A few pages in, I felt myself frustrated and annoyed. Not only was the language in the piece full of unnecessary jargon, it was also obviously relying heavily on an audience that had a significant education in postmodern theory, Marxism and feminism. Dripping with irony and "insider" witticisms, I felt as if I were peaking at something not really intended for my uninitiated eyes.
And it wasn't just that the language and structure were difficult. I am OK with difficult text as long as I am eventually getting the gist of a piece. The problem that sent me searching for information about this article on the internet rather than continue to read this article was the sweeping statements that seemed utterly wrong. I searched for Donna Haraway and Cyborgs on Google. I found this Wikipedia article about Haraway that includes a section on this very piece.
Apparently this is a classic piece, and one that I hadn't encountered before. So, I tried to figure out what I should glean from Haraway's point of view that relates to the theme of this week's reading - Online Identity and Presentation. So, I focused on the section "Fractured Identities." There I found a clue to what might be the relevance of Haraway's manifesto to the other readings this week.
To summarize, Haraway seems to be pointing out that women are not necessarily aligned (and should not necessarily be aligned) with each other on important issues simply on the basis of their gender. Some takes of others from the Wikipedia article are:
the cyborg is a hybrid being.Whether or not I understand all of the nuance or particular references in this piece, the part that seems to be pushing us into the current discussion is the idea of creating affinity groups rather than gender groups. I think the current social media environment allows us to do that.
According to Krista Scott:
Haraway feels that the cyborg myth has the potential for radical political action as it frees feminists from a desperate search for similarity with one another, since physical/epistemological boundary breaks can be extrapolated to political boundary crossings.[11]According to Marisa Olson:
Our life force flows through us and out into the objects we make, she reasoned; thus there ought to be no distinction between the so-called real or natural organisms that nature produces and the artificial machines that humans make. Her conclusion: We are all cyborgs.[12]
Nicely put together, Cindy. Thank you for all the leg work on that! I don't recall ever seeing anything about cyborg feminism either until this semester in both of my classes at Metro!
ReplyDeleteI too found ths article very hard to read and wanted to pull my hair out at times. I imagine that focusing on commality rather than gender only, could be an effective tool for progression in feminism, but the idea that we are all cyborgs kind of throws me because it groups us back as one, though it includes nature and machines. I just wish the article could have a been an easier read!
ReplyDeleteThe last part of what you said in this post completely clicked with me: Creating "affinity groups rather than gender groups." That seems to be the crux of the issue. At the same time, I would propose that affinity and gender are still somewhat related--as ties into the post about branding. When we are in cyber space, we are still bombarded with gender-ized things; if a site knows our gender, they target us AS that biological sex. But when was the last time I shopped at Victoria's secret?
ReplyDeleteThe upside is that, if one can effectively hide their sex, then perhaps their affinities will be tuned into that: i.e., they are male identifying as female, but shop lingerie; their host site has not sex identification, so they get ads from Frederick's, etc.
Hi all, these are great comments and a great post. For me, Haraway's point has more to do with the opportunities present in chaos - the chance for feminists to take advantage of the postmodern turn in U.S. society to capture, write, or design an agenda that moves feminism forward. We could just as easily argue that this has happened as that is hasn't - there is evidence supporting both perspectives. Which is kind of the point, too. It's fuzzy. Affinity groups are one way this could work, but the potential for co-option exists.
ReplyDeleteI think second wave feminists could say that much of third wave feminism could be attributed to Haraway's call for rewriting the code. Or maybe not - but at the time, the idea that the boundaries were getting fuzzy was new. Now I think it's pretty old hat.
Thanks for all the writing on this piece!