Judy Wajcman 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. In what ways has it been taken up by feminists?
Interpretations and refigurings of Donna Haraway’s cyborg appear all over the Internet, not all of them closely related to feminism or to Haraway’s original vision. Arguments for and against Haraway’s work, critiques of cyborg figures in popular literature and hybrid theories utilising both cyborg and queer theory are just a few of the cyborg texts I found. Deciding which would be the most useful for an essay I will never write was difficult, however.
In “The Cyborg, the Scientist, the Feminist and Her Critic”, Krista Scott follows Haraway in critiquing the feminist rejection of technology and desire to return to the “natural” while acknowledging that scientific techniques are rooted in a white, patriarchal tradition. She affirms the power of the cyborg to break down boundaries and dichotomies and argues against Teresa Ebert’s Marxist critique of Haraway’s work.
Scott’s article is not very original. However, it is well written and useful as an introduction to some of Haraway’s themes. It also serves as an example of how Haraway’s theories have been supported by later feminists, and Scott’s defence of Haraway’s work against Ebert’s critique is an interesting illustration of some of the controversies surrounding cyborg theory.
Esperanza Miyake, in “My, is that Cyborg a little bit Queer?”, unites cyborg and queer theory to “investigate possibilities of a cyberqueer theory”. Using the portrayal of female replicants in the film Blade Runner as a pathway into her topic, she points out the ways in which these cyborg characters are still constrained to traditional gender roles, and suggests that “they all need to be a little more queer” (p. 53). She argues that cyberqueer theory offers insights into the “conceptualisation of sexuality which sees sexual power embodied in different areas of life” (p. 54) and the “problematization of sexual and gender categories, and of identities in general” (p. 55). Finally, she contends that this theory rejects “civil-rights strategies in favor of a politics of carnival, transgression, and parody” (p. 57).
As a postgraduate student essay, “My, is that Cyborg a little bit Queer?” is rough in places. Nevertheless, it is a strong piece, and was published as a winner of the Women's Studies Network (UK) Association Essay Contest. It is a very useful example of how feminists today are responding to, redefining and extending the image of the cyborg.
In “Are Cyborgs Queer?”, Nina Lykke also combines the image of the cyborg with queer theory to analyse the Danish debate in Parliament over assisted reproduction. The “queer” raises questions about sex and gender as performance, while the cyborg challenges ideas about how bodies are produced and what is natural. Lykke suggests that as the sex/gender dichotomy is already being challenged by advances in reproductive technologies, the image of the cyborg may be more useful in critiquing these technologies. However, she chooses to use a fusion of both in her analysis, showing how aspects of both “queer” and cyborg were demonised by participants in this debate. The power of the “queer cyborg” is in its ability to challenge ideas of what is “natural” and “normal”, to cast doubt on biological determinism. The “natural” and “normal” were often brought up in the Parliamentary debate, with participants expressing fear of the “unnatural” possibilities of the technologies they were attempting to control. The “queer cyborg” is transgressive, both technological and biological, and thus offers a unique perspective on this issue.
Other feminists have been critical of the power of the cyborg. Joan Blauwkamp and Nicole Krassas argue in “Should Feminists Be Cyborgs?” that use of the cyborg in popular culture tends to reinforce rather than destabilise dualisms such as self/other, culture/nature and male/female. Their paper shows how these dualisms are reaffirmed by the portrayal of cyborg characters in two Star Trek series and Marge Piercy’s novel He, She and It. However, Blauwkamp and Krassas do not deny the potential of the cyborg to disrupt such dualisms; rather, they contend that its potential is rarely realised in these texts.
Unfortunately, although the title of this paper is provocative, the content fails to address the question it poses. The article provides an excellent critique of the use of cyborg figures in these popular culture texts, but barely touches upon the issue of whether the cyborg is useful to feminist thought. It takes the destabilising potential of the cyborg for granted, and thus avoids tackling the more challenging aspects of the cyborg figure in culture.
Yael Sherman’s article “Tracing the Carnival Spirit in Buffy the Vampire Slayer” also uses the cyborg to critique a text, and then uses that text to critique Donna Haraway’s vision of the cyborg. Contrasting the cyborg aspects of Buffy with those of Adam, an evil cyborg, Sherman points out that Adam is “a perfect blasphemous cyborg” and argues that, while Buffy is the kind of cyborg feminist theory imagines, “the cyborg theory provides no grounding for understanding the dynamics of power” involved in Adam’s amorality. She contends that cyborg theory “Others non-cyborg bodies” and even that it “legitimate[s] rape”.
This article is not focused on the cyborg aspect of Buffy. Sherman examines the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer through several critical theories, and Haraway’s theory is only a minor part of her argument. While some of her objections to cyborg theory seem extreme, the section of the article dealing with the cyborg are carefully argued and provide an excellent example of how feminists may simultaneously use and critique cyborg theory.
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