Haraway’s Manifesto is a political text generated from socialist feminism of the 1980s. In what ways have feminists taken up her radical ideas since then?
The following articles all share a common electric current, charged by the Cyborg Manifesto from Donna Haraway. The Cyborg is a powerful metaphor for the disruption of the constructed dichotomies of the natural and the artificial, sex and gender, the human and society. All of the articles share this current, although in varying degrees and ways for unique and contrasting arguments. The range of topics include: women and technology, sex, Transhumanism, the body and the state, and online publications.
Elizabeth Lane Lawley, “Computers and Communication of Gender” Internet Training and Consulting Services (April 1993) (accessed 3 September 2010)
This earlier article of the nineties, arguably before the internet became the incredible phenomena of the later nineties, examines communication technologies from a ‘woman-centred’ vantage point; in order to analyse the ways in which the terms ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are used in this new space of communication. New theoretical perspectives on shifting boundaries of gender definitions to challenge the determinist view of the effect of technology on society and of technology on women. This article can be compared and contrasted to the later articles published in the late nineteen-nineties and in the naughties, as it is right at the beginning of the internet. We can see that many terms we see in the later periods are not used and that Lawley herself is still quite uncertain about what the effect the new forms communication will have, although she takes a position of the disruptive potential of the internet on boundaries, such as gender and fantasy and reality. The article is much closer in time to Haraway’s Manifesto and it uses its ideas of technology’s potential to disrupt boundaries.
Krista Scott, “Girls Need Modems! Cyber Culture and Feminist Ezines” Feministzine (January 1998) (accessed 31 August 2010)
The article is a hybrid of cultural, feminist, political and literary theory to examine the relationship between the net and online publication. Also interested in the developing theory of gender and the internet in this period (1998), Scott says ‘I am concerned with the slightly more abstract relationship which these elements have with the culture in which Ezines operate, and how current theories of cyberspace intersect with what verbal/textual and visual/iconographical content is present in the Ezines.’. The article plays upon Haraway’s theories of the Cyborg to provide a feminist analysis of the internet and technology. Scott published her Masters Thesis online so that it could be a part of a feminist community. The lengthy scholarly article provides a detailed feminist analysis of the internet and of its relationship to gender, with its focus of Ezines publications. The article is an example of how the radical ideas of Haraway’s Manifesto are used in scholarly feminist analysis of technologies such as the internet and online publication. The metaphor of the Cyborg is a powerful image.
Krista Scott, “Imagined Bodies, Imagined Communities” Feministzine (1999) (accessed 3 September 2010)
The article analyses the use of the body as a metaphor for the state. The body, particularly the female body, is influenced by the affairs of the state. The relationship between the female body and its autonomy with the nation and politics, as the paradigm is the male body as the political. The article draws on feminist theories of the female body and of post-colonialism. The Cyborg and Haraway’s Manifesto are utilised in order to present a possible outcome of the deconstruction and destruction of female body and the control of it, through the deconstruction of the dichotomy of the natural and artificial, nature and civilisation. Although it seems at times to be an idealistic article of utopian dream. The subject of the article is the Cyborg. The Cyborg is an introduction of theory, methodology and experience into new kinds of imagined bodies and communities. It takes on a very de-constructionist position. In relation to the question, it presents us with another form of how Haraway’s Manifesto has been used since its publication-the politics of the body and of imagined communities, such as nations.
Kyle Munkittrick, “On the Importance of Being a Cyborg Feminist”
hplusmagazine (July 2009) (accessed 31 August 2010)
hplusmagazine (July 2009) (accessed 31 August 2010)
Examines the link between Cyber-feminism and Transhumanism. In the modern world Transhumanism needs Cyber-feminism in order to achieve social and political change. They share political ambition of challenging the sex/gender system, deconstructing the constructs of what ‘natural’ is in relation to sex and body, and ‘the process of technological development, design, and engineering is influenced by society and culture and, thus, in part by normative forces such as patriarchy’. Munkittrick uses Haraway’s Manifesto as the basis for his article on Transhumanism and feminism, however it does not contain little critical analysis of the Manifesto itself, nor does he propose what some alternative arguments may be. Although this article is an example of what some feminists are doing since Haraway’s Manifesto, Transhumanism, but it is limited as it does not utilise the multitude of critical analysis on the political theory. It presents a descriptive, albeit a useful summary of Transhumanism and Cyborg-feminism, but a weak argument and analysis of little substance.
Nina Lykke, “Are Cyborgs Queer?” Orlando (September 2000) (accessed 3 September 2010)
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