Gender and Technology

Image Credit:http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=234

by Meitar Moscovitzmaymay.net

I’d like to start a conversation with you about two of my favorite things: sex and technology. More specifically, how the technology we build influences people’s sexuality, and how our sexuality returns the favor, influencing the technology we build. As it happens, it turns out the two are linked in ways you may not have realized before.

Sex 1.0

Source: FetLife.comSource: Facebook.com

sex20con.com

One obvious example of this is in the assumptions inherent in user interface options for selecting sex or gender in a site like Facebook (“Sex 1.0”) versus the options in one like FetLife (“Sex 2.0”). Before we get too far into that, however, why is thinking about this relevant today?

Sex 1.0

Source: FetLife.comSource: Facebook.com

sex20con.com

(So last millennium.)

One obvious example of this is in the assumptions inherent in user interface options for selecting sex or gender in a site like Facebook (“Sex 1.0”) versus the options in one like FetLife (“Sex 2.0”). Before we get too far into that, however, why is thinking about this relevant today?

Cybersex triggered a sexual renaissance

Second Life The Sims

For the first time in history, people are able to explore and experiment with sociosexual interactions in a physically zero-risk environment, free of assumptions we’d otherwise be unable to avoid in the physical world.

Cybersex triggered a sexual renaissance

Second Life The Sims

My hawt partner and I as recreated by our friend Tyler.

(I don’t know these people.)

For the first time in history, people are able to explore and experiment with sociosexual interactions in a physically zero-risk environment, free of assumptions we’d otherwise be unable to avoid in the physical world.

Technology can define “normal”

Moreover, we as technologists have the power to create new ideals of normalcy and change the way people think about their identities, their relationships, and their lives. It’s how we moved from “piracy” to “sharing.” If an app is “good,” it becomes part of the way people live. There’s lots going on today, with sites coming up everywhere!

Technology can define “normal”

Moreover, we as technologists have the power to create new ideals of normalcy and change the way people think about their identities, their relationships, and their lives. It’s how we moved from “piracy” to “sharing.” If an app is “good,” it becomes part of the way people live. There’s lots going on today, with sites coming up everywhere!

BeyondMasculinity.com is an online publication featuring essays on gender and politics. BedPosted.com is a web app that lets people keep meticulous, shareable records about their sexual encounters. Genderfork.com is a collaborative blog exploring gender variance through photography.

BeyondMasculinity.com is an online publication featuring essays on gender and politics. BedPosted.com is a web app that lets people keep meticulous, shareable records about their sexual encounters. Genderfork.com is a collaborative blog exploring gender variance through photography.

Safe2Pee.org allows people to locate safe bathrooms within their communities, because gender variant people often face harassment when all they want is to go pee. And it’s not just technology, but culture too: BarCamp has inspired QueerCamp and other unconferences like KinkForAll.

Safe2Pee.org allows people to locate safe bathrooms within their communities, because gender variant people often face harassment when all they want is to go pee. And it’s not just technology, but culture too: BarCamp has inspired QueerCamp and other unconferences like KinkForAll.

http://www.kreativekorp.com/miscpages/gender/gender.pl

Yay genderform!

To give you an idea of how diverse people are, these are just some of the words people use to self-identify, taken from the Yay! Genderform web site, which catalogues exactly 925 options of sexual and gender identities. Each option can be combined with any other option (notice the checkboxes!).

http://www.kreativekorp.com/miscpages/gender/gender.pl

Yay genderform!

To give you an idea of how diverse people are, these are just some of the words people use to self-identify, taken from the Yay! Genderform web site, which catalogues exactly 925 options of sexual and gender identities. Each option can be combined with any other option (notice the checkboxes!).

925 options = 2.8363×10278 combinations

This yields a total of 2.8363×10278 or 283 unnovemgintillion possible combinations, more than the number of elementary particles in the universe. If each option were a computer bit, it would take 116 bytes to encode a combination. In contrast, ISO 5218 defines 3 mutually exclusive options, but can be encoded in only 2 bits.

283,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000…

925 options = 2.8363×10278 combinations

ISO 5218 (options are mutually exclusive)• 0 = not known• 1 = male• 2 = female• 9 = not applicable

This yields a total of 2.8363×10278 or 283 unnovemgintillion possible combinations, more than the number of elementary particles in the universe. If each option were a computer bit, it would take 116 bytes to encode a combination. In contrast, ISO 5218 defines 3 mutually exclusive options, but can be encoded in only 2 bits.

Thing is, these other options aren’t new. They’ve existed forever, but it’s because of the communication possible on the Internet that our society has the means to explore them. Telecommunication begets cyberspace communities, and so we’ll need to rethink a few things.

This may be confronting, or surprising, yet social networks of all stripes give people the ability to create personas—fictional or otherwise—of who and what they want to be or attract. We are simply being the people we are, speaking freer due to the cyber-anonymity we (think we) have, because we can’t be any other way.

Have you tried not being a mutant?

This may be confronting, or surprising, yet social networks of all stripes give people the ability to create personas—fictional or otherwise—of who and what they want to be or attract. We are simply being the people we are, speaking freer due to the cyber-anonymity we (think we) have, because we can’t be any other way.

http://www.okcupid.com/signup

Dude, where’s my gender?

So now you can see how crazy it feels to some of us when we’re confronted with web forms like this. Providing options in a dropdown menu or radio buttons implies that people who don’t fit the options you specify are not important and therefore not welcome.

From Wikipedia’s community guidelines discussing appropriate terminology for articles:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Sexology_and_Sexuality/Terminology

Sex != Sexuality

Gender != Sex

Truly understanding this requires that you dissect many assumptions. In point of fact, gender is not the same as sex and the words we use to communicate are the tools with which we teach each other—and our software—about ourselves, who we are, who we like, and why.

“The question was, and is, who speaks, and when, and for whom, and why.” - Neil Bartlett (1988)

From Wikipedia’s community guidelines discussing appropriate terminology for articles:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Sexology_and_Sexuality/Terminology

Sex != Sexuality

Gender != Sex

Truly understanding this requires that you dissect many assumptions. In point of fact, gender is not the same as sex and the words we use to communicate are the tools with which we teach each other—and our software—about ourselves, who we are, who we like, and why.

`males`- `id`- `forename`- `surname`- `birthdate`- `wife_id` (foreign key references column `females`.`id`, may be NULL if male is unmarried)

`females`- `id`- `forename`- `surname`- `birthdate`

Sam Hughes’s “Gay marriage: the database engineering perspective”http://qntm.org/?gay

How to design a sexist marriage database

For better or worse, all this gender stuff actually influences technology. Sam Hughes writes about examples of marriage database schemata like this that seemed logical to the people who designed it, but is also strikingly sexist. A “female” doesn’t actually “belong to” a “male,” right?

Which one’s the wife? Does not compute!

“[H]omosexual marriages create repulsive integrity problems in their heads. … How sad.”

Image Credit:http://flickr.com/photos/whorange/2726123493/

Image Credit:http://flickr.com/photos/whorange/2726948512/

Designing sexist systems might sound brain-dead and stupid, but it’s actually how people think of gender issues today in their mind. They quite literally don’t see different humans as being equal: When two men marry, they need to figure out which “is the wife.”

`humans`- `id`- `forename`- `surname`- `birthdate`

`binary_marriages`- `id`- `partner_1_id` (foreign key references column `humans`.`id`)- `partner_2_id` (foreign key references column `humans`.`id`)- `marriage_date`- `divorce_date` (NULL if still married)

How to design a robust marriage database

Sam Hughes’s “Gay marriage: the database engineering perspective”http://qntm.org/?gay

Here’s Sam’s schema for a marriage database that is completely free of gender and sexuality assumptions: It permits any human to marry any other human, any number of times, and have any number of partners simultaneously. If you used this, you’d be forced to write tons of application logic to enforce the legal restrictions placed on marriage in most jurisdictions today.

(Actually, this is illegal in most jurisdictions today.)

`humans`- `id`- `forename`- `surname`- `birthdate`

`binary_marriages`- `id`- `partner_1_id` (foreign key references column `humans`.`id`)- `partner_2_id` (foreign key references column `humans`.`id`)- `marriage_date`- `divorce_date` (NULL if still married)

How to design a robust marriage database

Sam Hughes’s “Gay marriage: the database engineering perspective”http://qntm.org/?gay

Here’s Sam’s schema for a marriage database that is completely free of gender and sexuality assumptions: It permits any human to marry any other human, any number of times, and have any number of partners simultaneously. If you used this, you’d be forced to write tons of application logic to enforce the legal restrictions placed on marriage in most jurisdictions today.

Image Credit: http://www.wandco.com/projects/

Gender binaries are limiting everyone

Gender binaries are limiting EVERYONE, not just genderqueer people. People who do marketing, social media, user experience design, customer service, etc., are all straight-jacketed by these assumptions, and among other things this can severely impact their financial bottom line.

Image Credit:http://katebornstein.typepad.com/kate_bornsteins_blog/2008/11/sign-of-the-tra.html

Behavior is not defined by anatomy

People are beginning to realize that our behavior doesn’t extend solely from our anatomy, acknowledging the presence of feminine men, masculine women, and the astounding diversity between the binary extremes of “man” and “woman.”

Do (it) good.

“Vanilla rules apply.”

So what can you do to do things right? Simply ask yourself what you’re really asking users for, how you’re asking for that information from them, and also why you’re asking for that information. These are questions experienced developers should be asking anyway—the rules of good design aren’t different for gender variant people.

Do (it) good.

• What are you really asking for?

• How are you asking for it?

• Why are you asking for it?

“Vanilla rules apply.”

So what can you do to do things right? Simply ask yourself what you’re really asking users for, how you’re asking for that information from them, and also why you’re asking for that information. These are questions experienced developers should be asking anyway—the rules of good design aren’t different for gender variant people.

How do we answer this?

Image Credit:http://www.flickr.com/photos/58633480@N00/3127632212/

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pictoral/226626282/

Image Credit:http://www.flickr.com/photos/sakeme/3088275601/

What are you really after?

Do you really care what your customer’s genitals look like, or do you just want to know how to address them when your customer service representative answers the phone? If your application doesn’t need sexuality information, as I’m sure a hotspot probably doesn’t, don’t ask for it.

“be liberal in what you accept”– Postel’s Law

(RFC 793, Transmission Control Protocol)

Ultimately, it’s up to us to build a world where we can either limit or accept the possibilities of the people we interact with. So follow the robustness principle and DON’T LIMIT! Not only is it a bad user experience, you’ll find it’s often very technically unsound, too.

Thank you.

“there’s gonna be a lot more guys with makeup during this millennium”

– Eddie Izzard(guy in makeup)

“be liberal in what you accept”– Postel’s Law

(RFC 793, Transmission Control Protocol)

Ultimately, it’s up to us to build a world where we can either limit or accept the possibilities of the people we interact with. So follow the robustness principle and DON’T LIMIT! Not only is it a bad user experience, you’ll find it’s often very technically unsound, too.

Thank you.