Womb Envy?

Freshmen at Berkeley are taking “The Cyberculture Imaginary –– From Login to Disembodiment.” They’re reading Donna Haraway. They’re studying Cyber Culture. They’re learning how important programming is in media culture. They’re learning about cultural constructs and how we’re designed and programmed to express ourselves. They’re being taught to ask questions like, “Does new media help us explore new patterns of behavior. They’re learning how we are in a “post biological period,” and we’re shifting away from the experience of the body, and they’re discussing the “boundary between human consciousness and computational consciousness.” All pretty heady stuff, and I say good for them. So why is it that the most I remember from the introductory pod–casts has to do with “womb envy?”

Womb envy was conceived as a reason why computers have been bestowed a feminine nature, and it’s “problematic.” It allows for the question, “Is the computer a submissive tool, or is it a device that has secret power?” As proof of male womb envy, I’m told, the first screen saver said, “take me, I’m yours.” And the whole idea sounds like a joke to me, mainly because I simply don’t believe that men have been advancing technology because they somehow felt their creative efforts were a substitute for giving birth. Men have been inventive mainly because they wanted to make whatever job in front of them easier on their bodies.

There’s an old saying in the construction trade –– “Show a lazy man a job, and he’ll find an easy way to do it.” It’s a joke of course, because there is a big difference between lazy and smart. A perfect example of making a job easier is the pneumatic nailer, and you’d never know how much easier it makes nailing unless you’ve actually spent some time nailing things together by hand. Of course, all technology becomes a tool of greed eventually. If the workers can nail it down faster then they should be able to put down more material for the same pay… right? I’ve watched technology go that greed–based route in more than just the building trades. Our “computational consciousness” is being used right now for amassing wealth more than anything else. And amassing wealth comes from one source: pure envy.

No, I’m not buying “womb envy.” It’s not even a good rationalization for the fact that the first computer screen saver said “take me, I’m yours.” Did you know that screen savers came out in the early eighties and a song by the New Wave Rock band Squeeze called “Take Me I’m Yours” hit the charts in 1978? It certainly leaves me wondering if that guy who programmed the first screen saver was into new wave rock music, because it sounds likely. But whether that’s true or not, womb envy, especially when applied to the invention of devices that just make work easier, sounds like a supercilious response to penis envy, and I don’t give either one of these ideas any real credence. In fact, I think ideas like this just get in the way of examining the much greater “problematic” consequence of pure envy, which can afflict anyone of us.