Group for Experimental Methods in Humanistic Research
at Columbia University

Reading BroPages

draft
  • Manan Ahmed

How is masculinity and femininity constructed in Man Pages and Bro Pages?1 What are the discursive travails behind “master/slave” terminology in Sysadmin circles.2 What subjectivity is self-evident to Edward Snowden when he thinks about “Privacy”? I wish to locate race, gender and power in the sub-terrains of CS programming and IT infrastructure languages. Why do we assume that these programming languages, algorithms and applications are free from bias and prejudice concerning race or gender or sexuality? How would we go about building a critical archive of such readings? The recent #Gamergate campaign led by video gamers against women who spoke out against sexism in videogames is but one indication of this phenomenon.