Assignment on Cultural Studies
Paper Name: Paper 205(A): Cultural Studies
Topic Name: Cyberfeminism
Paper Code: 20410
Name: Divya Sheta
Roll No.:06
Enrollment No.:4069206420210033
Email ID: divyasheta@gmail.com
Batch:2020-23 MA SEM-III
Submitted to : Smt.S.B.Gardi Department of English, MK
Bhavanagar University.
The First Cyberfeminist International took place in Kassel, Germany, September 20-28, l997, as part of the Hybrid Workspace at Documenta X. After eight days of intense daily life and work with over 30 participants at this event, Faith Wilding reflects on the significance of these discussions and their implications both for the attempts to define, and the arguments against defining, cyberfeminism. While these and subsequent on-line discussions, especially through the FACES list, provide a browser through which possible practices of a cyberfeminist movement become visible, what concerns her is how such politics might be translated into practice for an engaged (cyber)feminist politics on the Net.
The term cyberfeminism
was coined by VNS Matrix (read Venus Matrix), an ustralian artist collective
active between 1991 and 1997, who, inspired by Donna Haraway’s Cyborg
Manifesto, wrote the Cyberfeminist Manifesto for the 21st Century. Their art was
a “mission to hijack the toys from technocowboys and remap cyberculture with a
feminist bent” (Schaffer 1999:150) and as such was concerned with subverting
the perceived androcentrism of new technologies, for instance by re-imagining
“the clitoris [as] a direct line to the matrix“. Adequately defining
cyberfeminism seems an impossible task, not only because the movement (if it
can be called that) in its original manifestation was rather short lived, but
also because it actively refused definition. A multilingual list of 100
anti-theses, for instance, reveals that cyberfeminism is neither a theory, a
picnic, nor a green crochet placemat (yes, really). Others have attempted to
rather loosely define cyberfeminism as anything women might engage in when “using
Internet technology for something other than shopping via the Internet or
browsing the world-wide web (sic.)”, based on the belief that they “should take
control of and appropriate the use of Internet technologies in an attempt to
empower themselves” (Gajjala and Mamidipudi 1999:6)
1.Social and artistic
practices on the net with feminist ideological content. Learn more in:
Collaborative and Open Education by Interdisciplinary Women's Networks:
FemTechNet and Feminist Pedagogies in Digital Education
2.Feminist movement
interpreting the evolution of cybernetics as allowing the development of a
culture in which inequalities are eradicated and traditional gender relations
and stereotypes are defied (for instance, through the experimentation with
gender identities or the creation of sisterhood networks on the Internet),
empowering women and marking a shift away from their traditional symbolic
representation as technologically ignorant.
3.Discipline within
feminism that sees cyberspace and virtual reality as neutral realms in terms of
gender. This school of thought visions a society beyond gendered bodies where
women can communicate and act outside the restrictions imposed by patriarchal
societies
4.Discipline within
feminism that sees cyberspace and virtual reality as neutral realms in terms of
gender. This school of thought visions a society beyond gendered bodies where
women can communicate and act outside the restrictions imposed by patriarchal
societies.
- Cyborgs and human nature
The investigation into
human nature has always been an essential pursuit for schools of philosophy and
a basic assumption made by political ideologies. The answer to the question
“what does it mean to be a human?” determines the orientation of a political
movement or an ideology. Patriarchal societies have historically adopted an
essentialist interpretation of human nature, so as to justify male domination
over women. It makes the claim that each of the sexes has a specific role to
play and, ultimately, considers the feminine to be secondary to the masculine
and thus subjugates women. In such societies, predetermined sets of values and
behavioural patterns are strictly enforced on both sexes.
In A Cyborg Manifesto,
Haraway explores the history of the relationship between humans and machines,
and she argues that three boundaries were broken throughout human history which
have changed the definition of what is deemed cultural or otherwise natural.
The first such boundary was between humans and animals, and was broken in the 19th
century after the publishing of On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. As
the biological connection between all organisms was discovered and publicised
in this book, it served as a rejection of notions of human exceptionalism and
superiority, turning the evolution of the organism into a puzzle. It also
introduced the concept of evolution as necessary for understanding the meaning
of human existence.
The second
boundary-breaking event relates to the relationship between machines and
organisms (be they human or animal). As the industrial revolution arrived, all
aspects of human life became mechanised. As human dependence on machines
surged, machines became an inseparable part of what it is to be human; an
extension of human capability.
As for the third
boundary, it concerns the technological advancement that has produced evermore
complex machines which can be miniscule in size or, in the case of software,
altogether invisible. First came developments in silicon semi-conductor chips
that now pervade all of life’s domains. As these machines are practically
invisible, it is then difficult to decide where the machine ends and humans
start. This machine thus represents culture intruding over nature, intertwining
with it and changing it in the process. As a result, boundaries between the
cultural and the natural became more and more intangible.
“…the advent of
cybernetics might help in the construction of a world capable of challenging
gender disparities.”
In this context, Haraway
uses the cyborg as a model to present her vision of a world that transcends
sexual differences, expressing her rejection of patriarchal ideas based on such
differences. Because a cyborg is a hybrid of the machine and the organism, it
merges nature and culture into one body, blurring the lines between them and
eliminating the validity of essentialist understandings of human nature. This
includes claims that there are specific social roles reserved for each of the
sexes which are based in biological differences between them, in addition to
other differences such as age or race.
- Cybernetics and feminism
More recently, ‘online feminism’ has been defined as feminism that uses the Internet, and social media in particular, as its medium. Building on the legacy of radical cyberfeminism, considerably expanded by web 2.0 affordances and growth in numbers, current era online feminism engages with myriad issues as diverse as bringing more women and girls into tech fields, maintaining feminist blogs, wikis and other community spaces and tackle misogyny, sexism and heteronormativity in social media, game culture or society at large, to name but a few. Online feminism on the one hand engages with concerns directly related to the Internet, and on the other caters to a much wider range of interests that use the Internet as a platform for organising, communicating and raising funds and awareness.
Feminist issues lie at
the heart of the concept of cybernetics, since the latter’s prospects erase
major contradictions between nature and culture, such that it is no longer
possible to characterise a role as natural. When people colloquially use the
word “natural” to describe something, this is an expression of how they view
the world, but also a normative claim about how it should be as well as a statement
on what cannot be changed.
In this context, the
cybernetics erase gender boundaries. For generations, women have been told that
their “nature” makes them weak, submissive, overemotional and incapable of
abstract thought, that it was “in their nature” only to be mothers and wives.
If all these roles are “natural” then they are unchangeable, Haraway said.
Conversely, if the
concept of the human is itself “unnatural” and is instead socially constructed,
then both men and women are also social constructs, and nothing about them is
inherently “natural” or absolute. We are all [re]constructed when given the
right tools. In short, cybernetics have allowed a new distinction of roles,
based on neither sex nor race, as it provided humans the liberty and agency to
construct themselves on every level.
“Because a cyborg is a
hybrid of the machine and the organism, it merges nature and culture into one
body, blurring the lines between them and eliminating the validity of
essentialist understandings of human nature. This includes claims that there
are specific social roles reserved for each of the sexes which are based in
biological differences between them, in addition to other differences such as
age or race.”
Therefore, through her
notion of the cyborg, Haraway calls for a new feminism that takes into account
the fundamental changes that technology brings to our bodies, to reject the
binaries that represent the epistemology of the patriarchy —binaries such as
body/psyche, matter/spirit, emotion/mind, natural/artificial, male/female,
self/other, nature/culture. Technology is simply one of the means by which the
boundaries between identities are erased. Cyborgs, in addition to being
hybrids, transcend gender binaries and can thus constitute a way out of binary
thinking used to classify our bodies and our machines and accordingly “lead to
openness and encourage pluralism and indefiniteness.”
Haraway’s idea is based
on a full cognizance of the ability of technology to increase the scope of
human limitation and thus open opportunities for individuals to construct
themselves away from stereotypes. And while Haraway describes A Cyborg
Manifesto as an ironic political myth that mocks and derides patriarchal
society, she still claims that cybernetics lay the foundation for a society in
which we establish our relations not on the basis of similarity, but on harmony
and accord.
Works Cited
“We Are All Cyborgs: How Machines Can Be a
Feminist Tool.” IMS, 2 Aug. 2022, https://www.mediasupport.org/navigating-a-changing-world/we-are-all-cyborgs-how-machines-can-be-a-feminist-tool/#:~:text=In%20A%20Cyborg%20Manifesto%2C%20Haraway,deemed%20cultural%20or%20otherwise%20natural.
“What Is Cyberfeminism.” IGI Global, https://www.igi-global.com/dictionary/cyberfeminism/35715.
“What Is Cyberfeminism.” IGI Global,
https://www.igi-global.com/dictionary/cyberfeminism/35715.
“What Was/Is Cyberfeminism? Part 1.” Engenderings, 21 May 2016,
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/gender/2013/06/03/what-wasis-cyberfeminism-part-1-of-2/.
“What Was/Is Cyberfeminism? Part 1.” Engenderings, 21 May 2016,
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/gender/2013/06/03/what-wasis-cyberfeminism-part-1-of-2/.
“Where Have All the Cyberfeminists Gone? Part
2.” Engenderings, 24 May 2016,
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/gender/2013/06/10/where-have-all-the-cyberfeminists-gone/.
Where Is the
Feminism in Cyberfeminism? - Monoskop.
https://monoskop.org/images/8/82/Wilding_Faith_1998_Where_is_the_Feminism_in_Cyberfeminism.pdf.
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