Describe or narrate a scenario about a concert found a few years into a future in which order is deliberately coordinated or imposed. Your description should address issues related to gender and elicit feelings of awkwardness.
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In the future, concert attendees can choose to sit in a female-only zone in order to prevent situations such as groping and sexual harassment. However, they must agree to undergo a gender eligibility test where an AI machine determines that they identify as a female and are also not purposely choosing the female-only zone to take advantage of the situation. Attendees who fail to pass the test at the venue would be denied entry to the concert.
This prompt was an interesting one for me because of the recent gender debates at the Paris Olympics. Some athletes with genetically male characteristics were accused of competing in the female matches to take advantage of their physiological differences. I then found out that athletes have to go through a gender eligibility test where they are tested for testosterone and XY chromosomes (Treisman, 2024). This led me to think about the female-only train cars in Japan, which were introduced to reduce sexual harassment cases on crowded trains during peak hours. After doing some research, I realized that they are also in several other countries around the world. These cars are only in effect during certain hours and it is more of an honour system as there is no legal punishment for men to be in these cars (Ito, 2023). I have always wondered about this system (which is an obvious band-aid solution that does not solve the actual problem) and how it applies to people who identify as female or females who purposely go into these cars to sexually harass other females. The term “female-only” is very general and does not encompass the myriad of people and their identifications and intentions.
For the prompt, I imagined a future where AI would be able to conduct a gender eligibility test that would determine whether or not someone is genetically female or identifies as female. The AI test will also be able to determine if someone intended to harass the other females during the concert. This is the part that is not scientifically possible at the moment. However, in order to really create a safe space for females, a test such as this is necessary. There are many complications to this that are outside of my expertise. According to Dr. Shannon Vallor (2018), AI is already being used as decision support systems in many areas behind the scenes such as in medical and legal settings. Perhaps AI is already determining genders in various settings based on certain factors. Whether or not these identifications encompass all factors or further perpetuate sexist biases and societal expectations is something that needs to be considered.
References
Ito, A. J. (2023, October 4). What’s Up with Japan’s Women-only Cars? Tokyo Weekender. Tokyo Weekender. https://www.tokyoweekender.com/japan-life/news-and-opinion/why-japan-women-only-cars/
Santa Clara University. (2018, November 6). Lessons from the AI Mirror Shannon Vallor [Video]. YouTube.
Treisman, R. (2024, August 2). What to know about the gender controversy sweeping Olympic boxing. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2024/08/02/nx-s1-5061280/olympic-womens-boxing-gender-imane-khelif-lin-yuting
Zigic, Drazen. Young woman during magnetotherapy at health spa [Image]. Freepik. https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/young-woman-magnetotherapy-health-spa_26628364.htm#fromView=search&page=1&position=9&uuid=d1d5ce08-6cbb-41ab-975c-34b8dfa30b3f