Paper long abstract:

According to recent media reports, the autonomous, self-driving car is the technology of the future. Experts claim that autonomous cars could solve problems modern societies are facing, such as air pollution or fatal car accidents. Due to the impact their introduction might have, societal implications of this innovation should be taken into account - especially those that affect the highly gendered mobility culture of our time: The car is a strong symbol of hegemonic masculinity embodying aspects connoted as "male", such as power, control or independence. At the same time, it is treated and cared for like a (female) partner (Sheller 2004).

This paper explores the effects that the introduction of a self-driving car might have on the relationship to its driver. Whereas nowadays, the driver-machine relation is modeled as one of master and slave (Both/Weber 2014), it's reasonable to rethink this model due to the proposed autonomy of the car: Can we speak of a new kind of solidarity between human and machine or does the car "downgrade" the driver to a passenger? How do these changes affect gendered stereotypes that are connected to (auto)mobility?

To answer these questions, I analyze how the relationship between driver and autonomous car as well as related gender stereotypes are (re)constructed in the German media discourse on autonomous cars. A special focus will be put on often used analogies to science fiction since this genre deals with different imaginations of "future", including new forms of mobility and human-machine-relations.