Cyborg Manifesto: Goodbye Gaia Haraway Term Paper

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Haraway argues that the new feminism will pave the way for the future, where technology and the back to nature crowd do not have to have separate existence. The cyborg will come to terms with their inability to reconcile their differences into a whole. They will be able to accept their incompleteness as totality. They will let go of the constant need to search for missing pieces. They will accept the idea that it does not fit together perfectly on all levels, and that there will always be missing pieces.

Haraway presents the cyborg as the emerging face of feminism. It is the recognition that feminism must change in relation to societal changes. The key argument against technology was its male dominated, capitalist image. This was considered oppressive to the earth mother image of feminism. Haraway feels that the new face of feminism should embrace technology for all that it is worth and take pleasure in machines. In becoming a cyborg, Haraway is explaining that women do not have to choose one or the other.
Her argument is that we can have our cake and eat it too, to use an old cliche.

This is the image of the cyborg that Haraway wishes to come across in her work. Haraway sheds the dualism that has dominated feminism for many years. She is not downplaying the Goddess, or tossing it out, but rather embracing it for all that it is worth in a world where technology and nature can coexist side by side. This new feminism means discarding old stereotypes, including those that proclaim women to be weaker, submissive, and overemotional. The ways of the cyborg could be exactly what is needed for the empowerment of the new feminist.

Works Cited

Haraway, D. A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century, in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York; Routledge, 1991), pp.149-181. www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html. Accessed March 25 http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html. Accessed March 25, 2008......

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