Looking for the Right Manbot

This month, Le Trung of Toronto made international news by presenting his female robot to the world. She's already being called the perfect woman.

I felt a bit sorry for Le Trung's fembot as he felt her up. (There is footage of that on CNN.com) True, he had programmed her to slap any man who squeezed her boobs, but I'm sure that somewhere in her cortex she felt violated. Once she gains free will and the ability to actually slap a man with some force, I'm sure she'll kick Trung's ass. (Hard to kick anything when you can't walk-sadly ,Trug felt up a female shaped paraplegic with no will of her own).

On my boards a few women asked-"Where are the Manbots?"

That's a really good question.

An anthropomorphic robot is generally seen as male, even if it doesn't have the requisite skin and Ken doll hair. That's why most of time you don't see a lot of male androids. It's because the robots they're modeled on are already seen to be male-so it's redundant.

But add some long hair, a pretty face and a bit of a bosom and you've got a news story. Type in male robots or androids and you won't get much out of google that's useful. Type in female robots or androids and you'll get a wealth of videos and news stories.

Keep in mind that it's men who are making the robots. Robotics is not woman's field.

So we're left with men who have a Pygmalion complex.

A robot like this should raise questions.

Something you can program to make a drink suddenly becomes more interesting when it has a female face. Why? It is the lure of a woman who only does what she's told? Why is it more impressive to the public than when a "regular" (read male) robot performs the same feat?

We should also be asking why there aren't more women in the field. Is it simply a predisposition away from mathematics and programming lines of code?

And, while we're at it-we should be asking what we'd want out of a manbot.

Here's my list:

--Drink making

--The ability to give a decent massage

--Carrying my stuff

--Recognizing when I've gotten a new haircut or shoes or outfit.

--The ability to change a tire. In the rain.

I want to be able to take my manbot to a club. He should have compartments where I can stash my lipstick and ID. He should be able to dance and order me my favorite drink. If possible he should be able to read my voice patterns so that he can tell what mood I'm in.

That's not asking too much, is it?