The Smart Wife: Why Siri, Alexa, and Other Smart Home Devices Need a Feminist Reboot

A bold dive into the problematic development (and developers) of "smart wives"--feminized digital assistants who are friendly, sometimes flirty, docile, efficient, occasionally glitchy, and perpetually available. Meet the Smart Wife--at your service, an eclectic collection of feminized AI, robotic, and smart devices. This digital assistant is friendly and sometimes flirty, docile and efficient, occasionally glitchy but perpetually available. She might go by Siri, or Alexa, or inhabit Google Home. She can keep us company, order groceries, vacuum the floor, turn out the lights. A Japanese digital voice assistant--a virtual anime hologram named Hikari Azuma--sends her "master" helpful messages during the day; an American sexbot named Roxxxy takes on other kinds of household chores. In The Smart Wife, Yolande Strengers and Jenny Kennedy examine the emergence of digital devices that carry out "wifework"--domestic responsibilities that have traditionally fallen to (human) wives. They show that the principal prototype for these virtual helpers--designed in male-dominated industries--is the 1950s housewife- white, middle class, heteronormative, and nurturing, with a spick-and-span home. It's time, they say, to give the Smart Wife a reboot.

Computers & Technology

Kennedy, Jenny

Strengers, Yolande

Computer Science

The MIT Press

The life and times of the Smart Wife--feminized digital assistants who are friendly and sometimes flirty, occasionally glitchy but perpetually available. Meet the Smart Wife--at your service, an eclectic collection of feminized AI, robotic, and smart devices. This digital assistant is friendly and sometimes flirty, docile and efficient, occasionally glitchy but perpetually available. She might go by Siri, or Alexa, or inhabit Google Home. She can keep us company, order groceries, vacuum the floor, turn out the lights. A Japanese digital voice assistant--a virtual anime hologram named Hikari Azuma--sends her "master" helpful messages during the day; an American sexbot named Roxxxy takes on other kinds of household chores. In The Smart Wife, Yolande Strengers and Jenny Kennedy examine the emergence of digital devices that carry out "wifework"--domestic responsibilities that have traditionally fallen to (human) wives. They show that the principal prototype for these virtual helpers--designed in male-dominated industries--is the 1950s housewife- white, middle class, heteronormative, and nurturing, with a spick-and-span home. It's time, they say, to give the Smart Wife a reboot. What's wrong with preferring domestic assistants with feminine personalities? We like our assistants to conform to gender stereotypes--so what? For one thing, Strengers and Kennedy remind us, the design of gendered devices re-inscribes those outdated and unfounded stereotypes. Advanced technology is taking us backwards on gender equity. Strengers and Kennedy offer a Smart Wife "manifesta," proposing a rebooted Smart Wife that would promote a revaluing of femininity in society in all her glorious diversity.

Design Ethnography: Research, Responsibilities, and Futures

"This book advances the practice and theory of design ethnography. It presents a methodologically adventurous and conceptually robust approach to interventional and ethical research design, practice, and engagement. The authors, specialising in design ethnography across the fields of anthropology, sociology, human geography, pedagogy, and design research, draw on their extensive international experience of collaborating with engineers, designers, creative practitioners, and specialists from other fields. They call for, and demonstrate the benefits of, ethnographic and conceptual attention to design as part of our personal and public everyday lives, society, institutions, and activism. Design Ethnography is essential reading for researchers, scholars and students seeking to reshape the way we research, live, and design ethically and responsibly into yet unknown futures"--

Politics & Social Sciences

Pink, Sarah

Sumartojo, Shanti

Fors, Vaike

Lanzeni, Debora

Duque, Melisa

Anthropology

Routledge

This book advances the practice and theory of design ethnography. It presents a methodologically adventurous and conceptually robust approach to interventional and ethical research design, practice and engagement.The authors, specialising in design ethnography across the fields of anthropology, sociology, human geography, pedagogy and design research, draw on their extensive international experience of collaborating with engineers, designers, creative practitioners and specialists from other fields. They call for, and demonstrate the benefits of, ethnographic and conceptual attention to design as part of our personal and public everyday lives, society, institutions and activism. Design Ethnography is essential reading for researchers, scholars and students seeking to reshape the way we research, live and design ethically and responsibly into yet unknown futures.

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