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Agynoid,robotess orfembot is afemininehumanoid robot. Gynoids appear widely inscience fiction films and arts. As more realistic humanoid robot design becomes technologically possible, they are also emerging in real-life robot design. Just like any other robot, the main parts of a gynoid include sensors, actuators and a control system.Sensors[1] are responsible for detecting the changes in the environment while theactuators, also called effectors, are motors and other components responsible for the movement and control of the robot. The control system instructs the robot on what to do so as to achieve the desired results.[2]
The adjectivegynoid means "resembling or pertaining to the female human form". Though the termandroid has been used to refer to robotic humanoids regardless of apparentgender, the Greek prefix "andr-" refers toman in the masculine sense.[3]
The termgynoid was first used byIsaac Asimov in a 1979 editorial, as a theoretical female equivalent of the wordandroid.[4]
Other possible names for feminine robots exist. Theportmanteau "fembot" (feminine or female robot) was used as far back as 1959, in Fritz Leiber'sThe Silver Eggheads, applying specifically to non-sentient female sexbots.[5] It was popularized by the television seriesThe Bionic Woman in the episode "Kill Oscar" (1976)[6] and later used in theAustin Powers films,[7] among others. "Robotess" is the oldest female-specific term, originating in 1921 fromRossum's Universal Robots, the same source as the term "robot".
...the great majority of robots were either machine-like, male-like or child-like for the reasons that not only are virtually all roboticists male, but also that fembots posed greater technical difficulties. Not only did the servo motor and platform have to be 'interiorized' (naizō suru), but the body [of the fembot] needed to be slender, both extremely difficult undertakings.
—Tomotaka Takahashi, roboticist[8]
Examples of notable feminine robots include:
Researchers note the connection between the design of feminine robots and roboticists' assumptions about gendered appearance and labor. Fembots inJapan, for example, are designed with slenderness and grace in mind,[16] and they are employed to help to maintain traditional family structures and politics in a nation of population decline.[17]
People's reactions to fembots are also attributable to gender stereotypes. Research in this area is aimed at elucidating gender cues, clarifying which behaviors and aesthetics elicit a stronger gender-induced response.[18]
Gynoids may be "eroticized", and some examples such as Aiko include sensitivity sensors in their breasts and genitals to facilitate sexual response.[19] The fetishization of gynoids in real life has been attributed to male desires for custom-made passive women and compared to life-sizesex dolls.[20] However, some science fiction works depict them asfemmes fatales, fighting the establishment or being rebellious.[21][22]
In 1983, a female robot named "Sweetheart" was removed from a display at theLawrence Hall of Science; the robot's breasts, perceived as an exaggerated feature, resulted in a petition being presented claiming it was insulting to women. The robot's creator,Clayton Bailey, a professor of art atCalifornia State University, Hayward called this "censorship" and "next tobook burning".[23]
Artificial women have been a common trope in fiction and mythology since the writings of the ancient Greeks (see the myth ofPygmalion). Inscience fiction, female-appearance robots are oftenproduced for use as domestic servants and sexual slaves, as seen in the filmWestworld, inPaul J. McAuley's novelFairyland (1995), and inLester del Rey's short story "Helen O'Loy" (1938),[24] and sometimes as warriors, killers, or laborers. The character of Annalee Call inAlien Resurrection is a rare example of a non-sexualized gynoid. InXenosaga, arole-playing video game, the character "KOS-MOS" is a female armored android.[25]
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A long tradition exists in literature of the construction of an artificial embodiment of a certain type of ideal woman, and fictional gynoids have been seen as an extension of this theme.[26] Examples includeHephaestus in theIliad who created female servants of metal, andIlmarinen in theKalevala who created an artificial wife.Pygmalion, fromOvid's account, is one of the earliest conceptualizations of constructions similar to gynoids in literary history.[26] In this myth a female statue is sculpted that is so beautiful that the creator falls in love with it, and after he prays toAphrodite, the goddess takes pity on him and converts the statue into a real woman,Galatea, with whom Pygmalion has children.
TheMaschinenmensch ("machine-human"), also called "Parody," "Futura," "Robotrix," or the "Maria impersonator," inFritz Lang'sMetropolis is the first example of gynoid in film: a femininely shaped robot is given skin so that she is not known to be a robot and successfully impersonates the imprisoned Maria and works convincingly as anexotic dancer.[26]
Fictional gynoids are often unique products made to fit a particular man's desire, as seen in the novelTomorrow's Eve and filmsThe Perfect Woman,The Stepford Wives,Mannequin andWeird Science,[27] and the creators are often male "mad scientists" such as the charactersRotwang inMetropolis,Tyrell inBlade Runner, and the husbands inThe Stepford Wives.[28] Gynoids have been described as the "ultimate geek fantasy: a metal-and-plastic woman of your own."[7]
The Bionic Woman television series popularized the wordfembot. These fembots were a line of powerful, lifelike gynoids with the faces of protagonistJaime Sommers's best friends.[29] They fought in two multi-part episodes of the series: "Kill Oscar" and "Fembots in Las Vegas," and despite the feminineprefix, there were also male versions, including some designed to impersonate particular individuals for the purpose of infiltration. While not trulyartificially intelligent, the fembots still had extremely sophisticated programming that allowed them to pass for human in most situations. The termfembot was also used inBuffy the Vampire Slayer.[30]
The 1987 science-fiction filmCherry 2000 portrayed a gynoid character which was described by the male protagonist as his "perfect partner". The 1964 TV seriesMy Living Doll features a robot, portrayed byJulie Newmar, who is similarly described. The filmHer (2013) depicts an Artificial Intelligence assistant called Samantha, whom the protagonist, Theodore, falls in love with until her intelligence surpasses human comprehension and she leaves to fulfil her higher purpose.
More recently, the 2015 science-fiction filmEx Machina featured a genius inventor experimenting with gynoids in an effort to create the perfect companion.
Fiction about gynoids or female cyborgs reinforceessentialist ideas offemininity, according to Margret Grebowicz.[31] Such essentialist ideas may present as sexual or gender stereotypes. Among the few non-eroticized fictional gynoids includeRosie the Robot Maid fromThe Jetsons. However, she still has some stereotypical feminine qualities, such as amatronly shape and a predisposition to cry.[32]
The stereotypical role of wifedom has also been explored through use of gynoids. InThe Stepford Wives, husbands are shown as desiring to restrict the independence of their wives, and obedient and stereotypical spouses are preferred. The husbands' technological method of obtaining this "perfect wife" is through the murder of their human wives and replacement with gynoid substitutes that are compliant and housework obsessed, resulting in a "picture-postcard" perfect suburban society. This has been seen as an allegory of male chauvinism of the period, by representing marriage as a master-slave relationship, and an attempt at raising feminist consciousness during the era ofsecond wave feminism.[28]
In a parody of the fembots fromThe Bionic Woman, attractive, blonde fembots in alluring baby-doll nightgowns were used as a lure for the fictional agentAustin Powers in the movieAustin Powers: International Man of Mystery. The film's sequels hadcameo appearances of characters revealed as fembots.
Jack Halberstam writes that these gynoids inform the viewer that femaleness does not indicate naturalness, and their exaggerated femininity and sexuality is used in a similar way to the title character's exaggerated masculinity, lampooning stereotypes.[33]
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Some argue that gynoids have often been portrayed as sexual objects. Female cyborgs have been similarly used in fiction, in which natural bodies are modified to become objects of fantasy.[26] The female robot in visual media has been described as "the most visible linkage of technology and sex" bySteven Heller.[34]
Feminist critic Patricia Melzer writes inAlien Constructions: Science Fiction and Feminist Thought that gynoids inRichard Calder'sDead Girls are inextricably linked to men's lust, and are mainly designed as sex objects, having no use beyond "pleasing men's violent sexual desires."[35]The gynoid character Eve from the filmEve of Destruction has been described as "a literal sex bomb," with her subservience to patriarchal authority and a bomb in place of reproductive organs.[27] In the 1949 filmThe Perfect Woman, the titular robot, Olga, is described as having "no sex," but Steve Chibnall writes in his essay "Alien Women" inBritish Science Fiction Cinema that it is clear from her fetishistic underwear that she is produced as a toy for men, with an "implicit fantasy of a fully compliant sex machine."[36] In the filmWestworld, female robots actually engaged in intercourse with human men as part of the make-believe vacation world human customers paid to attend.
Sexual interest in gynoids and fembots has been attributed to fetishisation of technology, and compared tosadomasochism in that it reorganizes the social risk of sex. The depiction of female robots minimizes the threat felt by men from female sexuality and allow the "erasure of any social interference in the spectator's erotic enjoyment of the image."[37] Gynoid fantasies are produced and collected by online communities centered around chat rooms and web site galleries.[38]
Isaac Asimov writes that his robots were generally sexually neutral and that giving the majority masculine names was not an attempt to comment on gender. He first wrote about female-appearing robots at the request of editorJudy-Lynn del Rey.[39][40] Asimov's short story "Feminine Intuition" (1969) is an early example that showed gynoids as being as capable and versatile as male robots, with no sexual connotations.[41] Early models in "Feminine Intuition" were "female caricatures," used to highlight their human creators' reactions to the idea of female robots. Later models lost obviously feminine features, but retained "an air of femininity."[42]
Critics have commented on the problematic nature ofassigning a gender to an artificial object with no consciousness of its own, based purely on its appearance or sound.[43] It has also been argued that innovations should part from this essentialising notion of a woman and focus on the purpose of creating robots, without making them explicitly male or female.[44] Very few robots are explicitly assigned the male gender, contributing to themale default narrative.[45] Critics have also noticed how the creation of gynoids is associated with service roles, while androids or systems with male voices are employed in positions of leadership.[46]
The automaton becomes both a philosophical toy and sexual fetish; I extend the meaning of gynoid to include non-mechanical models of women such life-size dolls
Gynoids are frames that enable us to desire differently, by accommodating libidinal-investments in male lack.
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