Gynoid.html



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Gynoid (from Greek γυνη, gynē - woman) is a term used to describe a robot designed to look like a human female, as compared to an android modeled after a male.^{citation needed} The term is not common, however, with android often being used to refer to both "sexes" of robot.^{citation needed} The portmanteau fembot (female robot) has also been used.

Fembot

The term Fembot (sometimes spelled Femmebot) is used as an alternative name for a gynoid who is designed to look like a woman. The term has been used in several fictional productions.

The original fembots

In The Bionic Woman, the Fembots were a line of powerful life-like gynoids that Jaime Sommers fought in two multi-part episodes of the series: "Kill Oscar" (with help from Steve Austin) and "Fembots in Las Vegas". Despite the feminine prefix, there were also male versions, including some designed to impersonate particular individuals for the purpose of infiltration. While not truly artificially intelligent, the fembots still had extremely sophisticated programming that allowed them to pass for human in most situations.

Other fembots

Vanessa Kensington is revealed to be a fembot in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.

In a parody of the fembots from The Bionic Woman, attractive fembots in fuzzy see-through night-gowns were used as a lure for the fictional agent Austin Powers in the movie Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery. The film's sequels had cameo appearances of characters revealed as fembots: in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, it was Austin's bride, Vanessa Kensington, and in Austin Powers in Goldmember, a Britney Spears fembot attacks Austin during the opening montage.

The term "fembot" was also used in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (referring to a robot duplicate of the title character, a.k.a. the Buffybot).

Futurama also used the word fembot (male robots being "manbots". It was used in "Bendless Love", but referred to metallic female robots unlike the human-mimicking examples above.

See also

Robotics portal

• Actroid
• Android
• Android science
• Cyborg
• Gender in science fiction
• Humanoid robot
• List of fictional gynoids and female cyborgs

References

1. Jordana, Ludmilla (1989) Sexual Visions: Images of Gender in Science and Medicine between the Eighteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0-299-12290-5
2. Leman, Joy (1991) "Wise Scientists and Female Androids: Class and Gender in Science Fiction." In, Corner, John, editor. Popular Television in Britain. London: BFI Publishing. ISBN 0-85170-269-4

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