Siri, Alexa, and BB-8: Tech and Gender
When Star Wars: The Force Awakens premiered in 2015, it had been a decade since the franchise’s last movie, and fans were anxious for more. The Star Wars franchise is well loved and fiercely defended, so of course, despite overwhelmingly positive reviews, The Force Awakens sparked some tense debates. One of which, was the gender of the endearing and tenacious new droid BB-8.
That’s right, despite communicating in beep-talk, functioning completely in circuits, and looking like two circles basically stacked on each other, somehow the internet decided that BB-8 was a girl. Or a boy. Or an in between that was worth arguing about.
The technology around us is just circuits and programming. No he’s or she’s about it. We have to take a step back and embrace that BB-8, and all the other machines are more appropriate as an “it.”
As the technology in sci-fi starts making its way into real life, people are only getting more agitated. Back in 2011 when the iPhone 4S first introduced Siri, everyone went wild for her calm robotic responses. Suddenly you could talk to your phone. You could ask about math, for directions, even for good spaghetti recipes. And somewhere in between all the questions, we started calling Siri a she. (Though Apple has put a male option onto their iOS)
Then years later, Amazon Alexa, voiceless but named after the Alexandra Library, entered the scene. And of course, after countless commands starting with, “Alexa…,” it’s no wonder most people refer to the machine as another she.
With Microsoft Cortana relatively new on the scene, the same things are happening. Even more because Cortana is actually a popular character from Microsoft’s Halo games. One who looks distinctly feminine.
“But you can’t make all voice assistants women,” angry internet warriors will yell. “They aren’t your secretaries!”
But here’s the deal. Synthesized voice is hard to create. Low voices are hard to hear. It just so happens, that the easier to understand, easier to program voices are what we traditionally think of as feminine.
Sometimes, people attach their politics to things that have nothing to do with them. It’s easy, especially with how politically charged our social media is nowadays. In Star Wars, people were proud, uncomfortable, and of course angry, about the new female protagonist, so they projected onto BB-8. Now, as feminism and social justice rages online, they project this influence onto everything. Some things make sense, like the pink tax or the lack of blockbuster heroines (thanks, Wonder Woman! Hi new Doctor Who!). But others, like assigning male, female, or whatever in between to lines of code, should just stop.
Things are looking up, though. The gender-less naming of Google Home is fresh on the voice assistant scene, and thankfully that seems to be signaling a movement in the right direction.
