Cyborg theory shifts feminism from knowing to questions of bodily technological existence

Evidence

Like performativity, cyborg theory helps destabilize feminism’s tooeasy dependence on identity politics. Whereas theories of performativity articulate epistemological propositions (explaining how we come to know something as true), the figure of the cyborg offers us ontological insights regarding the technological nature of our bodily existence. As Haraway’s famous query “Why should our bodies end at the skin?” indicates, cyborg ontology allows affinities beyond the real, or even the human. — Theresa M. Senft, Camgirls, 263

Categorization

• DEFINE: Contrasts performativity (epistemological) with cyborg theory (ontological) as two post-identity tools.
• XREF: connects to: Haraway’s cyborg concept made rejecting essentialist womanhood a feminist tenet — Theresa M. Senft, Camgirls: Celebrity and Community in…, 258; Firestone’s technological utopianism prefigured queer theory and cyborg feminism — Marianne DeKoven, Utopia Limited: The Sixties and the…, 879; Technological utopias mask a fear of our embodied vulnerability (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Firestone’s technological utopianism prefigured queer theory and cyborg feminism #corroborates (0.85) — Marianne DeKoven, Utopia Limited, 879
• Feminist analysis of digital identity needs stable categories even while rejecting essentialism. #qualifies (0.78) — Theresa M. Senft, Camgirls, 257
• Femininity is an artificial, inculcated product rather than a natural instinct #expands (0.76) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1037
• Rejecting nature-culture dualism improves feminist accounts of reproduction #corroborates (0.75) — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 162
• Feminist pedagogy’s refusal of the mind-body split makes Women’s Studies subversive #expands (0.74) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 386
• Difference-based feminist critique aims at less dualistic culture, not traditional roles #expands (0.73) — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 305
• Technological utopias mask a fear of our embodied vulnerability #complicates (0.72)
• Technological transformation of physical nature erases the dimension of contradiction in lived reality #complicates (0.71) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 305