Cyborg

Donna Haraway: Born Sep 6, 1944 (Age 72) "Cyborg Manifesto" (1984), "Situated Knowledges" (1988).

By johnsonme16@gmail.com

  • "Cyborg Manifesto" (1985)

    Donna Haraway's cyborg Manifesto (1985), stipulates the rejection of normal boundaries that separate human from animals and humans from machines. However, the manifesto makes great claims against feminism in science. Haraway's remarks served to influence modern day feminists to change their thought that women and men now and will always think differently. Haraway stated (158), "feminists should move beyond naturalism and essentialism, and that it is better strategically to confuse identities".

  • Cyborg Manifesto

    Haraway's intentions were to get people to stop victimizing certain identities and start realizing there is not much between people. Haraway states (1984), "there is nothing about being female that naturally binds women together into a unified category. There is not even such a state as 'being' female, itself a highly complex category constructed in contested sexual scientific discourses and other social practices." Haraway strove to show that females in today's age play a large role in science.

  • Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective (1988)

    After Cyborg Manifesto, Haraway drafted "Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective. In this paper, Haraway intended to shed light on her interpretation of feminist science. As in "Cyborg Manifesto", Haraway criticizes the "feminists" interjection into science. According to Haraway (580), at one end lies those who would assert that science is a rhetorical practice and, as such, all "science is a contestable text and a power field".

  • Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective (1988)

    At the other are those interested in a feminist version of objectivity." Haraway classified this thought as "feminist empiricism". Haraway also eludes to the fact that the feminists' movement in the philosophy of science is completely devoid of objectivity. Haraway in both her works did not aim to dismantle the feminist movement, but in my opinion, aimed to refocus the efforts of those involved in the movement and try to influence them to remain objective.

  • Works Cited

    Haraway, Donna (1990). "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century". Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. Routledge. pp. 149–181. ISBN 978-0415903875. Haraway, Donna (Autumn 1988). "Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective". Feminist Studies. 14 (3): 580