Judy Waczman argues that Donna Haraway's figure of the cyborg has taken on `a life of its own' in popular culture, science fiction and academic writing. I what ways has it been taken on by feminists?
Abstract:
The term “feminist” is an umbrella that covers a multitude of different and often contradictory beliefs and arguments, thus I can only begin to scrape the surface as I explore the various aspects of Haraway’s cyborg [1] which have been embraced and taken up, at least in part, by feminists. In particular I consider the writings of a queer feminist (Esperanza Miyake), a spiritual feminist (Ruth Mantin), a socialist ‘transfeminist’ [2] (Krista Scott), a feminist science fiction writer (Ruth Nestvold), and a post-modern feminist (Alison Caddick).
Key words: cyborg, feminism, Haraway, embodiment, gender
Source One [3]:
This work investigates the compatibility of queer theory with Haraway’s cyborg. Esperanza Miyake relishes in placing her body into a ‘network of power…we are sexy cyborgs released into the screen through words that we click’. She asserts that language is powerful, and can construct realities, however, following all power there will be resistance, and this is where the queer cyborg fits into the scene. Miyake presents the queer cyborg as a near perfect example of Dona Haraways figure, one which insists “on noise, and advocates pollution, rejoicing in the illegitimate fusions’. However, Haraway presents the cyborg as a creature that “has no trunk with bisexuality”. Miyake disagrees strongly with this interpretation and asserts that the queer cyborg has a fluid sexuality, and questions that since bisexuality is an “identitiy that is not an identity, a sign of the certain ambiguity, the stability of the instability”, surely bisexuality can form part of the cyborg culture.
Source Two [4]:
This essay provides the perspective of a spiritual feminist, a woman who sees power in the Goddess, myths and mythology. Up until page 33, the essay is largely irrelevant to the guiding question. She first establishes her context and expresses theories of prominent feminists [5] whom have influenced her. She writes that her challenge is ‘to explore the possibilities which Goddess symbolism and spirituality can offer to feminist strategies, negotiations and alliances’. Though she would like to explore new terrain in cyberspace, and interrogate the relationships between ‘woman’, ‘body’ and ‘nature’, Manin would rather be a Goddess than a cyborg. She feels that the cyborg falls short when it comes to considering ‘questions of identity, identification and unconscious desire’. Historically, “Most manifestations of feminist spirituality seem to presuppose a unified self, the realisation of which is the goal of spiritual journeys”. Manin, however, takes on the part of the cyborg as she questions ‘how can spiritual feminists find new ways to express what they mean by spiritually which recognises the multiple, fluid nature of self’
Source Three [6]:
Krista Scott is the voice of a socialist feminist from the 90’s, and her essay provides both a detailed account of Haraway’s cyborg, and the specific aspects of the cyborg that leave itself open to criticism, in particular Marxist criticism. Overall, Scott expresses an embrace [7] of the cyborg figure, and a call to action [8]. She agrees with Haraway that engaging in “anti-science metaphysics [and] demonology of technology” has the potential to cut feminists off from positive possibilities.
Source Four: [9]
Science-fiction writer, Ruth Nestvold begins her essay by discussing the ‘Pre-Haraway’ fears, making particular references to popular feminist science fiction novels. She states that “criticism of technology has had an established place in feminist theory” and that many writers had a rather simplistic approach in criticising ‘male’ technology, and associating high technology with heirarchy, war and destruction. The birth of Haraways cyborg positively presented technology of the future as a means of freedom from bodily and biological constraints. The reliance of the cyborg on text made allowed identies to be chosen, with biological sex only playing ‘a role if the participants want or allow it to do so’. However, Nestvold suggests that gender, not only a performative character, but is also a ‘basic element in the construction of personal identity’, and in constructing our understanding of others.
Source Five [10]:
Caddick writes from the position of a postmodern feminist, and draws on much of Haraways writings [11] to explore the usefulness of the cyborg figure in relation to medical ethics, and especially reproductive technologies. She positions the cyborg against liberal feminists whom typically dominate reproductive-technology debates. Caddick views the cyborg as a largely impractical tool [12], built on questionable logic and reasoning. Caddick suggests that Haraways textual account of the body as a surface, is lacking, and that one should instead employ ‘contrary forms of being... that co-exist in our personal formation’. These modes of being, embodiment and ‘ties to distinctive forms of social life’ cannot be explained textually. “While she [Haraway] correctly identifies aspects of the new mode of being and convincingly overturns some feminist accounts of the technologies, she far too readily accepts the cyborg nature of our emergent desires”
To conclude, Haraway’s Cyborg has greatly influenced feminism as we know it today. The sources I’ve chosen offer a broad spectrum of attitudes towards both the cyborg, and the path forward for feminism. Most of the feminist writers I looked at have taken on Haraway’s cyborg in some way. The Queer feminist has written herself into the cyborg culture, the Spiritual feminist have become more open to a fluid, multiple figure of self, the socialist feminist has been called to action, and the feminist science fiction writers is taking a less simplistic approach to ‘male’ technology. Providing some balance in answering the guiding question, is Caddick’s critical response to Haraway’s cyborg.
Bibliography:
Source One: Esperanza Miyake, My, is that Cyborg a little bit Queer? (2000) http://www.bridgew.edu/soas/jiws/mar04/miyake.pdf (accessed 20/08/2008)
Source Two: Ruth Manin, Can a goddess travel with a cyborg and a nomad? Feminist Theology in a Post Modern Context, Feminist Theology, 2001, SAGE Publications http://fth.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/9/26/21 (accessed 20/08/2008)
Source Three: Kirsta Scott, The Cyborg, the Scientist, the Feminist and Her Critic, (1997) (http://www.stumptuous.com/cyborg.html (accessed 13/08/2008)
Source Four: Ruth Nestvold, "Male" Technology, Feminist Dystopias and the Promise of Cyberspace (1995) http://www.ruthnestvold.com/cyberspace.htm (accessed 13/08/2008)
Source Five: Alison Caddick, ‘Feminist and Postmodern: Donna Haraway’s Cyborg’ (1992)
http://www.arena.org.au/ARCHIVES/General%20Archive/arena_99-100/haraway.html, (accessed 17/08/2008)
Endnotes:
1.) The Cyborg is a “cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction”- Haraway ‘Manifesto’
2.) Sumach Press: Publshers of dynamic feminist writing with a critical perspective, Fall 2008, http://www.sumachpress.com/transfem.htm
3.) Esperanza Miyake, My, is that Cyborg a little bit Queer? (2000) http://www.bridgew.edu/soas/jiws/mar04/miyake.pdf (accessed 20/08/2008)
4.) Ruth Manin, Can a goddess travel with a cyborg and a nomad? Feminist Theology in a Post Modern Context, Feminist Theology, 2001, SAGE Publications http://fth.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/9/26/21 (accessed 20/08/2008)
5.) Including Carol Christ, Rosi Braidotti, Nelle Morton, Linda Nicholson and Catherine Keller
6.) Kirsta Scott, The Cyborg, the Scientist, the Feminist and Her Critic, (1997) (http://www.stumptuous.com/cyborg.html (accessed 13/08/2008)
7.) “In the same way that we must invite drunken Uncle Louie or mad Aunt Tillie to our wedding because they are related to us, we must invite OncoMouse and 239Pu to our politics because they are our weird extended family of the cyborg age” ~ Scott
8.) “a socialist feminist scientific practice would not restrict itself to nunnish cloistered research, but would engage in a critical discourse around scientific practices and process worldwide, from the electronic sweatshops in Singapore to the hiring practices of science faculties in Western Universities” ~ Scott
9.) Ruth Nestvold, "Male" Technology, Feminist Dystopias and the Promise of Cyberspace (1995) http://www.ruthnestvold.com/cyberspace.htm (accessed 13/08/2008). This paper was originally given at the annual conference of the German Association for American Studies in Hamburg, June 1995.
10.) Alison Caddick, ‘Feminist and Postmodern: Donna Haraway’s Cyborg’ (1992)
http://www.arena.org.au/ARCHIVES/General%20Archive/arena_99-100/haraway.html,(accessed 17/08/2008). This article is an excerpt from a larger essay to appear in a forthcoming book tentatively entitled ‘Multiple Bodies: Postmodern Perspectives on Medical Ethics and the Body’, ed Paul Komesaroff
11.) “A Manifesto of Cyborgs’, ‘Fractured Identities’, ‘Situated Knowledge’, ‘Simians, Cyborgs and Women’
12.) ‘far from the cyborg metaphor offering feminism a creative spur to political activity’ but rather that it represents ‘an impasse for thought and action... far from the adoption of the cyborg encouraging an unlimited reflexivity, it closes off the possibility of asking the questions we most need today’
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