If the title of this post is confusing, that’s because I’m using two apps I just installed on Chrome, entitled “Jailbreak the Patriarchy” and “Jailbreak the Binary.” They take gendered words in your browser and either swap them or un-gender them, respectively.
With JtP, the name of the app itself becomes “Jailbreak the Matriarchy” and with JtB, the title of this blog becomes “Androgynous Philosophers.” (Also with JtB, the name of JtP becomes “Jailbreak the Androgynchy,” Confused? Good!
Here’s how the apps present themselves:
Jailbreak the Patriarchy:
Jailbreak the Patriarchy genderswaps the world for you. When it’s installed, everything you read in Chrome (except for gmail, so far) loads with pronouns and a reasonably thorough set of other gendered words swapped. For example: “he loved his mother very much” would read as “she loved her father very much”, “the patriarchy also hurts men” would read as “the matriarchy also hurts women”, that sort of thing.
This makes reading stuff on the internet a pretty fascinating and eye-opening experience, I must say. What would the world be like if we reversed the way we speak about women and men? Well, now you can find out!
Jailbreak the Binary:
Based off of “Jailbreak the Patriarchy” by Danielle Sucher, but with gender neutral pronouns and as many gender neutral other words as well.
Takes all instances of ‘male’, ‘female’, ‘he’, ‘she’, and as many other gendered words and swaps them for gender neutral versions.
As another example, if you install JtB, the last paragraph of the explanation above becomes: “Takes all instances of ‘human’, ‘human’, ‘ze’, ‘ze’, and as many other gendered words and swaps them for gender neutral versions.”
Bound to be disorienting yet educational for many of us. Sadly, I wasn’t able to find similar apps for other browsers (but my search might not have been thorough since I did it with the apps turned on.)
Feminist Philosophers 