent Western countries, many developing countries cannot afford to enter the digital conversation. For example, in many developing African countries, internet access, while possible, is often too costly. And, even if a family can afford internet access, it is often of such low quality it is rendered functionally useless (Gillwald). The technology infrastructure is simply not adequate in these countries, and, thus, these periphery people are blocked from accessing the internet and the greater globe. Additionally, if there are pre-existing inequalities in developing nations then “these inequalities may increase as the Internet becomes more central for acquiring information about employment, health, education, and politics” (Chen & Wellman). The internet is exacerbating existing disjunctions between social strata. Due to the deep engrainment of the internet in Western society and the inability of people in less affluent countries to buy into the system, the digital divide is ever increasing.

Even if marginalized groups, like women, had equal physical access to the internet, they would still suffer from societal stigmas which prohibit them from equally accessing the internet. According to Stein et al in their article, “Social Inequality,” in developing African nations where some families have internet access, the technology is “used almost entirely by the husband, and women, the majority of them illiterate housewives, lack opportunities for training in computer skills” (Stein et al). Not only is the internet serving to divide global communities, it is also separating local people based on gender; many social stratifications, which would be made irrelevant in Haraway’s vision of a shining future, are continuing to bar people from entering this “post-modern” world. How are we to reconcile the incongruities of Haraway’s dream of a post-gender world in which the cyborg usurps existing societal constructs? Women in rural areas, both in Africa and in America, are bound by “cultural restrictions on mobility, reduced income, and the frequent lack of relevance of computer technologies to their existence” which “exclude these women … from the information sector” (Stein et al). So, rather than a physical inability to access the internet, these women are discouraged by societal reservations for women to enter technological industries. The discrimination towards women shows that even 35 years after the publication of “A Cyborg Manifesto,” we still have not entered into the post-gender utopia imagined by Haraway.

Societal stigmas prevent outsider groups from equally accessing the internet, but the development and execution of algorithms prevent them from equally interacting with the internet. The most basic internet infrastructure is biased against minorities because test groups are unrepresentative of the people using these technologies. As the author of “Algorithms of Oppression,” Safiya Noble, learned, Google’s autofill responses were shockingly racist and sexist; she saw the autofill responses for “why are black women so …?” being “angry”, “loud”, and “mean.” These obviously racist perceptions of black women are perpetuated by the racially skewed programing of the algorithms, which illuminates the Internet’s underlying alienation of black women. The biases that come from long-term societal oppression and socialization manifest themselves in ways ranging from the trivial to the dangerously racist. On the more trivial end of the spectrum (although not being able to access technology in the 21st century is not trivial), we can look at the discrepancy of effectiveness in facial recognition software between white and dark skins. For example, in Snapchat, certain filters fail to successfully register black people’s faces. This failure to identify black skin clearly results from the dominance of primarily white test subjects and lack of test subjects with dark skin. However, the facial recognition of black people can have nastier societal implications. A more nefarious example was when an AI judged an international beauty competition, and “out of 44 winners, nearly all were white, a handful were Asian, and only one had dark skin” (Levin). This asymmetrical assignment of beauty was caused by a variety of factors: the biased algorithms to recognize “beauty” in sample pictures, the lack of adequate numbers of dark skin sample photos for the algorithms to recognize, and the bias of the humans who wrote the algorithms.

The creators of algorithms, and thereby the algorithms they produce, are unrepresentative of the users because they are overwhelmingly white and male. According to a study by the National Urban League, due to the high concentration of white males in the tech industry and the low quantity of people of color, under 5% in the industry being black, the technologies that emerge from tech companies are inherently biased (Lockhart). If there are not people of color in the development of these emerging technologies, then how could the internet and related technologies be compatible with people of marginalized groups? The absence of representation of minority groups in the development, sampling, and execution of algorithms is emblematic of the unequal accessibility for outsider groups. Algorithms in particular leave little room for non-core peoples. These predictive algorithms do not allow for a deviation from the past, they do not leave room for change, and they reinforce history’s past racist views. Many people do not realize the prevalence of algorithms in daily life and how they influence the outcomes of major life choices. For example, algorithms are used to assign interest rates on home loans, and, unsurprisingly, neighborhoods with a majority of people of color will have, on average, higher interest rates (Noble). Rather than believe that the internet is a neutral entity, the ugly truth must be addressed: internet algorithms are pervasive in society and systematically biased against minority groups.

So, the problem of internet inequality and division is two-pronged: a physical lack of access and a societally cultivated culture of oppression. Haraway and Wortham see an emancipatory future in technology, but they need to go a step further. Technology alone is not enough: there needs to be a reimagining of societal relationships and organizations. Instead of pretending that we live in a postmodern or post-gender world and ignoring what divides us, we should embrace the various intersectionalities of our identities to better develop technologies for the future. Rather than letting past data be the main mechanism of algorithms, we should make room in these programs for change. A two-pronged problem requires a two-pronged solution. Firstly, people in power need to invest in the development of internet infrastructure, both in rural areas of wealthy nations and developing countries to allow physical internet access. Secondly, and more challengingly, societal awareness must be raised by privileged groups about the pervasive and largely invisible issue of internet inaccess between genders, races, and classes to help raise up underprivileged groups. On an individual level, we must demand greater inclusion from corporations, especially in their hiring processes and technologies. On a societal level, cultures that traditionally oppress must foster a more inclusive community that encourages people of all creeds, shapes, and colors to participate and be involved in technological development. Finally, all of us must not accept the internet and algorithms at face value, but, instead, look past the code for greater societal empathy and understanding.

Works Cited

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Chen, Wenhong, and Wellman, Barry. “Minding the Cyber-gap: the Internet and Social Inequality.” Blackwell Companions to Sociology: The Blackwell Companion to Social Inequalities edited by Mary Romero, and Eric Margolis, Blackwell Publishers, 1st edition, 2005. Credo Reference, http://proxy.library.nyu.edu/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/bkcsi/minding_the_cyber_gap_the_internet_and_social_inequality/0?institutionId=577.Accessed 7 Apr. 2019.

Gorski, Paul C. “Digital Equity.” Encyclopedia of Activism and Social Justice, edited by Gary L. Anderson, Sage.

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Haraway, Donna. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge, 1991.

Levin, Sam. “A Beauty Contest Was Judged by AI and the Robots Didn’t like Dark Skin.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 8 Sept. 2016, www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/08/artificial-intelligence-beautycontest-doesnt-like-black-people.

Lockhart, P.R. “The Digital Revolution Is Leaving Black People Behind.” Vox, Vox, 4 May 2018, www.vox.com/technology/2018/5/4/17318522/state-of-black-america-2018-national-urba n-league-silicon-valley-race.

Noble, Safiya U. “Algorithms of Oppression.” NYU Press, Feb. 2018, nyupress.org/9781479837243/algorithms-of-oppression/.

Stein, Richard A., and Ionescu, Ana-Cristina. “Social Inequality.” The SAGE Encyclopedia of World Poverty, edited by Mehmet A. Odekon, Sage Publications, 2nd edition, 2015. Credo Reference, http://proxy.library.nyu.edu/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/sagewpova/social_inequality/0?institutionId=577. Accessed 7 Apr. 2019.

Taylor, Victor E., and Charles E. Winquist. Encyclopedia of Postmodernism. Routledge, 2002. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=70607&site=eds-live.

Wortham, Jenna. “How an Archive of the Internet Could Change History.” The New York Times, 21 June 2016.