Webliography Question 1

1. Judy Waczman argues that Donna Haraway's figure of the cyborg has taken on 'a life of its own' in popular culture, science fiction and academic writing. in what ways has it been taken up by feminists?

Donna Haraway argued that cyborg helps in improving the human lives and to increase the status of female as gender could be ignored with the rise of cyborg. I agree with the standpoint that our quality of life is being upgraded when technology is getting more and more widespread. And I do not deny that cyborg is everywhere and became the daily necessity, part of our life already. Yet, I do not agree with her viewpoint that gender is less important in the future. I have found sources from different feminists who have similar viewpoints as mine and they are useful in supporting my arguments.

(1) Keen, Carolyn “Carolyn Keen on Haraway, "Cyborg Manifesto"”

In this article, Keen is absolutely disagreeing with what Donna Haraway’s viewpoint towards “Cyborg Manifesto”. Keen disagrees that human will have change physically and unable to viable. Since Haraway mentioned that cyborg has evades traditional humanist concepts of women, such as childbearer and raiser. Yet, this is not something we should be proud of. The production of next generation is the responsibility and uniqueness of women, if these characteristics are abandoned, where will be our next generation? The cyborg? More than that, heterosexual marriage, nuclear family, fear of death, fear of automatism, insistence upon consistency and completeness are being evaded as well. Without all these elements, how can a society keep on staying healthy? Keen has listed so many points in arguing with the viewpoints from Haraway and they are all useful for supporting feminists who have opposite viewpoint with Haraway.

(2) Shoop, Eva “The Cyborg”

Shoop stated that the birth of cyborg is due to the reliance of technology among human. Nowadays, computer is a daily necessity for human, it can be use for work, school, learning and even teaching. Therefore, Shoop mentioned that the line between human-machine, physical and non-physical has been blurred, or even lost. She questioned that does the humanity still exist nowadays. She argued that we, the human, are living in a society with food, the way that we get energy from. We are not those machines that rely on electricity. Moreover, the development of cyborg may be out of control as we seen from the movies. This is the main concern for human, Shoop believed that we should not let cyborg take over us and the situation now is getting more serious as we rely on technology so much nowadays. This article inspires me that cyborg is really a dangerous technology, though it may bring a utopian world in the future, yet it is uncertain. Donna Haraway’s concept towards cyborg is far away from realistic and the points of Shoop can help me in develop a well-referenced essay on cyborg.

(3) Scott, Krista “The Cyborg, the Scientist, the Feminist and her Critic – The Feminist eZine”

This article is a well developed and detailed article on cyborg by Krista Scott. In the article, she concerned about the boundary break down between organism and machine with the rise of cyborg. As the technology developed so rapidly, and these updated technologies really convenience and upgraded our quality of life. Such as the automatic recording machine suggested by Scott, now, we can enjoy the television programmes at anytime. In addition, the medical purposes such as pacemakers, dialysis, artificial limbs and joints, hearing aids are also founded by the technology. What’s more, the computer can recognize the spelling of words and helps us to correct it when we typed wrong. This article has aroused my memory that cyborg is getting smarter and smarter. In the past, we need to memorized the spelling of words, but nowadays, it’s unnecessary as the computer would correct it for us. I started to realized that cyborg is going to take over us someday and we should be aware or even fear of cyborg. The above examples are really good in describing this case.

(4) Kaiser, Ted “The Internet Cyborg”

In this article, Kaiser stated the three important cyborg to human, they are car, phone and television. Yes, they are cyborg to us! These three objects exists when I was born and they are so commonly used that I didn’t realize that they are kind of cyborg. In the past, people did not have these convenient equipments, it took time in traveling from one side to another or sending a letter. These cyborgs are developed to convenience human being, yet they also caused different kinds of danger to us. There are car accidents everywhere everyday and polluted air caused the serious global warning issue. Phones are harmful to our health and explicit elements can be found easily on the television while the regulation cannot control of it. From this article, I realized that cyborg is everywhere and are widely used that we have forgotten they’re dangerous on human. This article can helps in support that cyborg is not as perfect as our imagination.

(5) Breen, Jennifer “Cyber Gender”

Breen argued that gender could be swap or even invisible on the Internet in the article “Cyber Gender”. Gender is something natural born with us and we cannot deny or change it unless we take the plastic surgery. She stated that many people would like to change their appeared gender on the Internet to fit in certain kind of social group that they cannot fit in in real life. Donna Haraway had mentioned that gender could be ignored with the rise of cyborg in the future. The example from Breen’s article is totally opposite from it. As we still have to choose our gender on the Internet though it might be fake. The most important is gender still play an important role in the digital space, girls are treated nicely in the online games and people with same sex are easily bond together. Haraway’s viewpoint towards gender is far from success.

(6) Kriet, Jessica “Superhuman Moms With Average Babies: The Cyborgization of Prenatal Care”

In Kriet’s article, she stated that cyborg is everywhere, it is even used for pregnant women. Prenatal check is necessary for every pregnant woman and the famous ultrasound method is regarded as cyborg as well. It is a way for doctors and moms to communicate with the unborn babies. They can see the image of the unborn babies and check whether they are healthy or not. This is established last century and is commonly used for prenatal check nowadays. Yet, studies show that excessive exposure might lead to decrease in newborn baby weight, an increased probability of delayed speech and higher chance for left-handedness, etc. These significant cannot be ignored and show that cyborg convenience people but in another way they have certain degree of damage towards human.

With the supporting from the above, I believe that there is room for cyborg to improve to the level that is perfect. Yet, the day has not come and I am absolutely agreed with most of the feminists that cyborg may damage us some day. We should not take control by the cyborg, if technology is develop nicely, the day that Haraway dreamt of might become true.


Bibliography

Breen Jennifer. 'Cyber Gender', (2007)
http://cyborgdb.org/breen.htm (accessed 30 March 2008).

Kaiser Ted. 'The Internet Cyborg', Half Empty,(1999)
http://articles.halfempty.com/media/99-04-11.htm (accessed 30 March 2008)

Keen Carolyn. 'Carolyn Keen on Haraway,"Cyborg Manifesto"'
http://www.english.upenn.edu/~jenglish/Courses/keen2.html (accessed 30 March 2008)

Kriet Jessica. 'Superhuman Moms With Average Babies: The Cyborgization of Prenatal Care' ,(2007)
http://cyborgdb.org/kriet.htm (accessed 30 March 2008)

Scott Krista. 'The Cyborg, the Scientist, the Feminist and her Critic', The Feminist eZine, (1997) http://www.feministezine.com/feminist/philosophy/Cyborg-Scientist-Feminist.html (accessed 30 March 2008)

Shoop Eva. 'The Cyborg', (12 September 2002) http://www.auburn.edu/~shoopej/cyborg.htm (accessed on 30 March 2008)