The fetish of the click: a small history of the computer mouse as vulva

Abstract

This paper examines the fetish of the click through a technofeminist history of the computer mouse as vulva. It argues that this material turn is a necessary corrective to abstractions of the click in contemporary media studies and the long history of phallic technological practices. Drawing from anthropological, Marxist, and psychoanalytic approaches to fetish, this paper enables a rethinking of the computer mouse in the materiality of what it is and does within its broader cultural formation. This interpretation of the computer mouse serves as a feminist claim to ubiquitous computing technology. Further, the argument connects the computer mouse’s supposed obsolescence to the new and emerging technologies of touch pads and screens.