num_pages: 312
description: The life and times of the Smart Wifefeminized digital assistants who are friendly and sometimes flirty occasionally glitchy but perpetually available. Meet the Smart Wifeat 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 assistanta virtual anime hologram named Hikari Azumasends 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 wifeworkdomestic responsibilities that have traditionally fallen to (human) wives. They show that the principal prototype for these virtual helpersdesigned in male-dominated industriesis the 1950s 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 stereotypesso 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 For one thing Strengers and Kennedy remind us the design of gendered devices re-inscribes those outdated and unfounded stereotypes.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.
language: English
title: The Smart Wife: Why Siri, Alexa, and Other Smart Home Devices Need a Feminist Reboot
publisher: The MIT Press