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A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century

Donna J. HarawayDonna J. Haraway

4.9/5

I read this from a dis/ability theory and technoculture theory perspective. From a dis/ability theory perspective, Haraway is extremely problematic, as she fetishizes the metaphorical and physical notions of the "hybrid" body and all manners of "prostheses." People who actually use prosthetics, orthotics, or "machine-matter" in order to live their day to day lives do not, in fact, see themselves as "cyborgs" (or at least, very few do), but as human dis/abled people (in whatever kind of disability or non-disability they personally prefer to identify).The problem with Haraway's cyborg manifesto from a dis/ability perspective, is that she does not approach notions of abjected bodies OTHER THAN those determined "female" (which in terms of a gender theory perspective, is rather simplistic and essentialist). Haraway does not appreciate or discuss how our bodies and identities are socially, culturally, and even technologically constructed in order to uphold certain norms and ideals. She speaks of technology and hybridity, in metaphor and actuality, as almost an escape from cultural expectations of the body, or at least, holding a kind of resistance to such exectations. In many dis/ability perspectives, however, Haraway's view of technology and the human and animal body merely upholds and maintains current constructions of the body as notoriously non-disabled, non-abject, without pain, and without suffering. I see Haraway's description of the future feminist cyborg body (or her metaphor of such a hybrid in theory) as upholding certain bodily norms and notions surrounding post-human theory regarding the "technological evolution" of the body.However, I also love her creative reading of gender and technology in this piece of writing. There is so much to love and dislike within this work. No great work creates such wide cultural, theoretical, and artistic discourse without making some very problematic and potentially utopic/dystopic statements. Haraway poses a technological form of feminist resistance, which is not to be taken lightly, or uncritically from only ONE theoretical perspective.
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