Analysis Of Donna Haraway's 'A Cyborg Manifesto'

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In the essay ‘A Cyborg Manifesto,’ Donna Haraway starts off by explaining the three boundary breakdowns since the 20th Century that have allowed for her crossbreed, cyborg fable: the breakdown of boundaries between human and animal, animal-human and machine, and physical and non-physical. (Haraway, 1991, p. 152-153). The other important aspect that Haraway raises is the concept of fractured identities, particularly feminine identities in a largely paternal Society. Within this, she largely raises severe concern with regard to non-white women and their inability to voice concerns (she calls such cases negative identities). With regard to the concept of the cyborg fable, one does see a breakdown of boundaries between some of the frameworks mentioned, but not all and even if the breakdown has occurred, the extents vary widely. Further it also appears that the …show more content…

(p. 166). Society has started redefining work as both female and feminized – whether performed by men or women. Here ‘feminized’ stands for a situation where one is extremely vulnerable. The loss of jobs resulting from new technologies, says Haraway, largely impacts women due to the loss of family wage and the intensifying demand in their own jobs. She extends this principle to women of color within the United States as well as women in the third world who are increasingly taking on the role of family breadwinners given the loss of male wage. (p. 167). On dualism, Haraway says, certain dualisms have been tenacious in Western traditions – they have all been universal to the logics and practices of domination of women, people of colour, nature, workers, animals et.al – barring the Self. (p. 177). The high tech cultural changes have also begun to challenge such dualisms in the modern

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