Selfe's Summery and Claims

In Cynthia Selfe’s book we read chapter 16, “Lest We Think the Revolution is a Revolution,” we learn about how technology is affecting our world today. In the first page of her essay, Selfe talks about how, in school, specifically in the English Department, how they “have come to terms with technological change.” Technology has not only affected our schools, but quite possibly the cultural myths Selfe explains later in the chapter. She states 3 cultural myths that are very true, at least to me. Her first is about the “Global Village.” The “Global Village” unites the world through technology. She goes on to state that this narrative is more like an “Electronic Colony,” and how those who have access to the internet will be the ones to thrive. In her second narrative she talks about is the “Land of Equal Opportunity.” The “Land of Equal Opportunity” is open to everyone, regardless of race, gender, or religion. In reality, this narrative should be called “Land of Difference,” because in the pictures Selfe shows they are all white people. It is not what the advertisements show, it is what they fail to show. In Selfe’s last narrative, we learn about the “Un-gendered Utopia.” Claims were made that computers and other computer-supported environments would help create a “utopic world in which gender is not a predictor of success or a constrain for interaction with the world.” This was just the claim though, in all reality we were focused on the “Same Old Gendered Stuff.” Where the women is supposed to stay home and be the housekeeper, and the man is the one who works.

Claim 1:

A claim I found interesting was, “A good portion of our collective imagination is constructed by history and sedimented in past experience and habit.” (307) This was a really strong claim for me. It got me thinking about everything we think as the “norm.” It is just those things that “are constructed by history.” She uses WWII as evidence. She states that “women were no longer encouraged to maintain a presence in the worlplace. At the close of WWII, they were displaced from the workplace by men returning from the European and Pacific theatres.” The only thing we had known at that point in time was that men were supposed to be the workers, so we went back to the only thing we knew. Over the past few days I have tried to find a few things that I find as the “norm,” and think of how I came to that conclusion. The one thing I found was waiting in line for your turn. I was never really told so specifically to wait in line; I just did what my parents did. So I learned from past experiences through them.

Claim 2:

Another claim that caught my eye was, “The gender roles of the fifties also translate into workplace roles for women in the nineties.” (308) In the 1950’s women were expected to stay at home and be the housekeepers, but this also is shown by Celeste Craig of Pontiac Illinois. She said she is “finally achieving her dram of “going to college by staying home”.” Thanks to the technology of computers in the internet women of the nineties could still be the housekeepers as well as going to school.