[Air-l] Maastricht registration form

Frank Schaap architext at fragment.nl
Fri Aug 30 00:20:21 PDT 2002


We being internet researchers and all, we've probably all read one article or
another about gender-bending on the net, about gender being socially
constructed, about the many non-conventional genders that some MUDs offer,
etc.

I wonder though, 1) the registration form asks for the registrants gender,
why? who cares? and 2) the registration form asks you to choose between either
male or female, why? who cares? and more importantly, why force the answer?

Forcing in 2 ways: making the 'choice' binary and forcing registrants to
answer. If you don't fill out the gender, it says: "Error, please go back and
fill in your gender." Hey, that's not _my_ error, that's _your_ error for not
being able to think outside of the box.

I guess Butler was right when she wrote, "[t]he tacit collective agreement to
perform, produce, and sustain discrete and polar genders as cultural fictions
is obscured by the credibility of its own production. The authors of gender
become entranced by their own fictions whereby the construction compels one's
belief in its necessity and naturalness." (1990: 273)

As a nice exercise I urge you to try to fill out all forms you encounter in
the next month or so without stating your gender. It's not easy.

So... I registered, but what was the cost apart from the registration fees?


Frank.


--
Fragments Blog == http://fragment.nl
Cyberculture Resources == http://fragment.nl/resources/





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