Getting Riveted

Two iconic figures meet head to head in this post. Below is the inspirational wartime gal, Rosie the Riveter.  On the right, Canadian media analyst Marshall McLuhan. The juxtaposition of these two figures should focus our attention on Rosie's accomplishments with the tools of production and her somewhat masculinized appearance, her lunch pail, boots and biceps, and on a McLuhanesque account of what's going on.

Rosie the Riveter

McLuhan studied technologies as environments and the ways in which they reshape the inhabitants of those environments. One generalization he explores in "The Mechanical Bride" has to do with cultural developments, typically (at least when McLuhan was writing) directed by men, and the peculiar effect of feminizing their users.  They concentrate power behind interfaces. The interfaces, a keyboard to finger or a screen to swipe, put the genders on more equal footing, because they undercut advantages otherwise enjoyed by physique. In the push-button age, button pushers rule. So what's the masculinized Rosie, trudging off to the factory, up to?

She seems to have been a portent. Out of step with the times, and having allowed the tools of her time--factories of whatever sort--to shape her, she patriotically tends to the job. But her tools fall back on their habits and relate to her as they would to a man, turning any feminine flow she might possess into masculine regimentation. The popular rendering shown here casts her as somewhat comical, putting on airs and posturing in a way traditionally reserved for men

Pay attention to the tools you use, ladies and gents, professionally and personally, because they will mold your attitudes, opinions and values (and your posture!). Her tools shaped Rosie into some kind of pseudo-man. The riveter carries on husbandless and so is an apt symbol of a wing of feminism.

(Thanks to the graphic designer who spiced McLuhan's photo with the quote.)