If we take into account the fact that science, technology and their power connotations over the natural world have always been linked to the masculine sphere, women’s recent closeness to technology has meant a challenge which should overcome traditional images of physical aspects to deepen into complex psychological aspects.
In this sense, every robot considered as female means a rupture with the masculine control of technology. This same violation of traditional patterns is also at work in all those virtual representations of the feminine, as can be seen in the popular science-fiction film The Matrix (1999) which shows virtually constructed women, as in the case of Trinity (Carrie-Ann Moss). Paradoxically, most feminist scholars dealing with science fiction agree in affirming that even these totally created bodies contribute to the reproduction of traditional gender stereotypes, especially in terms of behaviour.
Yet, within the academic scope, only a few works have considered these issues. Donna Haraway, in her famous “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist- Feminist in the Late Twentieth Century” (1985), already dealt with the cyborg image and regarded it not only as a created being but also as a “creature of social reality”, although she did not consider it from the strictly robotic perspective. More specifically, we should mention the works by Winslow Burleson and Rosalind Picard (2007), alma mater of affective computing, which is a branch of artificial intelligence that deals with the design of systems and devices that are able to recognise, interpret and deal with emotions. This is an interdisciplinary field that includes computing, psychology and cognitive science.