Q1. In Haraway's“Cyborg Manifesto”, she strategically assigns her cyborg a female gender. In what way is gender significant in the representation of cyborgs in popular culture and technoscience?
Cyborg, the full name is Cybernetic organism which is a hybrid of machine and organism and a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction. In this webliography, I have chosen 6 online resources to elaborate the gender significant in the representation of cyborgs, created by Donna Haraway. Firstly, I use “Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto” these key words to browse in the Google search engine. I want to find some of the related articles in order to know more about the aspect of cyborg in the gender way.
Let's start with my first source, “The Female Cyborg”, Luciano Duran has written some explanation of “Cyborg Manifesto” in the first paragraph. The author tries to use a feminist angle to explore many ideas of cyborg. Also, this article is mainly talking about the Feminism cyborg as we can see in the “Feminist cyborgs are the agents of US Third World feminism and the illegitimate offspring of ‘patriarchal capitalism.’” This feminist cyborg is able to be understood as the technological embodiment challenges the patriarchy society and values.
Why did Haraway create this cybernetic organism? The answer we can be found in the second source, “Power and Invisibility” by Andrew Arsham. Create or being a cyborg becomes a new way to survive in this post-modern society. (The word has come to mean a combination of man and machine) Also, it contains another definition of cyborg we have never seen in the other article.
I have chosen Theresa M. Senft's articles for my third source. Unlike other articles, it has a simple introduction and conclusion. The author has using many short sentences instead of some complicated long sentences. It’s a very useful tool in order to let the readers know more clear about what the definition of cyborg is and understand the background information of Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto”. In the articles, the author is using a metaphor to introduce cyborg as a monster and discussing three current “border crossings”. On the other hand, there are some headlines which related to the gender thinking. Like Haraway argued that the feminists have deployed some ideas of women experiences and the cyborg will "change what counts as experience" for women in the late twentieth century. Also, Haraway deals specifically with the issue of feminist political organizing in light of cyborg politics. Indeed, she suggests that feminist might be better served, Haraway notes, by considering “woman” to be a socially constructed category, deployed in a communications network, along the lines of “homosexual” and “youth”.
The cyborg always comes across in the aspects of popular culture such as science- fiction films. In the third source, “The Cyborg Self”, the author tries to use a type of cyberpunk films, Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell to mention about the sexuality features of cyborg. Cyberpunk is a sub-genre of science fiction film which is usually set in near future and focuses on the technology, computer and dystopian world. Some of the characters are treated as the sexual objects in the films. In the first paragraph, the author suggests that female cyborg is “the mix of masculine, rational, mechanistic technology with the feminine, conflated in the Western imagination with nature, emotion, and sentimentality embodies the cyborg's transgression of the human/machine distinction.” As a paternalistic authority or father-like leadership style, women or femininity is associated with passive, dependent or weakness. Women were often treated as a second class people and women had to follow “the rule of man” in the society. “Female cyborgs are endowed with hyperfeminine, sexualized traits”. For example in Blade Runner, Major Kusanagi and the Knight Sabers have large, feminine breasts that are often the focus of the camera's gaze that means to fulfill the male gaze by the focus of the camera.
Let's talk more about Blade Runner from, “Finding the Cyborg: Blade Runner”. In this article, Andrew Ross introduces the idea of Haraway’s manifesto being “a kind of ‘bad girl’ manifestoes because the film is talking about the female characters “pleasure and danger”. He refers to the dangers of burgeoning technology of women leaving their historically assigned realm of nature and engaging in a risky embrace of science, the mechanical, everything supposedly foreign to them. Destroying this old boundary is the task of a bad girl, “oppositional.” This move towards cyborgicity must begin with the feminine if it comes cross a gender line and become postgender. For a boy to embrace technology is nothing transgressive or new, it does nothing to help him transcend gender. So it is the female replicants that will occupy the center of this discussion, not Roy, Leon or Deckard, in his ambiguous humanity. Obviously, Pris, Zhora and Rachael live on a more distant fringe and contain the greatest transgressive potential. The film’s treatment of them provides the most meaningful insights into gender cyborgicity.
At the beginning of my last sources, “When Technoscience Rewrites Biology”, the author asks a question instantly. “What’s the difference between man and woman, in a world where technoscience is rewriting biology?” Some of the points in this article are very closely with Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto” which emphasis the oppression against binary opposition of gender. To answer the question, the article mentions that cyborg is woman as female in gender are culturally constructed as emotional, sexual and usually as naturally maternal. These stereotype characteristics just like the traditional women traits and it also mentions that women need to use our own powers from whatever sources we can gather them to create new meanings and better worlds in the post-modern period.
In conclusion, I think cyborg is always created as female gender no matter in the popular culture such as the science fiction films like Blade Runner. Female characters in the films being an ideal female figure, project towards the men character or audience. It is the same as the characteristic of traditional women. Most of the authors suggest that women need to use their own powers to create a better world in this post modern society. It's also the worthiness of the shown of cyborg.
Reference:
[1] Duran, L, ‘Female Cyborg’
http://mjbarias.com/scifi/femcyb.html (accessed on 23 March 2007)
[2] Andrew, A, ‘Power and Invisibility’
http://www.knoi.ch/cyborg/cyborg.html (accessed on 23 March 2007)
[3]Senft, Theresa M. “Reading Notes on Donna Haraway’s ‘Cyborg Manifesto’” (21 October 2001)
http://www.echonyc.com/~janedoe./writing/manifesto.html (accessed on 23 March 2007)
[4] Nagle, P. ‘The Cyborg Self’
http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/cpace/cyborg/nagle/7.html (accessed on 23 March 2007)
[5] Hannah, K, ‘Finding the Cyborg: Blade Runner’
http://girl_type.tripod.com/papers/bladerunner.html (accessed on 23 March 2007)
[6] Radin, P, ‘When Technoscience Rewrites Biology.’ (June 1997)
http://www.easst.net/review/june1997/radin (accessed on 23 March 2007)
Cyborg, the full name is Cybernetic organism which is a hybrid of machine and organism and a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction. In this webliography, I have chosen 6 online resources to elaborate the gender significant in the representation of cyborgs, created by Donna Haraway. Firstly, I use “Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto” these key words to browse in the Google search engine. I want to find some of the related articles in order to know more about the aspect of cyborg in the gender way.
Let's start with my first source, “The Female Cyborg”, Luciano Duran has written some explanation of “Cyborg Manifesto” in the first paragraph. The author tries to use a feminist angle to explore many ideas of cyborg. Also, this article is mainly talking about the Feminism cyborg as we can see in the “Feminist cyborgs are the agents of US Third World feminism and the illegitimate offspring of ‘patriarchal capitalism.’” This feminist cyborg is able to be understood as the technological embodiment challenges the patriarchy society and values.
Why did Haraway create this cybernetic organism? The answer we can be found in the second source, “Power and Invisibility” by Andrew Arsham. Create or being a cyborg becomes a new way to survive in this post-modern society. (The word has come to mean a combination of man and machine) Also, it contains another definition of cyborg we have never seen in the other article.
I have chosen Theresa M. Senft's articles for my third source. Unlike other articles, it has a simple introduction and conclusion. The author has using many short sentences instead of some complicated long sentences. It’s a very useful tool in order to let the readers know more clear about what the definition of cyborg is and understand the background information of Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto”. In the articles, the author is using a metaphor to introduce cyborg as a monster and discussing three current “border crossings”. On the other hand, there are some headlines which related to the gender thinking. Like Haraway argued that the feminists have deployed some ideas of women experiences and the cyborg will "change what counts as experience" for women in the late twentieth century. Also, Haraway deals specifically with the issue of feminist political organizing in light of cyborg politics. Indeed, she suggests that feminist might be better served, Haraway notes, by considering “woman” to be a socially constructed category, deployed in a communications network, along the lines of “homosexual” and “youth”.
The cyborg always comes across in the aspects of popular culture such as science- fiction films. In the third source, “The Cyborg Self”, the author tries to use a type of cyberpunk films, Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell to mention about the sexuality features of cyborg. Cyberpunk is a sub-genre of science fiction film which is usually set in near future and focuses on the technology, computer and dystopian world. Some of the characters are treated as the sexual objects in the films. In the first paragraph, the author suggests that female cyborg is “the mix of masculine, rational, mechanistic technology with the feminine, conflated in the Western imagination with nature, emotion, and sentimentality embodies the cyborg's transgression of the human/machine distinction.” As a paternalistic authority or father-like leadership style, women or femininity is associated with passive, dependent or weakness. Women were often treated as a second class people and women had to follow “the rule of man” in the society. “Female cyborgs are endowed with hyperfeminine, sexualized traits”. For example in Blade Runner, Major Kusanagi and the Knight Sabers have large, feminine breasts that are often the focus of the camera's gaze that means to fulfill the male gaze by the focus of the camera.
Let's talk more about Blade Runner from, “Finding the Cyborg: Blade Runner”. In this article, Andrew Ross introduces the idea of Haraway’s manifesto being “a kind of ‘bad girl’ manifestoes because the film is talking about the female characters “pleasure and danger”. He refers to the dangers of burgeoning technology of women leaving their historically assigned realm of nature and engaging in a risky embrace of science, the mechanical, everything supposedly foreign to them. Destroying this old boundary is the task of a bad girl, “oppositional.” This move towards cyborgicity must begin with the feminine if it comes cross a gender line and become postgender. For a boy to embrace technology is nothing transgressive or new, it does nothing to help him transcend gender. So it is the female replicants that will occupy the center of this discussion, not Roy, Leon or Deckard, in his ambiguous humanity. Obviously, Pris, Zhora and Rachael live on a more distant fringe and contain the greatest transgressive potential. The film’s treatment of them provides the most meaningful insights into gender cyborgicity.
At the beginning of my last sources, “When Technoscience Rewrites Biology”, the author asks a question instantly. “What’s the difference between man and woman, in a world where technoscience is rewriting biology?” Some of the points in this article are very closely with Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto” which emphasis the oppression against binary opposition of gender. To answer the question, the article mentions that cyborg is woman as female in gender are culturally constructed as emotional, sexual and usually as naturally maternal. These stereotype characteristics just like the traditional women traits and it also mentions that women need to use our own powers from whatever sources we can gather them to create new meanings and better worlds in the post-modern period.
In conclusion, I think cyborg is always created as female gender no matter in the popular culture such as the science fiction films like Blade Runner. Female characters in the films being an ideal female figure, project towards the men character or audience. It is the same as the characteristic of traditional women. Most of the authors suggest that women need to use their own powers to create a better world in this post modern society. It's also the worthiness of the shown of cyborg.
Reference:
[1] Duran, L, ‘Female Cyborg’
http://mjbarias.com/scifi/femcyb.html (accessed on 23 March 2007)
[2] Andrew, A, ‘Power and Invisibility’
http://www.knoi.ch/cyborg/cyborg.html (accessed on 23 March 2007)
[3]Senft, Theresa M. “Reading Notes on Donna Haraway’s ‘Cyborg Manifesto’” (21 October 2001)
http://www.echonyc.com/~janedoe./writing/manifesto.html (accessed on 23 March 2007)
[4] Nagle, P. ‘The Cyborg Self’
http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/cpace/cyborg/nagle/7.html (accessed on 23 March 2007)
[5] Hannah, K, ‘Finding the Cyborg: Blade Runner’
http://girl_type.tripod.com/papers/bladerunner.html (accessed on 23 March 2007)
[6] Radin, P, ‘When Technoscience Rewrites Biology.’ (June 1997)
http://www.easst.net/review/june1997/radin (accessed on 23 March 2007)
2 comments:
Sing,
I think your webliography very useful in order to let the readers know about what the definition of cyborg and understand to more information of Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto”. Actually, I’m agree with your ideas that the cyborg is always created as female gender no matter in the popular culture. Moreover, women need to use their own powers to create a better world in this post modern society.
Twinie
Good work. The main ideas and argument about Haraway’s ‘cyborg manifesto’ are summarized here. In addition, you have demonstrated difference people’s perspective on Haraway’s manifesto. I think you have successfully elaborated the gender significant in the representation of cyborgs with examples in popular culture. I have similar reading with you that the representations in popular culture are still portrays as traditional women traits, such as weak, subordinate, sexual, and so on. I think your reading on Theresa M. Senft's articles about cyborg as a monster was well made. It represent some voices about some people who disagree with Haraway’s idea.
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