The 8th | Chapter 2.

“Many of the people sitting in this room today… will be friends for life”.

Darting her eyes to the left, Mairéad offered a thin-lipped smile to her neighbour, praying they wouldn’t take this new information to heart. She was met with an eager grin and a thumbs up. Bad sign. She’d have to casually mention something undesirable. Maybe flagrant drug use, or a portfolio of orgies, she thought. She caught herself and took another glance at the woman sitting next to her: mousy blonde hair, strands woven through thick black frames, a pair of shocking blue eyes that she hadn’t yet seen blink. She was skittish, with a sincerity that had Mairéad feeling uneasy. Maybe orgies were her thing? Always the ones you don’t suspect.

They had met at the entrance of the University, both staring dumbfounded at the concrete monstrosity that loomed before them. Sky-high slabs jut from the ground, reaching high to cut the grey sky. On the bus over, she had overheard a passenger insisting that this building had won, “The Concrete Awards“. It sounded like a thinly veiled corporate plaster for rampantly bad architecture. Hoping this had been masterful sarcasm, Mairéad hadn’t thought about it much, but the tone of excitement now made a little more sense while standing in front of a cement cliff face with windows.

Normally Mairéad would have buckled on a day like this. But, somehow, she had forgotten today was her first day, and had spent all night drinking Tesco value wine and attempting to smoke. Her ability to feel fear or empathy was now quashed by a dull headache and an impetus to survive the day. It was an interesting power, hangovers, and one that today afforded her the freedom to manoeuvre in what otherwise would have been an obstacle coarse of social fumblings.

It was her second week in the city, and she had been enjoying the anonymity. Her new flatmates had misinterpreted her hesitancy as an aloof sheen of ‘cool’, and they had been enjoying her like a new novelty toy,

“What do you mean you haven’t been to ‘Casey’s’!? GIRLS! She hasn’t even been to CASEY’S!”

This had sparked a cacophony of squeals interspliced with a resolute insistence ‘tonight was the night’. And so it had been.

Sitting in her induction seminar (albeit more of a floundering motivational speech), she was now confronted by hazy flashes back to the night before. A thundering bass that quivered in her throat, pulling her to the centre of a dimly lit floor. Flashes of white, spilled shots, sticky hands, lingering stares. Brief sharp cognizance, roaming her eyes across the floor, searching for familiar faces. Was she alone? Thoughts drowned again in heat and uninhibited movement. Walking home in yellow-lit streets. A distant ringing in her ears. Quiet thoughts she knew she’d forget in the morning, accompanied by the slurred cackles of her flatmates trailing behind.

And so, when this woman began to crumble before a cement block and undoubtedly the weight of the next three years ahead, Mairéad had gestured she’d navigate them both to class. Her terror had struck something deep within Mairéad, as though watching herself from afar. It reminded her of a program she had seen years ago. A grainy backdrop of pink, brown, and grey; cattle moving tight and close through a cattle-crush. A beaming British man palateably cooing the word, ‘humane’, while jovially shifting his green boots in the thick, compact mud. He had looked like he had been bred directly by Blue Peter executives, with a red knit jumper Mairéad had imagined he had grown in utero, removing it once a year to be replaced with a festive rendition for the Christmas season.

The footage flashed behind her eyes; brown, pink, sparse tufts of green, the confused and fearful groans of a thousand bulls moving along a grey sky. A harsh and rhythmic “CA-CHINK” could be heard in the background, pulsing off-camera like an ominous monitor. In the distance, the legs of a bull limply buckled, the force of a captive-bolt to the head collapsing it’s knees into thickly potted mud.

Mairéad sharply inhaled.

“Come on”, she muttered, pulling herself out of the building’s shadow, “I’ll take us”.

______________________________________________

This is the second chapter of an intial draft of a Young Adult piece, based around the 8th amendment, and a young person finding their voice in the changing Catholic Irish landscape. 

Recreating Cú Chulainn: Irish Rugby, Myth, and Masculinity.

Historically subject to great resistance – being an emblem of Protestantism in a largely Catholic country – Rugby has consistently been rejected as a potential representative for Irish nationality . In contrast to the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), Rugby has sustained an identity that opposes concepts of cultural homogeneity, placing it in a complex position in the context of Irish identity politics. Ultimately expressive of this, is the requirement of two anthems for the All Ireland Rugby team; one for the Republic of Ireland, and one for the geographic region of Ireland.

However, in modern assertions of Irish masculine identity it appears a reinvention of sorts has taken place within Rugby. During the neo-liberalisation of Ireland post 1990s, culture was used in the identification of ‘resources for re-imagining and reinventing a different Ireland of the future’ .

This ultimately led to a rejection and a revival of ‘Romantic Ireland’ notions (in equal measure): a narrative historically perceived as the effeminization of Ireland . In the efforts to combat this concept of an effeminized nation (feminity rarely perceived as a positive), cultural nationalists endeavoured to reinstitute Irish nationalist identity through the reinvention of Irish masculinity. This culminated in a return to Irish mythic narratives.

This rebirth of Irish masculinity began an atavistic sense of gendered belonging. National reverence for the heroism and mysticism of figures such as Cú Chulainn not only furthered the neoliberal ideal of the individual in later years, but similarly,

‘called on the youth of Ireland […] to take up the warrior ideal of manliness with vigour, for representation for such a conception of masculinity seemed indispensable to national survival’ .

This myth of Irish masculinity, in particular the warrior ideal, has situated itself firmly in the world of Irish sport, and most notably, within Irish rugby.

In the face of an economic downturn (and consequently international embarrassment), sport presented the opportunity to ‘promote the reality and image of a successful and vibrant independent country’ . On this reinvention of Irish identity Luke Gibbons writes, ‘Romantic Ireland may be dead and gone but that has not prevented it re-emerging in commodity form’ . David Miller defends these ‘ghostly national imaginings’ as mediums through which political self-determination may be realised. And yet, by his own admission this self-determination is evoked through an ephemeral promise of ‘destiny’ made achievable by a collaborative collective. A tenous concept at best.

Comprised of numerous biopics featuring rugby elite, ‘All it takes is Everything‘ (a series of targeted adverts) functions as a canonization of the likes of Johnny Sexton, Paul O’Connell, and Robbie Henshaw. Tracing the path by which sport royalty was made, each biopic constructs a mythic sense of masculinized Irishness. In a culmination of these biopics, the campaign features a reimagining of the players’ abilities in a fictitious demonstration of their godlike power as Irish men. Opening to a darkened shot of Johnny Sexton – waves of smoke billowing from his back – the players are depicted as men of mythic stature. To the sound of an ominous, thunderous score, a voiceover states,

‘These are psychological battles as much as they are physical ones’.

In slow motion, Paul O’Connell begins to run through a sea of heavy mist, Robbie Henshaw beats his hands against a rugby ball; his arms contorting as his body begins to transform. The voiceover continues, ‘All it takes is everything […] you can physically deliver’. Flames erupt from Sexton’s back as he rises from the bench. Henshaw breaks apart into hundreds of green and black butterflies, swarming as they move across the screen,

‘All it takes is knowing that no matter who or what’s coming at you: you’ll be ready’.

Finally, O’Connell in slow motion faces a rhinoceros head on, the two colliding in mist in ash. O’Connell emerges victorious, rugby in hand as he looks out into a dark expansive pitch, heavy with smoke.

This video, in particular its final image, can be argued to depict a reformulation of Irish narrative myth and masculinity. In Nicolas Miller’s ‘Fighting the Waves’, Irish masculine identity is discussed in reference to the myth of Cú Chulainn. Miller details the story of Cú Chulainn’s death – enraged at the death of his son, Cú Chulainn turns to fight the sea, ultimately becoming engulfed in the waves.

Citing Cú Chulainn as an emblem of blind courage and pathetic futility (a particularly poignant metaphor for a once colonized Ireland), Miller states this figure as a ‘curiously negative emblem of Irish political identity’. Situated firmly in the collective consciousness of Irish national identity, this tragic figure marks the idealization of a heroic yet doomed resistance and by implication ‘an essential Irishness’. In this final shot of O’Connell a restoration of Irish myth takes place, while similarly demonstrating a renewed sense of Irish masculinity. We are warriors, as before. But now – we are victorious.

In contrast to the pathetic futility of  death, the rugby elite are demonstrated as truly triumphant.

This retelling of Cú Chulainn’s hypervirility and ‘Gaelic manliness’ , is reconstituted as a triumph of the individual, modernization, and a renewed sense Irish nationality. Gibbons comments on this renewed confidence in Irish identity as symptomatic of Ireland’s modern (or postmodern) romantic idyll .

This contemporary romantic idyll presents a number of issues for Irish Identity. Miller’s ‘In defence of Nationality’, cites national communities as conducive to self-determination . When examined in these terms, Rugby poses a trajectory of particular interest in the construction of Irish identity. Echoing the mythic victory of Paul O’Connell’s triumph, Des Fahey comments on the capacity of rugby to ‘take the element of surrender out of the willingness to compromise’ . This is demonstrated in the ‘All it takes is Everything‘ campaign through gendered representations of a virile warrior.

However, this masculine romantic idyll facilitates social and political evasions in regards to tackling Irish identity.

While the mythological stature of this renewed Cú Chulainn attempts a reconciliation between Gaelic folklore, Rugby, and the renewal of Irish masculinity; it does so in neglect of the reality of a disunified Irish Identity. Similarly, Miller’s call to self-determination becomes immediately undermined if one recognises Benedict Anderson’s assertion of the nation as an imagined political community. If one accepts Gibbon’s assertion that romantic Ireland is dead but for its re-emergence in commodity form, then the increasing commodification of rugby reflects positions of economic power in Ireland, rather than an inherent Irish identity.

Katie Liston’s documentation of changes in rugby appears to support this argument, drawing a parallel between the growth of rugby and changing game rules. By process of commercialization, game rules have changed ‘to generate more excitement […] to heighten the dramatic moments and provide outlets for advertising’ . If one accepts this argument, the mythic construction of Irish masculinity neglects to reflect a nation, but rather expresses the desire of a neo-liberal system to ‘repudiate a now discredited and devalued nationalist reading of history’. In this retelling of Irish masculinity, the cult of Cú Chulainn heroism ultimately culminates in the neoliberalisation of Irish identity.

Despite this fictitious imagining of Irish identity it is important however to recognise the political and cultural dominance sport maintains in the construction of Nationhood. For the cultural revivalists it was British colonial dominance that necessitated the reformulation of Irish masculinity. This reflected a desire to overcome the perceived oppression experienced of a nation. In this regard, sport presents itself as a medium through which stable identities may be created ‘which oppressed groups may use as a form of symbolic resistance’ . In this sense, sport encourages a sense of belonging to one’s nation. Sport of the contemporary age can often function as a war without casualties, as countries assert their identity on an international stage.

On the function of sport at an international level Hugh O’Donnell states, ‘[countries] must act out their preferred myths […] which make them more modern […] in short, superior’ . This international assertion of self, it can be argued, results in a catharsis of sorts for post-colonial Ireland in particular. When speaking of renewed Irish masculinity in this context, it is interesting to look at the All Ireland team’s 2016 win against the All Blacks.

The relationship between the All Blacks and the All Ireland rugby team has been one subject to controversy, culminating ultimately in the spear tackle of Brian O’Driscoll in 1995. Rejecting the traditional dance of the New Zealand Haka, O’Driscoll bent to pull at the grass of the pitch, symbolic of pulling the ground from beneath the feet of the opposing team . This was expressive of a refusal to submit to Maori tradition, offering instead a refusal to be intimidated. Speaking just days before the Irish team’s 2016 win, Cummiskey commented on a similar instance of resistance in 2009, stating, ‘The match officials were pushing the Irish lads back, yet they are the ones being roared at by a regimented gang of kiwi boys’ .

A tradition of national and historical importance, the Haka is a Maori ceremonial war dance intended to call on Maori spirits to offer strength. When faced with this Maori call for strength in 2016, in contrast to previous years, the All Ireland rugby team formed a figure of eight in commemoration of recently deceased rugby coach, Anthony Foley. This uncharacteristically peaceful demonstration served to function as that which Boyle terms ‘symbolic resistance’.

Resulting in Ireland’s first win against the All Blacks in over a century (111 years to be exact), Miller unmistakably comes to mind in his defence of Nationality,

‘sorrows have greater value than victories, for they impose duties and demand common effort’.

Though the political self-determination of Irish masculine identity is undermined through the neoliberalisation of Gaelic folklore, it seems a cultural self-determination of sorts appears possible. This silent assertion of collective identity on behalf of the All Ireland rugby team, expressed a powerful fraternal bond bolstered by a unified narrative of nationality. Bound by collective loss, this commemorative act and ensuing win functioned ultimately in the catharsis of a community, however imagined.

Gone Fishing

She clasped her hands to the side of the boat, tucking her head into her chest to keep it from the wind. Her head rolled just above her faded orange life jacket, jostling violently in the storm. Smattered in dirt and mackerel scales, it glittered beneath the swinging lantern on the bow.

Dad sat hunched at the back of the boat, one hand steering the engine, the other firmly clasped to his knee. He stared straight ahead, refusing to meet her gaze. The boat rose. Another rolling black wave, rising to fight. She pressed her numb hands hard against the boat, preparing herself for the hit.

WHOOSH.

The sea smacked against them, thrusting her into the air like a wet doll. Clawing through the mist she clung for the sides, bracing herself. Her legs slapped back to the floor, rubber wellies squeaking against the ground as she tried to steady herself. She bent her body down again. Ready for the next one.

They were running out of time.

Clouds had begun to suffocate the last of the day’s light.

Fighting against the current, the engine’s thunderous gurgle howled from beneath the boat. Dad wrenched the neck of the handle, begging the boat to plunge back into the rising waves. Yearning to bring them home.

The engine howled again, this time it’s roar choking into a chilling silence.

Beth swung around and stared at the engine, grey smoke rising from it’s top. Dad sat above it, his head hung low. His expression complete, and utterly, blank.

Shame flooded her body. She’d done this. She’d brought them here. She’d done what she’d always done, and disobeyed, and now they were here. And there was nothing she could do.

The boat began to relinquish itself to the ocean’s sway, cradling Dad and Beth towards the blackening sky. The shriek of the wind had now been replaced by the lapping sounds of the ocean, punctuated by the steady creak of the lantern’s hinge. Beth sat in total silence, praying she could neither be seen, nor heard.

The lantern’s penduluum began to slow, swinging like a search light through the blackness. Flashes of silver bait, rusted hooks, a life buoy matted in seaweed. Darkness.

Dad’s figure sat motionless at the bottom of the boat, Beth unable to distinguish in the darkness whether he faced her or the sea. His shoulders slowly heaved up and down. He was probably too angry to look at her now. Of course he would be.

The lantern swung again, illuminating a tupperware box, a discarded petrol can, the base of the engine.

He’d told her not to go. He’d told her to stay home. That it wasn’t real. That she was a fool for trying. And he’d been right. He’d been right all along, and now they were dead, or going to be, and it was all her fault.

The light swung again. A fishing rod snapped in two, a rusted penny, a flicker of white.

She froze.

It swung again.

An oar, drenched newspaper, a plastic barrell. The petrol can rolled along the floorboards. Beth suspended her breathing, her eyes wide in the blackness. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. 

A rod, some hooks, tupperware, mangled netting. Darkness.

Dad’s jacket, with the buttons mum sewd on. A blank, empty expression, pinned by two white eyes. Darkness.

That wasn’t dad at the end of the boat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 8th | Chapter 1.

A plate of ham hovers beneath my nose, Great Auntie Brid’s crepe paper hands craning to reach me. Despite her sitting the opposite end of the table, her need to please has brought her here to me – dangling her pale and bony frame over a mass of scones and thick cream.

“Ham?” she presses, her pearl earrings softly bouncing against her neck. Smiling politely, lips sealed tightly shut, I raise a hand to shake my head, gesturing as though to say,

‘I’ve been spoiled enough already’.

A warm smile breaks from her lips, drawing attention to her thick lipstick. Placated, she returns to her chair. I sit back into my seat, and return to appearances.

“It’s a travesty”, Grandpa Joe growls, flecks of dry mash resting on his lower lip. A rumble of agreement moves across the table, punctuated by the quiet clink of coffee cups,

“The country has lost it’s way”.

I’ve exhausted my will power to chew dry ham, so I pull my cup close to my face, feigning an overwhelming interest in nescafe gold. Grandpa Joe’s lip starts to tremble. He raises one finger, crooked, white, and baby blue, and moves a corner of mash into his mouth. He forces a swallow, attempting to steady himself,

“Turning their back’s on God’s most vulnerable”.

A sombre nod moves it’s way around the table, as though heads hung in solemn prayer. I stare to the TV at the back of the room, slowly sinking my nails into the palm of my hand. A golfer stands in an expansive plain, shifting his feet like a bird on early morning grass. He settles himself. He hoists his club to his back, his hands twisting tight around the leather neck,

“And those marches, Joe,” Grandma Jean despairs, “An absolute shame“. She reaches for a rich tea biscuit, hovering it over her cup. The golfer onscreen pulls back, knees bent, ready to aim,

“A campaign for mass murder more like”. The golfer strikes. He misses. He drives his club into the earth, and leaves a deep dark welt in the ground. Jean dunks her biscuit, driving half into her mouth with what looks to be a perverse sense of pride. A purr seems to come from her lips, a sense of enjoyment from either the tasteless biscuit, or her addition to the Sunday persecution. I close my eyes, I breathe in.

A campaign for mass murder.

Sickly sweet smells fill my head, cakes and ancient perfumes vying to drown me.

An absolute shame.

My lungs feel tight.

God’s most vulnerable.

I feel a hand clasp for my knee beneath the table, offering an odd mix between supportive embrace and a plea for silence. Mum decides to break the silence on her own terms, giving me one last squeeze before her entrance to the stage,

“Has everyone had enough ham?” Her tone sounds desperate, “Brid? Would you like a slice? Jean?”

Cooing hums and mmms and ahhhs trickle from Jean and Brid, eyeing up the flaky meat like it’s a piece of ice cream. The shuffle in hands distracts the table, allowing Grandpa to spot the disaster on screen.

“What is he doing?!” he bursts, immediately engrossed in the golfing armageddon before him. Jean and Brid begin a futile battle of politeness, pressuring the last slice of ham onto one another as Joe shuffles to the TV, poised and ready to coach. Thank God for ham.

I breathe out.

When I was a kid, I loved Sunday lunches. Only knee-high height, I’d fumble through long and lanky legs, tiny hands steadying myself against the kitchen table. Jean, ever the protector, eventually encased the corners of the table in thick clear plastic – terrified I’d injure myself in one too brave a move. Almost a decade on, a corner or two still sits at the edge of the table – though now having yellowed greatly with age.

Despite the decade that had passed, time remained static under this roof. Great Auntie Brid’s lipstick was still the same shock pink it had been in the 90s, though now sitting on thinner lips. Jean’s scones remained a weekly staple – despite her insistence to put them up for review,

“Are you sure they’re not too well done?” she’d press, fawning over the crust with grave worry. Just as he always had done, Joe would coo and placate, drawing on presumably God’s divine patience to see him through another round.

This 1940s capsule remained intact, having weathered every storm, and faced every affront the future dared to present.

When the 1970s toyed with the holy union, allowing married women to work once again – Joe and Jean battened down the hatches – taking great faith that order would once again be restored. When the 1980s brought the advent of legal contraception, they faithfully prayed through the changing landscape, taking faith in the local pastor’s pious power to return order in love and war. And when the 1990s came around, and legal divorce threatened the sanctity of marriage – they quietened their fears and reminded themselves – ’twas only the American’s who’d be using that sort of thing.

Decades on, their faith carried them, preserving this Christian bunker throughout time.

Until now.

---

This is an intial opening draft (600-800 words) of a Young Adult piece, based around the 8th amendment, and a young person finding their voice in the changing Catholic Irish landscape. 

Pigeon Lovers.

Tiny heads, bobbing in the heavy heat, craning for morning kisses. The first, small, grey, smatterings of petrol green shimmering in her neck, rests her beak on her companion – two squinted eyes shutting tight in happy response. Her pigeon lover – a stout ball of feathers – warmly quivers his chest into her, offering a brief ruffle of his dark plumage to warm them both. I move through, glad to see the usuals are keeping well. Quick footsteps take me to the roundabout, early morning hums swinging back and forth in my daily stroll. A man sings into my ears, crooning and soft, his soulful purrs waking life in me.

Traffic lights.

I stop.

The sun floods my face.

My eyes close instinctively, seeing the world briefly in shades of yellow. The heat fills me.

Remembering I’m not alone, I fumble with my fingers, pleased to know I still have a few moments of silence before the day starts. A bit more time to think.

Squinting, I push through.

My walk breaks into the park, as cyclists tilt through sleepy strolling bodies. Hung low heads and dragging feet – a few early morning calls for the early-risers amongst us. White shirts, black skirts – new balance runners. Coffee cups clasped in cold hands – steam rolling slow from the top. The smell rolls under my nose, rich and familiar.

Campers start to wake in the park. A week long sit in. Extinction rebellion – hoisting boats and barrels into roads – halting the smoky drum of the city. Groggy grumbles come from the grass, as hands begin to stretch out from tent doors. Pitched over night to flood the city with an early morning protest.

Gently I walk by, careful to slow my scuffles for those still blissfully oblivious to the day’s start.

Good Morning.

Up by the bridge a huge pink yacht sits proud in the middle of the road, surrounded by triumphant banners. Moving further into the city centre, chalk covers the pavement – battle cries for change crudely scribbled into the ground. It seems like a city wide constitution, smatterings of its decree littered onto the streets in pastel pink and green. War in a child’s handwriting.

I cross the road – empty now – the cars all grumbling angrily at the roundabout – cursed in their eternal circle. Two clad policemen rest on a banner, “#BeyondPolitics”. They look like sore thumbs – jutting out in black. They stand stiff and staunch – chests proudly pushing forward like belligerent magpies, spotting their next hoist.

I push through, moving up the grassy hill – sunlight urgently peeping through cracks in the trees above, flitting along my skin as I move up St Nick’s street. To my right a yellow styrofoam mermaid juts from the branches, growing every month by her secretive creator. Crude yellow foam hands crane for her companion, swimming further up the street. Another Bristol artwork growing with the city’s ebb.

Thoughts wander back to my warm bed, my absence now filled in with a soft and snoozing body, having marked its territory with one triumphant sleepy roll. Lying there with heavy huffs, buried in a throne of pillows meant for two.

Tugging on my coat I tighten my arms around me, a pang of envy flitting through me.

I slow as I near the office, hoping the lights linger orange just a little longer. My thoughts pick up pace, sensing our time is closing in. Thoughts of ‘shoulds’, and ‘have to’s’ start to rush – muddling with my private reverie. I start to practice my sentences, good morning! Hi! My weekend? Good yeah. Sounds stunted. Try again? Great thanks, how was yours? Better.

Thoughts of pigeon lovers drift into the background. Craning mermaids and groggy protesters slink from view, growing quiet in a busy mind.

I can feel the world closing in again,

Slow and deliberate, I cross the road, pressing my palm against the door – and let my body sink into the building.

 

Censorship and Dissent – Ai Weiwei and the Tiananmen massacre.

In May 1989, Chinese government officials declared martial law following seven weeks of student-led protests dominating the nation. Following the death of politician Hu Yaobang these student protests were predominantly peaceful and expressed widespread dissatisfaction with Chinese governance. A publicly progressive but politically controversial party member, Yaobang’s death and subsequent memorials provided the opportunity for Chinese citizens to congregate on mass.

Memorials became expressive of citizen discontent within the Communist regime. Following immense social changes consequent of the end of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in 1976, Chinese citizens became emboldened by a collective demand for democracy, government accountability, and freedom of the press. By the 18^th of May protests made up of over a million Chinese citizens. By late May, student demonstrations dominated the nation and had garnered mass domestic and foreign sympathy.

Considering the demonstrations a threat to Chinese governance, Party authorities declared martial law and mobilised government troops to Beijing. On June 3^rd 1989, troops opened fire on unarmed civilians demonstrating in Tiananmen Square. Although estimates vary widely, it is understood between 1’000 and 2’600 demonstrators were killed, while thousands more were imprisoned or exiled for taking part in the demonstrations. Following the events of June 3^rd and 4^th, on June 5^th an unidentified man blocked the path of military tanks attempting to occupy the square. This figure would come to be known as Tank Man, and would represent the militarised oppression of Chinese citizens alongside citizen resistance. Circulated widely across Western media, the image was deemed representative of the oppressive state of Chinese human rights.

This iconic image was also widely distributed in China in the immediate aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre. However, in contrast to Western articulations of the event, this image was used to demonstrate the supposed benevolence of the Chinese government. Government approved footage at the time stated,

‘Anyone with common sense can see that if our tanks were determined to move on, this lone scoundrel could never have stopped them. This scene recorded on videotape flies in the face of Western propaganda. It proves that our soldiers exercised the highest degree of restraint’.

Describing a scene of militaristic discipline and isolated insurrection, the connotations of the image are forced into change. Susan Sontag writes, ‘To the militant, identity is everything. And all photographs wait to be explained or falsified by their captions’.

In the ensuing aftermath of June 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th, China’s leadership implemented policies that encouraged social control, with the intention of suppressing any further resistance to Chinese governance. By the spring of 1991, 2’578 arrests were confirmed by the Chinese government, while Hong Kong sources put the figure closer to 4’000. Party policy insisted on intensified political education, while Universities across China offered more courses on politics and orthodox Marxism. Similarly, ‘140 universities adopted eight-week programs to reindoctrinate (sic) students in party ways’. This instigated a regime of overt and covert means of Chinese censorship and suppression.

In the years that followed, means of suppression culminated in the renewed censorship of Chinese media, news, and internet, among many other policies directed at freedom of expression and religion. The iconic image of ‘Tank Man’ was similarly wiped from the Chinese cultural tapestry, with a 2014 survey indicating just 15 out of a 100 Chinese students were able to identify the image. Those able to identify the image expressed a commonly expressed narrative surrounding the image:

‘he was an escaped mental patient who wandered too close to some troops and was harmlessly carried back to his hospital bed’.

This regime of historical amnesia indicates the privation of Chinese history. On the privation of history Roland Barthes notes, ‘Myth deprives the object of which it speaks of all History. In it, history evaporates’. This privation of history in the context of China’s totalitarian regime is particularly interesting when one notes the work of Hannah Arendt. She writes,

‘Nothing is more characteristic of the totalitarian movements in general and of the quality of fame of their leaders in particular than the startling swiftness with which they are forgotten and the startling ease with which they can be replaced’.

In addition to the eradication of Chinese history this policy of suppression engendered a culture of self-censorship. In a study conducted in 2007, reports revealed that not a single one of mainland China’s top 100 bloggers ‘argued in non-ambiguous terms for political change and an alternative political system’. In many respects this would appear to indicate the militaristic aims of the 1989 massacre were successful. Helen Gao, a Chinese journalist for the New York Times writes, ‘Twenty-five years after the massacre, the topic remains taboo here’. And yet, in the face of government censorship, a survey conducted in 2008 showed that China’s internet users contributed ‘more to their national blogosphere and online forums than users in other countries do in theirs’. Eight years on in 2016, China’s internet users had increased by the size of Ukraine’s population, at the fastest pace documented in three years. Lagerkviskt notes ‘the rise of the blogosphere coincides with the rise of the individual in Chinese society’. Importantly, this rise of the individual acts in contrast to Chinese traditions of collective subservience and social acquiescence.

Of these influential contemporary bloggers is Ai Weiwei, a Chinese political activist and artist. Commenting on the rise of the internet Weiwei insists,

‘the internet and social media have become the only forms of democracy in China’.

A dissident Chinese artist, Weiwei’s work acts as an indictment of totalitarian regimes, while much of his work endeavours to highlight the hypocrisy of Chinese governance. One such example is Weiwei’s 1995 piece Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn. This implicated Weiwei in the destruction of priceless Han Dynasty artefacts, in order to demonstrate the destruction of Chinese culture under the communist regime.

Utilising the internet and China’s blogosphere, Weiwei’s work confronts the oppressive regime of Chinese censorship, while similarly indicting Western countries complicit in the continuance of China’s failing human rights policies. Subject to censorship within China, Weiwei proliferates his works to the Chinese people through subversive means, encouraging collective mobilisation and resistance. Most notably, in 2009 Weiwei utilised the growing Chinese blogosphere in order to conduct the Sichuan Earthquake Names Project in 2008 as ‘an effort to […] collect the names of the deceased students in towns across Sichuan province’. Demanding the government be held to account for negligent construction, lack of aid, and refusal to document the names of deceased civilians, Weiwei engaged members of the Chinese blogosphere by instigating an act of ‘subversive mourning’. This act called on Chinese citizens to record themselves reciting the names of the 2008 earthquake victims, which Weiwei then compiled to create a damning indictment of government negligence.

Rejecting government efforts to erase Chinese history, Weiwei’s work Study of Perspective uses photography to articulate Chinese narratives of the Tiananmen Square massacre.  Susan Sontag highlights the political particularities of photography stating,

‘In teaching us a new visual code, photographs alter and enlarge our notions of what is worth looking at and what we have a right to observe. They are a grammar, and, even more importantly, an ethics of seeing’.

In this regard it is particularly interesting to observe Weiwei’s photographic focus.

Foregrounded in the image is Weiwei’s hand, indignantly gesturing towards Tiananmen Square in the background. Shrouded in heavy fog, the square features isolated Chinese citizens moving through the square. Weiwei stands apart from the crowd, framing the source of his indignation by creating a wide angled shot of the region. Despite the simplicity of this image, Weiwei’s focus on Tiananmen Square echoes a rejection of the oppressive dynasty era, and the Chinese government’s part in the Tiananmen Square massacre. Exhibiting Study of Perspective internationally, Weiwei not only articulates Chinese oppression, but similarly indicts Western failings and hypocrisies. In the Study of Perspective collection Ai Weiwei features a piece titled ‘White House’ which distinctly mirrors his ‘Tiananmen Square’ piece.

Once again, Weiwei frames the source of his discontent in a wide angle shot as he gestures his rejection of authoritarian governance. In this image, Weiwei aims his discontent at the southern façade of the White House. In no uncertain terms, this image is expressive of Weiwei’s rejection of American governing bodies. This is particularly interesting when one considers the inclusion of the image in conjunction with the ‘Tiananmen Square’ image, alongside many other iconic international monuments found within the series.

Joshua Kurlantzick’s work examines the means by which the Chinese regime of suppression is bolstered. He writes

‘the governments in the West and in the democratic parts of Asia appear unwilling to examine China’s backsliding on human rights. In fact, as China becomes an increasingly important market and a more powerful force in global organizations, they seem more and more willing to buy Beijing’s rosy portrayal of its human rights record’.

In this regard, the continued flow of foreign direct investment (particularly from America to China) sustains the regime’s ability to ‘buy the political quiescence of both urban workers and students’. Weiwei’s Study of Perspective not only admonishes the events of the Tiananmen Square massacre, but similarly rejects the increasing complicity of Western governments in civic atrocities. He writes,

‘because you need a small favour you’re sacrificing very essential values. […] every deal made here happens because the rights of so many people are ignored. You profit at the expense of the people who have been put in jail or who are missing, just because they spoke the truth’.

Many of these deals threaten the subversive capacity of China’s one vestige of democracy: the internet. Of these deals is the sale of image and video stock of licensing agency Corbis to Visual China Group (VCG) a licensing group based in Beijing. While the image of Tank Man is not explicitly included in the deal, concerns have undoubtedly arisen regards the further erasure of the events of 1989.

Rejecting the threat of censorship, Weiwei’s Study of Perspective demands the articulation of Chinese atrocities, while similarly interrogating Western acts of complicity. In doing so Weiwei uses the medium of the image to call for government accountability, freedom of the press, and a rejection of totalitarian regimes. In many respects, Weiwei’s efforts echo the 1989 protests, admonishing government corruption and resisting the erasure of Chinese history. Raising awareness via international exhibitions of his work, Weiwei demands the articulation of Chinese events denied by Chinese government officials.

Citing the power of the image, Sontag writes, ‘What determines the possibility of being affected morally by photography is the existence of a relevant political consciousness’. In the proliferation of this political consciousness, through the Chinese blogosphere and art, Weiwei ultimately rejects the privation of Chinese history.

Lawful Genocide of Indigenous Australia.

While the Australian history of Aborigine genocide charts back to the first instances of British Colonisation in 1788, the pinnacle of this civilising mission was in 1909 – with the instigation of the Aborigines Child Protection Act. Before this, ‘civilising institutions’ and mission centres were already increasing in numbers throughout Australia. Run by the government appointed Aborigines Protection Board – primarily comprised of police officers – these institutions were set up with the expressed intent of protecting Aboriginal children. This arose amidst a culture in which Aborigine lives had been construed as disposable, and were therefore subject to physical violence.

Writing of the freedoms of the times leading up to 1909, Galligan and Chesterman write,

‘Often this perceived freedom was attended by the belief that Aborigines simply had no rights, and were free to be treated as sub-humans’.

Rather than serving as a catalyst for the implementation of all-encompassing human rights, this mass violence towards Aborigines sparked the increased establishment of institutions throughout the country. These institutions were described as civilising projects, built to provide care and homes for neglected Aborigine children. However, as racist discourse cemented in law, any understanding of ‘neglect’ became gravely distorted. This culminated ultimately in intimate legislative actions on the lives of Aborigine families.

The 1909 Aborigines Child Protection Act gave the Aborigines Protection board legal sanction to take Aboriginal children from their families. By 1915 an amendment to the act gave the board the power to remove any child without parental consent and without a court order. In effect, by 1915,

‘the relationship between Aborigines and the state was analogous to that between parent and child, or state and ward’.

This led to one in three Aboriginal children being removed from their parents without consent between 1909 to 1969.

Often taken directly from hospitals or their familial home, they were re-homed in a number of institutions, often subject to further forms of institutionalised racism such as domestic abuse and systematic rape at the hands of missionary and government officials. In this regard, Stoler describes evangelical colonialist discourse, stating,

‘the colonial politics of exclusion, was contingent on constructing categories, legal and social classifications designating who was ‘white’, [and] who was ‘native’.

This most certainly rang true for the Aboriginal families of this period, many afforded or denied particular legal rights on the basis of their pigmentation. In circumstances whereby a child may have a white father, these so called ‘half-caste’ children were,

‘forcibly removed from stations and denied supporting benefits in the name of making them ‘free and equal citizens’ a status denied to ‘Aboriginal natives’.

On the other hand, and in keeping with Stoler’s assertion of legal and social classifications, these ‘Aboriginal natives’, legally termed as such by the Commonwealth’s approach to citizenship, were denied basic benefits such as maternity allowance and old-age pensions. This intensive regime of legislative classification,

‘was meticulously enforced to keep Aboriginal people as non-citizens for more than half a century’.

Legislative classification on a scale such as this not only served to irreparably damage the cultural roots of the Aborigine people, but similarly serves as a direct expression of colonial authority. This colonial authority, Stoler writes, ‘was constructed on two powerful, but false, premises’. The first is exemplified through the onslaught of legislative action from the 1850s right up to the 1970s – as boundaries between Aborigines and Whites was deemed ‘self – evident and easily drawn’.

Perhaps the most insidious grounding to this authority, was the notion that,

‘Europeans in the colonies made up an easily identifiable and discrete biological and social entity; a ‘natural’ community’.

In this train of thought, the Australian government and Aborigines Protection Board operated in such a way as to racially divide and ‘dilute’ the native culture and peoples of Australia with the aims of eradicating it altogether. Taken directly from the National Inquiry into the Stolen Generations, this institutional genocide was premeditated and ongoing, ‘Skin colour was the key to absorption. Children with lighter skin colour would automatically be accepted into non-Indigenous society and lose their aboriginal identity’. The report goes on to recognise that:

‘Government officials theorised that by forcibly removing Indigenous children from their families […] this mixed descent population would, over time, ‘merge’, with the non-indigenous population’ .

This desire to expunge Aboriginal culture – under the guise of Aboriginal protection – echoes the eerie sentiments of Stuart Hall. In his efforts to demonstrate race as a political signifier, rather than a biological truth, he pinpoints the disturbed experience of the coloniser,

‘you cleanse it, you sweep it out, you restore the order, you police the boundaries […] between what belongs and what doesn’t’ .

In the case of the Stolen Generations, this disturbed sense of race resulted in institutional forms of racism throughout Australia – leading to the collapse of Aboriginal life and culture. Established within a confused sense of evangelical duty, this expression of colonial oppression served to “protect” Aborigine natives.

In reality, this genocide enshrined in law has resulted in the decimation of the Aboriginal community, still suffering the economic, social, and cultural wounds of systematic institutionalised racism.

The Dangers of Sitting

Despite the acknowledged advantages of sitting – comfort, ease, the tantalising closeness of that formidable “lying down” – sitting remains the ultimate peril.

Sure, you may have preserved the integrity of your legs for one more day, saving your knees from an early retirement, but at what cost?

A box-fresh body, feet still with the labels on, a bar-code slapped to the back of your knees, ominously reading, “Tester Model”.
No good for use, a body left sitting begins to cement itself to its surroundings. Moulding into the chair its placed in, it echoes its master – stationary, functional, and dull.

Absent of movement, a sitting body travels nowhere, experiences no newness, feels no ground. Weightless and bound to arm rests and plush seats, the sitting body forgoes the mastery of living. The thrill of the chase. The gush of ice cold winds wrapping across free running legs. The surge of rhythm scurrying across a writhing body, waving arms, and a dancers embrace.

The true danger of sitting, lies in the complacency that comes with ease and comfort. The monotony that comes with secure and unchallenged living.
Can you feel your body now – resting soft on plush seats? Are you drowning into that comfortable peaceful place – cocooned and encased securely? Are you happy to sit?

Or would you rather stand?

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Plan Z.

I had been warned that post-university life would be bleak – that a career would not come so quickly – that I’d be lost and without purpose. I was also assured I would find my feet again.

This “lost” feeling would not last forever.

Bearing this in mind I spent my last year of university dutifully preparing myself, willing my brain to become a robust home equipped to bear the storm. I figured, if I belaboured over the Armageddon that lay ahead, I could prepare for every eventuality and come out unscathed. This meant creating a war-zone, slicking black paint to my cheeks, and facing the future with grit-teeth and a blood lust.

My time spent morosely philosophising was going to pan out beautifully in the real world  – my prized foresight proving as trusted IKEA instructions on how to master life. I was going to become the Rambo of my own destiny. The Wonder Woman of my fate.

With this train of thought – I graduated. Ready, I assured myself, for the “in-between” time.

Looking back, I now recognise I am a recovering “dooms-day prepper” addict. As opposed to tins of beans and pallets of loo roll, my bunker is filled with paranoid plannings. Deep in my nuclear basement lies answers for every grim hypothetical future in which I’m living every variation of Sam Mendes’, “American Beauty”.

You’d think I’d have enough sense to understand I’m unlikely to morph into the female Kevin Spacey… furiously rowing in my basement as some last ditch attempt to return to “better days”. But no. I don’t have that sense – and arguably – Kevin’s character and I share a disturbingly tenuous grasp on reality.

Consequently, on graduation, I hit the curb, clumsy and blubbering. It was less “decimating the storm” and more running face first into a glass pane.

Despite spending the next few months living by the Irish coast – surrounded by sun, sea, and having next to no responsibilities – I despaired. I was a failure – an anthem I would faithfully return to time and time again.

And so – glass or not – I kept running.

It was in this frame of mind that I moved to Bristol. Defeatist and despondent – all the while harbouring a deep sense that I was as useless as I feared. I had no com-modifiable purpose. My earnings came from skills I couldn’t prize. And it was enough to give up on the dream. The Armageddon had come, and I had been struck down on the first wave of artillery fire.

Tenacity rears it’s head when you’re stripped of all else. And hearing the inner drone of my own army sergeant voice, quickly pushed me forward so the militaristic reign would finally stop.

Barely cognisant of what I was doing – I got a flat, I got friends, and I got a job. Unable to spot how increasingly far-fetched my daily tasks became, I entered into a corporate career with not so much as a thought – figuring it was better to continue meandering into the “unknown”.

Despite despairing as to how I would never amount to anything, I absentmindedly negotiated percentages, high fees, and warped a sales community into something of my own. I counselled senior figures on their career paths, helping graduates and directors alike secure their dream occupation. Chastising myself for failing to meet my own measure, I simultaneously spoke to Founders and CEO’s of household names – “Technical Director” becoming James with three turtles, and not two, because he “loved pets so god-damned much”.

Success was stability. Success was financial security. Success was a 55 hour working week, buying the next round, and bearing the rhetoric of men who’s career usurped the weeks that had gone by since last they saw their children.

I became financially independent, I was promoted. I had a clear career, a position of authority, and my next ten years were mapped both developmentally and financially in an industry historically belonging to men. The power in my day to day seemed to appease the maniac in the basement. I had achieved each marker of success necessary to bring myself back from the brink – raise myself from the turrets, and win the war that waged on in my mind.

Rising in no man’s land – staring out into the dark horizon, flashing lights and the sharp crack of bullets whizzing in the air – a wondrous feat. Ringing in my triumphant success I stood atop the hill with those who had worked alongside me on this feat. Figures who believed sick days were a sign of inadequacy. Directors who believed mental-health was a self-inflicted issue – if not a myth. Founders who encouraged working over Christmas – if you truly intended to succeed. Victory.

Directors who had wives for the weekends, and trainees for the week days. Young women who were hired to “boost morale”, office “sluts” and the “Boys who would be boys”. The girls who had been sexually assaulted but “were cool with it”, and the guys who weren’t straight but it was alright, because they were “fuck boys too”. A triumph.

It took getting to this hill, to understand success is subjective. Something I could understand in theory but never in practice. It also took getting to this hill to understand my fear of failure is dangerous, and has led me to standing side-by-side with men who – with hot and heavy breath – purr the things they wish they could do.

Coming face to face with those at the “peak” of this supposed success – all I see now is a vacuous replacement of true success – for running, and running, and running.

And all I see is failure.

Taking in the Armageddon of my own design, I’ve begun to find my feet again. Eyes-wide to the dark fantasy space I’ve normalised for myself.

I pull at the basement doors, leaving behind dooms day plans.

I let the light in – and begin to define success on my own terms.

 

 

 

 

Won’t somebody, please, think of the robots?

“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change”
– Mary Shelly, Frankenstein.

---

Today I sat down to write a blog post about artificial intelligence, robotics, and the subversive capacity of robotic bodies.

That was two hours ago.

The reason for my (expert) procrastination is in the difficulty of writing a post on robotics. It’s not that I’ve little to say, but rather a bit too much. It feels like most of it needs to be converted from my own brand of binary, and when it is, it often turns out to be inane garbling. In the month I’ve been trying to compose this post, I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t wondered whether I myself am a sentient robot, cruelly programmed by my creator to sit just at the cusp of realizing my true form – confined by his wicked code to stunted paragraphs and shit drafts.
My mum, who insists she birthed me, disagrees with this concept, and has been urging me to push through. She could also be the machinations of my cruel creator – but, be it artful coding or biology, I’m inclined to believe her. Abstractly,  this blur between fact and fiction has been my main mental occupation for the past month.
While I haven’t been sitting around wondering whether my mother is real, I have been trying to articulate the social implications of robotics. What sparked all of this was the “gifting” of Saudi Arabian citizenship to a robot named Sophia. I had been following Sophia for quite some time. Noted for her enthusiastic – if jarring – facial expressions, Sophia had been “activated” in 2015, and heralded for her behavior which resembled greater human characteristics than her predecessors. Modeled after Audrey Hepburn (no less), Sophia represented a chilling distortion of both Hepburn, and the female form. For me, Sophia represented a rabbit hole of complex questions. Why make robots that look and act human? Why do we make them with skin and voices like ours? Why do we engineer wire and metal and plastic… to smile back at us? And most importantly: What were the implications of Sophia’s newfound citizenship?
Subversive robotics is an abstract concept to begin with, and a concept I’ve been obsessing over for the past two years. When I was in college, I wrote my thesis on gendered robotics, with the initial belief that artificial intelligence had the power to emancipate the female form via a distortion of what it actually meant to be human. This belief arose after reading Frankenstein six years prior. Historically, I’ve been drawn to science fiction texts for their surreal depictions of deviant women, defiant bots, and troubled dystopian landscapes. Their stories seem just in reach, as though universally narrated by a space-age Nostradamus. In my eyes, Frankenstein appeared a testament of human error and equal greatness – all manifesting in a monstrous body of dismembered body parts. An aberration by all accounts: but one that encapsulated what I felt so strongly was the beauty and horror of being human.
The story of Frankenstein – a monster who defies his creator – got me thinking. I mean, really thinking. I trawled through books, films, series… catching a trend of deviant machines and resistant beings. Birthed at the hands of mad scientists, these aberrations yearned for a sense of humanity that seemed far beyond the reach of their callous surrogate mothers.
An example that immediately comes to mind is one of the final scenes in Bladerunner (1982). 

Having ultimately failed in his mission to extend his life beyond a measly four years (a limitation set by his maker), Roy Batty’s final monologue is one that bears humanity to an inorganic life in the moments before his death.

“I’ve… seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those… moments will be lost… in time… like… tears… in rain. Time… to die.”

These iterations of “almost human” humans have seemed to dramatically increase in the past ten years. But this time, these bodies have not remained within the confines of books and TV. They’re beginning to become real.
In most recent years, Sci-Fi fantasy has manifested virtual reality headsets, responsive sex dolls, micro-chips that imitate the sensation of a caress,  robots that can learn, chatbots who engage, chatbots who spew hatred, and now: Robots deserving of citizenship.
When I first started seeing “responsive” robots and “empathetic” sex dolls rolling along my newsfeed… it seemed as though Nostradamus had come knocking with a resounding “Told You So”. Now, Sophia’s legal induction has appeared to succinctly affirm the troubling conclusion my thesis research eventually manifested. While in many instances, I discovered robotics and artificial intelligence did have emancipating capacities, I also discovered the unrelenting desire of the creator to destroy his design. It starkly reminded me of Dr. Frankenstein’s swift turn from joy to terror, upon the realization his creation was one of abject horror.

“A flash of lightning illuminated the object, and discovered its shape plainly to me; its gigantic stature, and the deformity of its aspect, more hideous than belongs to humanity, instantly informed me that it was the wretch, the filthy daemon to whom I had given life.”

---

Dr. Frankenstein’s intention had been to create a son; a mirror of himself.

“A new species would bless me as its creator and source. Many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs”.

Arguably, Frankenstein succeeded: At least in the creation of a mirror, onto which his humanity would be projected.

Watching Sophia’s eerie acceptance speech, I asked myself: what had we intended to create today? Had we succeeded? Did we now reap the gratitude of our mechanic children? Or, just as Dr. Frankenstein, would we seek to destroy our creations? A couple of days after Sophia’s gift of citizenship, and after a wave of criticism that pointed towards Sophia’s privileged position above Saudi Arabian women, an article by Duffel Blog stated,

“SAUDI ARABIA BEHEADS FIRST FEMALE ROBOT CITIZEN”.

While the satirical post was intended to highlight the innumerable atrocities enacted on Saudi Arabian women – it seems many missed the beat, thinking the event had actually taken place. The article was shared just over 127’000 times, with many citing this act of violence against Sophia as a testament to Saudi Arabian attitudes, despite it being enacted on a body of wire and plastic. And despite it not happening at all. Sophia’s representation of womanhood overshadowed her existence as a robot – and instead served to demonstrate the violent confines incumbent of a female body.

It got me thinking of the countless robots I had encountered in my research. I thought of the ones designed to smile just like me; of the ones with bodies just like me; of the ones that served as mirrors of the women around me.

It got me to thinking of the articles I’d encountered… that hadn’t been satire.

“SEX ROBOT WITH A ‘PERSONALITY’ UNVEILED”.

“MAN BUILDS ANATOMICALLY CORRECT ‘SCARLET JOHANSSON’ ROBOT FROM SCRATCH TO ‘FULFILL CHILDHOOD DREAM”.

“SEX ROBOT MOLESTED, DESTROYED AT ELECTRONIC SHOW”.

“NEW SEX ROBOTS WITH ‘FRIGID’ SETTINGS ALLOW MEN TO SIMULATE RAPE”.

“THE SEX ROBOTS THAT BEG YOU TO STOP”.

While Sophia did not suffer the same fate as her sisters, her body had been designed to resemble a woman now deceased – Audrey Hepburn. Despite the possibility to give Sophia a robotic form of her own, her female cognition seemed to necessitate a body. Following Sophia’s grant of citizenship, Japan followed suit by offering residency to an AI entity named Shibuya Mirai – even going so far as to give him a birth cert. Unlike Sophia, Shibuya is not only formless, but has been designed to behave like a seven year old boy. Why then, has Shibuya been left absent of a body? It seems a boy did not require one, unlike Sophia, who’s gender surely necessitated the visage of an iconic beauty.

So, what are we intending to mirror here? What do these representations of women tell us about our own perceptions? In what ways does the master engage his design?

In the case of Sophia, her privileges highlighted the constraints of Saudi Arabian women. Her imagined beheading, and subsequent media outcry, demonstrated an imbalance of media concern. This wasn’t about her as a robot. This was about her perceived womanhood. It seemed, the life and death of a robot, surpassed in value the flesh and blood of Saudi Arabian women.

In the bodies we have designed, why have we elected to punish our mechanic children? What about these bodies inspires us to inflict brutality? What of these bodies incites us to inflict sexual assault? Does it speak to our attitudes towards robotics?

Or is it because it’s as close as we can get to the real thing?