The 4th session of the Gender, Technology & Law series, co-organised by LSTS and FRC, under the title: “Sex Robots through Feminist Lenses”, will take place on 15 January 2020 at 10:00-12:00 and will be animated by Carlotta Rigotti.
Since the 1970s, feminisms have stressed the intersection between gender and technology. Yet, while being mainly focused on the female access to technology, reproductive technologies and a cyborg future, no feminist narrative has ever addressed the ongoing robotic revolution and its relating challenges to the notion of gender, such in the case of sex robots. Shaped as humans and endowed with basic AI capabilities, sex robots are machines programmed to provide sexual performances; their stereotypical shape and behaviour, tough, raise questions on their potential to perpetuate gender inequality. Therefore, this session of Gender, Law and Technology will seek to assess sex robots through feminist lens and to repurpose them as a feminist technology.