Critical Annotated Webliography, Question 3

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. In what ways has it been taken up by feminists?

Introduction
To properly understand the full context of the quote, I first read Donna Haraway's “A Cyborg Manifesto” to gain an understanding of her definition of cyborgs and her arguments. Dividing the question into parts, I then had to find information pertaining to Cyborg Feminism – preferably with a mix of sources pertaining to popular culture, science fiction and academic writing.

Finding an ample supply of material online regarding Cyborg Feminism and its related topics was easy enough, with a simple click and query from Google generating a wealth of information. Whilst much of it was interesting, not a lot was directly related to my topic question.

The trouble then, was finding what was directly useful, and scholarly creditable.


Computers and the Communication of Gender
By Elizabeth Lane Lawley
Here, Lawley analyzes the “ways in which our definitions of “woman” and “man” are shifting in this new communication environment”(Lawley, 1993) - how new media is harnessed and how we reconstruct our identities using it.

The use of computers and the notion of the cyborg potentially empowers women. However, these fields are still predominantly controlled by males, as the hardware and software is created and thereby controlled by males It is only through “through the process of design and creation can women "gain control" of the tools of technology”(Lawley, 1993). One way to do this, Elizabeth argues, is for more women to become comfortable in utilizing these new media and technologies.

She discusses gender as a social construct rather than a physical one, and argues that emancipation can be gained by reconstructing the virtual self utilizing new communication technologies.

Additionally, the role of science fiction in the reshaping of society's views on gender is also analyzed – How the concept of a body able to be freed from a physical shell is rooted in and promoted by science fiction.

Overall, this is a decent and relevant resource, discussing not just the potential of how technologies empower women, but also the concrete steps to be taken in such an endeavor.


Feminist and Postmodern: Donna Haraway's Cyborg
By Alison Caddick
Caddick compares Haraway's work with those of Gena Corea and Robyn Rowland, who espouse that “patriarchal power”(Caddick, 1992) is still embedded in new technology, and that this “techno-determinism”(Caddick, 1992) harbours “little hope for real change between the sexes.” (Caddick, 1992)

Whilst Caddick suggests that Haraway's work does acknowledge the views of Corea and Rowland, it digs much deeper and posits that this technology is actually capable of great change – that the notion of the cyborg is able to deconstruct traditional notions of the dichotomy between male and female.

This piece, whilst somewhat harder to read through than the previous one, provides an in-depth and insightful analysis of how different feminists view technology its potential to reshape notions of gender. Additionally, the dissection and careful analysis of Donna Haraway's concept of the Cyborg proved extremely enlightening.


Lara Croft: Feminist Icon or Cyberbimbo? On the Limits of Textual Analysis
By Helen Kennedy
Helen Kennedy studies the impacts of the video game character Lara Croft on the video-gaming player-base which up until then, had had primarily male main characters. She explores how Lara is both a sexist construct and yet a potentially empowering figure for female gamers.

What fascinated me about this article was her analysis of how “the game character may become an extension of the player”(Kenedy, 2002) and how it impacts our role-shaping and the impact for feminism thereby.

Concerned with the “politics of representation”(Kennedy, 2002), this was a fascinating and intriguing look at a virtual figure literally taking on a life of its own.


You Are Cyborg
By Hari Kunzru
A writer for popular magazine, Wired, Hari Kunzru's interview with Donna Haraway sheds further light on the cyborg phenomenon. She writes that “[b]eing a cyborg isn't just about the freedom to construct [yourself, it's] about networks”(Kunzru, 1994), that the notion that we are cyborgs eradicates the differences between each other and helps reconciliate a world torn apart by divisions of Self and Other, of Male and Female.

The tone of the piece is friendly, much like Kunzru's take on Donna Haraway's Cyborg – a way of
reconnecting and cohabiting humankind as a whole.

Also discussed and contrasted with this is the older, traditional notion of a cyborg, a military-funded masculine exoskeleton, and its history and impact on modern consciousness, and ultimately, its new birth as a societal construct and method of gender harmonization.

Pop Feminist
By Pop Feminist
A non-academic source that proved enlightening included Pop Feminist, a blog “[c]elebrating pro-woman pop-culture” (PopFeminist, 2008)), concerned with the feminine body and its “performance” in modern media, across films, music and print media.

For example, one entry, Embarrassment as Empowerment, discusses the female body and its ideal in popular teenage magazines, of how self-censorship of the female body within society and how acknowledging “unacceptable” or “unfeminine” behaviour might be liberating.

Other posts are generally lighter in tone and concern more frivolous media topics such as Cher portraying Catwoman in an upcoming film, but there are still quite a few thought-provoking nuggets every few posts.

Conclusion
The research was truly an eye-opener, and revealed many new ways of thinking about the world and gender issues. As a male, it was quite a novel experience looking into many different facets of gender issues I was not previously aware of.

The above sources are a good mix of views, with a range from academic writing to a magazine feature and even blogs. Of course, this list is far from complete. Merely following the links from any of the above sites would lead to at least a dozen more sites containing useful information.

Indeed, Donna Haraway's Cyborgs are well and alive in the world, connected across the Internet, with a new generation of feminists not merely embracing, but rather, embodying the Cyborg in cyberspace.


Bibliography

Haraway, Donna. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” In Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, (1991).
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html (accessed 23/08/08).

Kunzru, Hari. “You are Cyborg”, Wired Magazine, 5.02, (Febuary 1994).
http://www.wired.com/wired/archives/5.02/ffharaway_pr.html (accessed 27/08/08).

Caddick, Alison. “Feminist and Postmodern: Donna Haraway's Cyborg”, Arena 99/100 (1992)
http://www.arena.org.au/ARCHIVES/General%20Archive/arena_99-100/haraway.html
(accessed 27/08/08)

Kennedy, Helen. “Lara Croft: Feminist Icon or Cyberbimbo? On the Limits of Textual Analysis”,
Game Studies, Vol 2, Issue 2 (2002)
http://www.gamestudies.org/0202/kennedy/ (accessed 26/08/08)

Lawley, Elizabeth. “Computers and the Communication of Gender” (1993)
http://itcs.com/elawley/gender.html (accessed 26/08/08)

Pop Feminist. “Embarrassment as Empowerment” (2008)
http://popfeminist.blogspot.com/ (accessed 27/08/08)