Post by Matt Morley on Mar 19, 2016 22:59:45 GMT
Haraway, D. (1990). A cyborg manifesto: Science technology, and socialist-feminism in
the late twentieth century. In Donna J. Haraway. Simians, cyborgs, and women: The
reinvention of nature (pp. 149-182). New York, NY: Routledge.
Haraway's essay A Cyborg Manifesto was published in her book Simians, Cyborgs and Women (1991). The essay evaluates and critiques many aspects of feminist theory in relation to technology. Let's go ahead and dive right in.
First and foremost, the term cyborg comes up often in this essay, so let's take a look at how Haraway defines what a cyborg is in relation to feminism:
While Haraway references Ghost in the Shell, Blade Runner and various examples of feminist science fiction throughout her essay, she is not necessarily talking about a cyborg in the "part human, part machine" sense of popular science fiction each time she uses the word. In a broader sense, Haraway uses the term cyborg to describe any person that uses communication and technology to defy the societal expectations and cultural demands placed on them based on their gender, race and/or social class.
Haraway spends a great deal of time explaining the influence of technology on the way we interact and communicate with one another as well as the capabilities of technology to change social order. One key theory surrounding new technology is the growth of the homework economy, in which work that was traditionally only done by women was restructured and feminized or made more vulnerable for both men and women working those jobs. This new vulnerability in the workplace occurred as a result of the deskilling of various forms of labor through technologies such as robotics and automation, in addition to individual employees working unclear work schedules and being treated as costs to companies rather than assets. Haraway theorized that this feminization of work spaces would force men and women alike of all races to deal with similar issues of unemployment or poor working conditions, thus creating an environment where alliances across social groups are necessary in order to achieve basic life support.
Additionally, Haraway theorized that there were key idealized social locations which were prominent in advanced capitalist societies that presented a number of difficulties for women and feminism. Here's a quick break down of those social locations as well as a summary of some of the issues facing feminism found in each:
Haraway stated that by identifying and coding these issues facing feminism, vulnerable populations would be able to unify over common issues in order to achieve equality. Additionally, Haraway list the following dualisms which she attributed to the domination of women, people of color, workers, animals, nature and any other person or thing deemed as an "other:"
In order to free ourselves from the limitations of the labels we receive by the above dualisms, Haraway proposed that technology should be used to deconstruct and then reconstruct those boundaries, freeing society from anti-feminist mentalities that are created by traditional social structures. By doing so, Haraway hoped that we as feminists would be able to create our own social groups and identities through affinity rather than taxonomy, thus giving traditionally marginalized social groups more power than allowed previously in Western societies.
the late twentieth century. In Donna J. Haraway. Simians, cyborgs, and women: The
reinvention of nature (pp. 149-182). New York, NY: Routledge.
Haraway's essay A Cyborg Manifesto was published in her book Simians, Cyborgs and Women (1991). The essay evaluates and critiques many aspects of feminist theory in relation to technology. Let's go ahead and dive right in.
First and foremost, the term cyborg comes up often in this essay, so let's take a look at how Haraway defines what a cyborg is in relation to feminism:
"The cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction."
"The cyborg is our ontology, it gives us our politics. The cyborg is a condensed image of both imagination and material reality, the two joined centers structuring any possibility of historical transformation."
"The cyborg is a kind of disassembled and reassembled, postmodern collective and personal self. This is the self feminists must code... communication technologies and biotechnologies are the crucial tools recrafting our bodies."
While Haraway references Ghost in the Shell, Blade Runner and various examples of feminist science fiction throughout her essay, she is not necessarily talking about a cyborg in the "part human, part machine" sense of popular science fiction each time she uses the word. In a broader sense, Haraway uses the term cyborg to describe any person that uses communication and technology to defy the societal expectations and cultural demands placed on them based on their gender, race and/or social class.
Haraway spends a great deal of time explaining the influence of technology on the way we interact and communicate with one another as well as the capabilities of technology to change social order. One key theory surrounding new technology is the growth of the homework economy, in which work that was traditionally only done by women was restructured and feminized or made more vulnerable for both men and women working those jobs. This new vulnerability in the workplace occurred as a result of the deskilling of various forms of labor through technologies such as robotics and automation, in addition to individual employees working unclear work schedules and being treated as costs to companies rather than assets. Haraway theorized that this feminization of work spaces would force men and women alike of all races to deal with similar issues of unemployment or poor working conditions, thus creating an environment where alliances across social groups are necessary in order to achieve basic life support.
Additionally, Haraway theorized that there were key idealized social locations which were prominent in advanced capitalist societies that presented a number of difficulties for women and feminism. Here's a quick break down of those social locations as well as a summary of some of the issues facing feminism found in each:
- Home: urban homelessness, migration, reinforced traditional family structures, excessive domestic violence
- Market: targeted advertising to purchase technology of questionable practicality, surveillance systems, sexualization of marketing and consumption
- Paid Work Place: impact of new technologies on women's work in clerical, service, manufacturing and agricultural jobs, unclear work hours
- State: elimination of welfare programs, power imbalance between information rich and information poor, privatization and militarization of various public services
- School: Scientific illiteracy among women and people of color, industrialization of higher education
- Clinic-hospital:politics governing reproductive rights, feminizing of health work, ideological role of health care in American politics
- Church: struggle over the role and authority of women in religion, spirituality, sex and health being intertwined in politics
Haraway stated that by identifying and coding these issues facing feminism, vulnerable populations would be able to unify over common issues in order to achieve equality. Additionally, Haraway list the following dualisms which she attributed to the domination of women, people of color, workers, animals, nature and any other person or thing deemed as an "other:"
- self/other
- mind/body
- culture/nature
- male/female
- civilized/primitive
- reality/appearance
- whole/part
- agent/resource
- maker/made
- active/passive
- right/wrong
- truth/illusion
- total/partial
- god/man
In order to free ourselves from the limitations of the labels we receive by the above dualisms, Haraway proposed that technology should be used to deconstruct and then reconstruct those boundaries, freeing society from anti-feminist mentalities that are created by traditional social structures. By doing so, Haraway hoped that we as feminists would be able to create our own social groups and identities through affinity rather than taxonomy, thus giving traditionally marginalized social groups more power than allowed previously in Western societies.