Talk:Molly Robison

Molly did a thorough job of defining the process she went through to create her avatars, as well as the emotions she felt and insights she gained while creating them. Molly was comprehensive in describing the issues she faced during the self-portrait process - she outlined the shortcomings of the software from both the usability prospective of how awkward it was to combine parent’s traits for the user and how this often yielded unsatisfactory traits, as well as iterating her concerns with the generic and stereotypical nature of many of the traits for female avatars. Molly was capable of describing well how the portrayal of women within the software differed from her own opinion without being overly cynical or abrasive, which made the piece both interesting to read and feel much more personal. Molly then went on to outline her portrayal of an androgynous female avatar for her fantasy character, which seemed quite difficult given parameters of the software. She discussed both the social implications of why she created her fantasy avatar in the way she did, as well as the technical challenges of creating it. By doing so, she undertook another way of redefining how difficult personal portrayal is in an online environment, by challenging how gender affects physical appearance. Molly augmented her arguments on gender by using her two sources to add weight to the difficulties of virtually representing women – something that cemented her discussion away from her personal opinion, and closer to a society-wide concern. – Lynette Wall