Mechanical genders: how do humans gender robots?

Abstract

This paper discusses the concept of ‘mechanical genders’ by using robots as a case. Different aspects of robotic gender, or the lack of it are described, showing how some robots have an ‘anything is fine’ gender, where the user decides what gender their robot should have. This is often seen with zoomorphic robots, i.e. animal-looking robots, which in a gender notion seem to be more gender-neutral than their android counterparts. The paper emphasizes how difficult it can be to not gender robots in a Western language context, where robots often need gendered pronouns if they are to be discussed, and shows comparatively how gender can be less important in the Japanese language. Additionally, heavily gendered robots are discussed, defining ‘mechanical genders’ as a concept used to speak about the genders of robots, and see this in relation to established human gender definitions. The paper discusses gender in robots such as Pepper, the robot twin ‘Matsukoroid’ (a trans-robot with his/her/its own TV-show), and sex-robots, as well as gender for cyborgs. The aim of the paper is to show how our mechanical species of robots are affected by the gendering habits of humans. It finds that the more humanlike a robot becomes, the more gendered it becomes.

Keywords:

• Mechanical genders
• robots and gender
• Japan
• Matsukoroid
• Pepper
• sex robots
• androids

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Roger Andre Søraa

Roger Andre Søraa is a PhD candidate at the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture at NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology, where he also received his Master’s degree. He has done research in Japan over several years, and his main research focus revolves around the domestication of technology in society, and how gender is developed in socio-cultural contexts.