3 PEPPER

Isn't it adorable? And look, it's a boy! Maybe. Does our whole argument crumble if smart wives are boybots too? Well, not quite. Our namesake hero(ine) for this chapter is the “genderless” Japanese robot Pepper, who is most often identified as a man-child or child bride—depending on who you ask. Pepper is one of a growing suite of robotic smart wives known as social, assistive, affective, companion, or care robots, many of which have apparently bucked the feminization trend by being gendered male, rendered genderless, or taking the form of another species altogether.
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And yet regardless of their physical gender, these social robots are already feminized—through the wifely work that they are expected to do in and for (and also outside) the home.