Tag: Hayles

Cybernetic Bodies appear in literature quite frequently and have been present in many examples of literature ranging from plays, to novels, to television shows throughout the last century.  When one considers a comparison of example, he or she must first fully understand what a cybernetic body truly is.  Hayles suggests that “…cybernetics signaled that three powerful factors – information, control, and communication – were now operating jointly to bring about an unprecedented synthesis of the organic and the mechanical.” (Hayles, 18).  Hayles goes on to say, “Cybernetics combines control theory and the nascent theory of information to show how humanity communicates with the machines that will inevitably replace us one day.” (Hayles, 18).  With Hayles’s definitions, one can begin to understand that cybernetic bodies are a meld of the human and robotic sense of life and a combination of the aspects of both.  With the definitions given to the audience, one can now begin to construct a comparison of cybernetic bodies.  Three examples of Cybernetic bodies in three different mediums of literature are Rossum’s Universal Robots in the form of a play, Stepford Wives in the form of a film, and Black Mirror in the form of a television show.

Regarding the first example, R.U.R., cybernetic bodies are introduced to the audience in the form of “robots”.  In R.U.R., the robots are genderless, but still follow one of two gender stereotypes; the robots are either warriors and soldiers “like a man should be”, or docile and less important like women were treated in the time the play was written. In R.U.R., Capek has a dialogue between robot Helena and Primus, another robot. This dialogue is, “Primus: They are formulae, Helena: I don’t understand.” (Capek, 3.147-148).  Capek is trying to make a statement to the audience- he is trying to show how society thinks of women.  In this scene, two robots are conversing and any formulae should be easily understandable from either party.  Even though both parties are robots, the “woman” robot cannot understand complex math and algorithms.  He tries to explain in this scene that the way the world thinks of women makes no sense and should be changed.

Like R.U.R., Stepford Wives portrays a stereotypical feminine role for some of the females in the film.  In this movie, a couple moves to Stepford, Connecticut and finds that the people living there a somewhat strange.  The main character Joanna, is a strong female character and tries to empower the women of the town, but they all seem brainwashed.  As the movie progresses, more female characters get all of the sudden turned to this mentality, and eventually so too does Joanna.  The real reason the previously brash and independent women turn to be the stereotypical housewives is they are being replaced by fembots.  Like the gender differences in the previous piece of literature, these fembots, or female robots fulfill all the stereotypically female roles and are meant to show the dangers and horrors of a society where women have no free will.  Davis Perfectly describes what is occurring in Stepford Wives when he says, “. . . this ideal body, is not attainable by a human. . . These models individually can never embody the ideal since an ideal, by definition, can never be found in this world.” (Davis, 4).  By saying this, Davis shows how the movie is a satire on the “Perfect Family” ideal that populates literature. Also, in the movie, Bobbie describes the horrors and confusion of the other wives in her statement, “I can’t figure out this burg. It’s like maids have been declared illegal, and the housewife with the neatest place gets Robert Redford for Christmas.”  Here, Bobbie remarks on how the women of Stepford are very peculiar and do not act as normal humans should; this is a remark on dystopia and the same attack on gender found in R.U.R.

Most recent of the three examples is the Television show Black Mirror.  In the episode seen in class, a woman tries to replace her deceased partner with a cybernetic body.  She succeeds in recreating a cybernetic body that is absolutely identical to the lost partner in almost all aspects, but were the robot lacks is in the nonphysical mannerisms of the person it is replicating.  The new body cannot take on the personality of the person because no person can put all of his or her feelings about every specific situation online; therefore, the replacement cannot learn how to respond in every situation.  Though this piece of literature did not display the same level or type of gender stereotyping, it does hint at it slightly.  Stereotypically, the men in the relationship are the ones making the decision and are more stubborn, but because this clone has to listen to its human creator, it must always be subservient.  This subservience causes a strain in the relationship because Martha, the main female character, desires the old relationship she had with Ash, even though it is a robot and not actually still Ash.  This piece of literature differs from the other as it essentially does a role reversal.  The woman has the controlling power and the “man” is the subservient robot and must listen and do whatever the woman wishes.

A common theme that occurs in all three works is the danger of cybernetic bodies and that they would be nearly impossible or totally impossible to implement in society properly and safely.  All three pieces of literature warn against the use of cybernetic bodies for the seemingly utopia it will bring will quickly become a dystopia if not careful.  Haraway argues that cyborgs are a “condensed image of both imagination and material reality” (Haraway 292), and it is through this argument that one knows cyborgs cannot exist in the manner depicted in literature.  All the pieces of literature show that cyborgs should not exist, but it is Haraway that explains they cannot exist.  Because the cyborgs of literature are partly figments of imagination, existence in that sense is futile, and that is shared among all cybernetic literature, not just the three examples.

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

“Be Right Back.” Directed by Owen Harris, written by Charlie Booker. Black Mirror, season 2, episode 1, Netflix, 11 Feb. 2013.

Čapek, Karel. R.U.R. (Rossums universal robots). Wildside Press, 2012.

Davis, Lennard J. The Disability Studies Reader. 2nd Ed. Routledge, 2006.

Haraway, Donna. “Cyborg Manifesto: Science, technology and socialist-feminism late twentieth century.” Routledge, pp. 291-316.

Hayles, N. Katherine. “How We Became Posthuman.” 1999,    doi:10.7208/chicago/9780226321394.001.0001.

Stepford Wives. Produced by Edgar Scherick, directed by Bryan Forbes,      Palomar Pictures, 1975.

 

 

Christian Colon

Dr. Licastro

ENG 281 OM1

1 November 2017

The existence of cybernetic beings has slowly become more of a reality for humans as technology advances. As the years progress, our ability to generate and create robotic beings has increased dramatically, and the day where humanity walks alongside these beings is not too far in the future. Humans have always had a fascination for robots and technology. Some of these fantasies include making these robots servants or slaves, doing the biddings of humanity with no humanitarian consequence. Others have dreamt of a world where humans coexist with robots. And some have even fantasized a world where humans have become enslaved themselves by these robotic individuals.

The difficult question to answer is deciding on how robots will live alongside humans. What will their labor roles be? How will we classify their citizenship? Will they experience the same experiences as humans? Using Capek’s, R.U.R., an episode from the British series, “Black Mirror”, and the movie, “The Stepford Wives”, to compare different ways robots are utilized and their relationships with humans.

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In Karel Capek’s, R.U.R (Rossum’s Universal Robots), a robotics factory has perfected the creation of cybernetic beings. These robots serve humans, and will help make labor so cheap that it ultimately replaces all work and poverty in the entire world. Harry Domin, who is the boss of the factory that produces these robots, hoped to create a perfect cybernetic being. “Imagine him sitting over a test tube and thinking how the whole tree of life would grow out of it, starting with some species of worm and ending—ending with man himself” (Capek, 1.64). These beings were going to be so perfect, that they can be easily mistaken as the real thing. However, things didn’t quite turn out the way he envisioned them to be. Robots began to revolt against humans, ultimately killing all of humanity. Their existence was fueled by replication of human behavior. Humans wanted to create a perfect subservient, but instead were met with retaliation and unpredictability.

 

During the premier episode for Season 2 of the British series, “Black Mirror”, we see an individual who uses robot to deal with a life problem. The story is about a woman who loses her boyfriend to a car accident. Much of the episode is centered on her grieving process, as she battles with the loss of her loved one. Convinced by a friend, the woman tries replacing her lost loved one with a robot. Going online and ordering a new “Ash” (the boyfriend who died), using past experiences to generate a replica. These past experiences are made up of phone calls, text messages, and even social media posts to help create an artificial image of someone. But is that enough to totally create an exact copy of someone? The woman later figures out that not all is well with her new boyfriend replica, and later realizes that the robot doesn’t totally replicate her now deceased boyfriend. Although the robot did a great job of reviewing Ash’s entire history using different media sources, the robot doesn’t totally grasp who Ash was. Many of the things that bothered the woman weren’t there anymore. “You’re just a few ripples of you, There’s no history to you,”(Black Mirror), a quote taken from the show aimed at Cybernetic Ash. Ash had become submissive to her, and would only seek to please her in any way possible. This wasn’t who Ash was when he existed. Ash had opinions, and spoke with feeling rather than submission. Much of the story is centered on the belief that robots will not totally replicate human emotion and behavior. And that much of that is organic, and cannot be easily created.

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Last, in The Stepford Wives, woman are replaced by cybernetic beings who do the biddings of their male counterparts. Rather than having an opinionated woman running the household, husbands began replacing their wives with subservient robotic women who only seek to please them. In this small suburban town in Connecticut, woman are seen as tools rather than humans. The local “Men’s Club”, has developed a way to replace opinionated wives with robots. These robots only perform household duties, and have no sense of opinion. Their repetitive nature can be clearly seen when these robots become accidentally damaged. After a small accident in the grocery store parking lot, a robotic woman can be seen repeating herself after being struck by a vehicle. “This is all so silly… it’s just my head. This is all so silly… it’s just my head. This is all so silly… it’s just my head…” (The Stepford Wives). The eeriness in her repetitive nature made it abundantly clear the issues that were lurking in Stepford. When families move to Stepford, they are met with bliss and perfect hospitality. However, things may seem perfect on the outside, but in reality, there is a much more sinister action taken place beneath the shadows of this suburban town.

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All these stories have one thing in common, humanity seeks to solve problems with the use of robotics and end up taken in more problems than before their creation. Although robots can be a useful tool and their technology can be utilized to advance the human condition. We cannot replace our humanity with technology. Humans have too many quirks and issues to be replaced by robots. It is apparent in all of these stories. None had the result that was anticipated to happen. All had different scenarios in which robots went far beyond expectation. Often resulting in disastrous situations.

 

Works Cited

“Be Right Back.” Directed by Owen Harris, written by Charle Brooker. Black Mirror, season 2, episode 1, BBC, 11 Feb. 2013.

Čapek, Karel, 1890-1938. R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots). London ; New York :Penguin Books, 2004. Print.

The Stepford Wives. Directed by Bryan Forbes, screenplay by William Goldman, Columbia Pictures, 1975.

 

Cybernetic bodies are artificial human-like beings that perform tasks for the benefit or gain of humans. N. Katherine Hayles explores the idea of cybernetic bodies in her book “How We Became Posthuman.” She argued humans and cybernetic bodies are identical because anything that can hold information and consciousness whether it is organic or inorganic is alive. Cyborgs have existed in literature and media for decades and are now making their way into the real world. As time has passed, the representation of cybernetic bodies varies in literature and media. This is exemplified by how virtual bodies are depicted in the 1975 movie Stepford Wives, the play Rossum’s Universal Robots by Karel Capek, and in the contemporary television show Black Mirror. These various portrayals of cybernetic bodies show how differently the beings can be used, their limitations based on gender roles, and whether or not they can achieve human consciousness.

In Stepford Wives, husbands are using cybernetic bodies to replace and improve their wives. Their human wives were independent-thinkers and empowered women. When this became an inconvenience for the husbands, they decided to create new and improved wives who would not challenge them and ultimately seek to change their ideal life. This depiction of cybernetic bodies plays into gender roles and stereotypes because “the perfect wife” they were seeking to create only uses were to cook and clean, to care for the children, and to please her husband emotionally and sexually. For example, in the movie when the human women were addressing concerns for their love lives and marriages one cyborg wife’s only concern was “I didn’t bake anything at all yesterday. It took so long for me to get the upstairs floor to shine.” (Stepford Wives 1975) And all the other cyborg wives began to talk about cleaning methods.  These virtual beings also do not truly represent Hayles’ idea of a cybernetic body because they were not truly conscious they were just programmed to behave a certain way which is very different than the beings depicted in Rossum’s Universal Robots.

In the play R.U.R., the robots were created to replace human laborers and eventually improve the quality of life for humans. The robots replaced human factory workers, secretaries, and soldiers. But in R.U.R. gender stereotypes are still placed on the cyborgs even though they are technically built without a gender. In the text, Harry Domin, the manager of R.U.R said “There’s a certain demand, you see? Waitresses, shop-girls, secretaries—it’s what people are used to.” (R.U.R 1.1) This quote shows that gender was only included to play into expectations for certain types of labor. Women were expected to hold secretarial or waitressing positions so seeing a man in these roles would make the general public uncomfortable. Eventually, the robots surpassed their programming unlike the beings in Stepford Wives. They truly represent Hayles’ idea of a cybernetic bodies because even though their physical beings were artificial, they were able to hold information and achieve consciousness and eventually become more powerful than humans.

In Black Mirror’s season two premiere episode “Be Right Back”, cybernetic bodies are again being used to replace humans like in Stepford Wives. But unlike Stepford Wives, these virtual beings are not supposed to be improvements. In this episode, the main character Martha is seeking to reunite with her dead boyfriend. Black Mirror also plays into gender roles because men are expected to be sexual beings and be able to please a woman sexually. In the episode, the cyborg was able to please Martha sexually but was not able to connect with her emotionally. The virtual being illustrated in Black Mirror could not gain conscious of human like the robots in Rossum’s Universal Robots. But he was able to learn information and store information similarly to humans so it is debatable whether or not they fulfil Hayles’ idea of a cybernetic body.

The idea of socially constructing gender roles and how to deconstruct them has been discussed in the work of both Donna Haraway in “The Cyborg Manifesto” and Lennard Davis in “Constructing Normalcy.” Haraway argues that in a world where we are all cyborgs there will be no gender expectations. She argues that we would all be fluid like the beings in R.U.R. and that from their we can all reconstruct our own identities. Davis argues that gender roles are not innate rather they are a result of societal expectations that came to be over time. And if gender roles are not natural we can change what the idea of normal is. This is proven because in today’s society, women can achieve more than the stereotypical professions like the ones in R.U.R. and do not have to be homemakers like the one’s in “Stepford Wives.” Though we have not become gender fluid beings like the ones Haraway described, we are moving towards a world where inorganic and organic life can interact.

In all of these portrayals of cybernetic bodies, we see that the goal of creating them is to make life easier for the humans. That may be to cook and clean for them, to do their jobs, or to make them happy. They all serve purposes to their creators. Some of them fit their roles perfectly like in Stepford Wives. Some of them completely miss that mark and do the opposite of their purpose like in Rossum’s Universal Robots. And some of them are almost there but need more like in Black Mirror. The cybernetic bodies depicted in these works are different in usage and limitations but are ultimately all the same in purpose. They are supposed to fulfill a fantasy or create a utopia that was not possible before they were created. Like a world where no one has to work, or dies and everyone has the perfect spouse. All new technology is created to make our lives easier or happier. These cybernetic bodies are just the most extreme examples of how far we can push that technology.

 

Work Cited

Brooker, Charlie , director. Black Mirror. Black Mirror, Netflix.

Capek, Karel. R.U.R. Rossum’s Universal Robots. Players Press, 20001.

Forbes, Bryan , director. The Stepford wives. Youtube, 29 Jan. 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFGkZblCgmY.

Cybernetic bodies are an advanced form of technology that is used to replace humans. With this technology, these bodies are programmed to fulfill needs and activities for other humans. It also creates an ideal image of what is supposed to be fulfilled in gender roles. Our class has experienced these Cybernetic bodies three different ways in the last month of class. We have read Rossum’s Universal Robots, watched Stepford Wives, and also Black Mirror. With each of these examples, we have seen how differently each of these Cybernetic bodies may operate and what they are used for.

In R.U.R., the women cybernetic bodies were programmed to do stereotypical female jobs. Most of the women in this play were overlooked because of their gender. None of the female characters had a say so in any type of decision. Also one of the main characters Helena was forced into her marriage with her husband. From the beginning of the play she was being controlled, could not finish her own thoughts, or have a mind of her own. Some of the other female characters in the play like Sulla and Nana were also overlooked. The men and male cyborgs had control over everything and were more dominant.

In Stepford Wives, the men of this town created the ideal housewife. The husbands made their women into cyborgs that made them the perfect wife, cook, mother, and caregiver. The women were only expected to keep the houses clean, cook, take care of the children, and dressed according to what the men wanted them to wear. This movie also introduces what was expected of the gender role for a woman. The men all worked in technology companies and brought home the money. All the wives had to do were daily chores around the house. They were all made in the husbands eyes to be submissive cyborgs.

In Black Mirror, there was not a presence of gender roles like R.U.R. and Stepford Wives. In this TV show, the main character Martha, loses her husband in a car crash. She downloads a program that allows her to communicate with her husband from previous conversations. The program suggests that she requests a cyborg version of him to make it seem more real for their relationship. The cyborg is delivered to her and it seems like her husband at first but eventually she realized that it is nothing like him. She was only using the cyborg to fulfill her human needs while still grieving for her husband. He does what he is only programmed to do and his cyborg is not fully developed. He can’t remember how things are supposed to be because he is not really her husband. He can only do what she asks him to do.

These three sources portrayed cybernetic bodies and gender roles in different ways. Stepford Wives and R.U.R. were more similar to each other because the women were being submissive in this movie and play. Black Mirror portrayed the same concept of a submissive cybernetic body but it was with a male. This male did not have any specific roles other than to do what was asked to be done. Each of these show us how different life can be  depending on what we use our technology for. They all also show how it can go wrong and these cybernetic bodies can never replace real human beings.

The Presentation of Cybernetic Bodies

For a while now, the discussion of human like machines has been very relevant and has brought about much discussion. These human like machines can be referred to as cybernetic bodies, which occurring to Katherine Hayles’ How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics, are the electronic technologies that will replace humans. Some believe that these cybernetic bodies should have freedom and a life of their own, while others believe that they are only good for serving humans. This dilemma can be seen played out in Stepford Wives, R.U.R, and Black Mirror. Between the three pieces, they share many commonalities but at the same time are very different. The big ideas in these pieces of media revolve around gender and labor roles.

To start out, one thing all of these pieces share is that the cybernetic bodies all resemble humans very well. You couldn’t tell they aren’t human just by looking at them. In both Stepford Wives and Black Mirror we were able to see that the cybernetic bodies looked identical to a real human, while in R.U.R we knew that the cybernetic bodies were artificial biological beings. With that being said, these human like robots in all three of these pieces had one common use. These robots main purpose was to serve an actual human being in one way or another. In Stepford Wives, the main goal was to serve your family by making food and cleaning the house to make everything look like the “ideal life”. In R.U.R, the robots responsibilities were to basically be slaves to the humans, even though humans and robots were basically exactly the same. With Black Mirror, the purpose of Ash is to support and make his wife feel better after his unfortunate death. After he dies he returns as a cybernetic body, which was an exact copy of him. Even though they all had the same basic purpose, the way they were treated and looked upon varied.

In both Stepford Wives and R.U.R we can see how the females are treated like the housemaids and were programmed to do the stereotypical women’s jobs. This can really be seen in Stepford Wives when we find out that the men of the city have been killing off the real women and replacing them with identical copies of the real ones. The purpose of this was to make sure that the wife was always looking nice and always had the house clean and the food made for the family. In R.U.R the female robots are treated as less than the men and are placed in stereotypical female jobs, like how Domin’s secretary is a female. It can also be seen how females are treated less equal when it comes to making decisions. The men are always the ones ignoring the women and doing their own thing throughout this play. All of these examples can be furthermore understood by Donna Haraway in Cyborg Manifesto when she states “I do not know of any other time in history when there was a greater need for political unity to confront effectively the dominations of ‘race’, ‘gender’, ‘sexuality’, and ‘class’”(Haraway 297). This shows how there are always problems with gender and sexuality in general, coinciding with the unfair treatment of others.

Throughout these three pieces, it can be seen that the opinions on these cybernetic bodies varied from piece to piece. In Stepford Wives, the cybernetic bodies were viewed as higher than the regular humans. This was because the men wanted their wives to be the perfect stay at home wives, and the only way that was going to happen was if they programmed these wives artificially. This can be explained in Constructing Normalcy when Lennard J. Davis states “If we rethink our assumptions about the universality of the concept of the norm, what we might arrive at is the concept that preceded it, that of the “ideal”” (Davis 4). This is the idea the men in Stepford Wives were trying to create, the ideal wife who could cook, clean, and watch the kids. They were ultimately trying to create the most stereotypical house wife. In Black Mirror, Ash is treated as a normal human being until his wife realizes that it really isn’t him and becomes annoyed and angry at the incorrect representation of who she once knew. She starts out by being super surprised that he was there again, but after a while it’s just like a normal human being is there with her, nothing too special. With Ash, he is viewed as a normal human being, there is no worshiping him but there’s also no one that despises him. In R.U.R, the cybernetic bodies are valued for their resources, but at the same time the humans have no respect or care at all for them. They just see these robots as personal servants and aren’t treated the best.

When reading/watching these three pieces, the main ideas involve cybernetic bodies (the technology that will replace humans). The value and treatment of these cybernetic bodies can be seen played out in Stepford Wives, R.U.R, and Black Mirror. The general consensus is that the main purpose of these robots is to serve their human counterparts in order to make the humans lives better. We can see that the robots are worked like slaves and that depending on gender, their role is very stereotypical.

 

Works Cited

Davis, Lennard J. The Disability Studies Reader. Routledge, 2010.

Haraway, Donna Jeanne. A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century. 2009.

 

Cybernetic bodies are beings of technology created to replicate and ultimately replace all human activities. Through these bodies, it is possible to create an ideal image of one gender or the other. This allows the dominant gender to rule over the opposite gender. According to Katherine Hayles, manmade cyborgs are autopoietic. Autopoietism is when humans alter and replicate something or someone to make the cyborg the way that the creator wants it (Hayles 199). This appears most prevalent in the movie of Stepford Wives, television series of Black Mirror, and the play of R.U.R.
Firstly, in Stepford Wives, the husbands of the story aim to create an ideal, submissive housewife. The husbands start a men’s committee that does not allow for women. Throughout the movie, it appears that these men are studying and analyzing what they prefer their wives to do and appear to be. When the cyborg visions of the wives are shown in the movie, they make themselves attractive for their husbands with makeup, 1950s housewife attire, and bigger boobs. The creation of these cyborgs show off what the husbands value most in their wives. This can be best described as a condensed image of both imagination and material reality (Haraway 292).

Additionally, this movie represents the gender and labor roles that were associated with the time the movie was made. During this time, more and more women wanted to enter the workforce. But the men wanted their wives to stay home, do housework, and take care of children. The men gained dominance over their wives by replacing them with submissive cyborgs. This relates back to setting of the autopoietic mindset.

Secondly, in R.U.R, dominance of men over women is also prevalent. Domin, Helena’s husband, is a bossy and interruptive husband to Helena. She is not allowed to have her own thoughts. Helena faces constant discrimination in the play. Helena was forced into a marriage with Domin. The males are dominant throuhghout this play. Even though the women, especially the character named Nana, predicts the death of all humans by cyborgs, but no one listens to her because of her gender. Since humans are no longer useful in a society where machines do all the work, the machines are tired of being bossed around and they revolt. The idea of women being dominated by men is as normal as eating a sandwich in this society. Lennard J. Davis best describes it as the fact that no area in contemporary life in which some idea of a norm, mean, or average has not been calculated (Davis 3). Davis says that it has been clear from past history that men are superior to women. For example, in the Stone Ages, men were the strong, bold, courageous hunters and breadwinners. Back then, male dominance was a part of human nature. Davis’ description creates questions of whether or not this is still true in today’s society.

Lastly, Black Mirror did not hint on as many gender and labor roles as R.U.R and Stepford Wives did. The main character, Ash, dies in a car crash. His wife, Martha, wants to somehow bring him back to life. Her friend, Sarah, recommends a software for her that allows her to communicate with him through past social media posts, text messages, and emails. It brings comfort to Martha. She takes it a step forward by requesting a cyborg form of him. Martha expects him to be exactly like the human version.

After spending time with him, she realizes he is not at all what she expected. She expected cyborg Ash to be an exact copy of him before he died, knowing everything they he knew without being any better or worse. It seemed like the cyborg Ash was not as mentally developed as a normal human. He made up for that with his instant access to the internet and sexual skills. Katherine Hayles said it best by saying, “In the posthuman, there are no essential differences or absolute demarcations between bodily existence and computer simulation, cybernetic mechanism and biological organism, robot teleology and human goals” (Hayles 3). Cyborg Ash is only doing the job he is programmed to do. Black Mirror is different from Stepford Wives and R.U.R in the sense that it describes the stereotypes of a man, not a woman. Ash is portrayed as the dominant male figure that is a loving husband and dominant lover, amongst other traits. It is also different in the sense that Martha was not at all happy with the autopoietic creation of a human. This is the opposite for Stepford Wives and R.U.R. Well, at least until all the humans were killed by the very machines they created in R.U.R.

The gender and labor roles described in these three cinematic pieces are unique and depicting. Being replaced by cyborgs is a realistic and frightening possibility for our future. This is the case in Stepford Wives and R.U.R. All three pieces went into a lot of detail describing the gender and labor issues specific to their time periods. Overall, these pieces gave us an outlook on a potential, realistic future while promoting awareness of how gender and labor issues were handled in their time periods.