A superficial feminist reading of\u00a0Neuromancer\u00a0might explore questions of Molly\u2019s \u201cempowerment\u201d in black and-white terms\u2014is\u00a0Neuromancer\u00a0a feminist work? Was Molly truly \u201cempowered\u201d in her work as a meat puppet (a Neuromancian prostitute)? Does Molly\u00a0attempt to conceal or reduce her feminine qualities through body modifications? While these questions are interesting, they often leave us with glib judgements on the text\u2019s efficacy as feminist propoganda rather than insights into contemporary understandings of\u00a0gender.<\/p>\n
An arguably more fruitful approach is to discuss gender in Gibson\u2019s\u00a0posth<\/em>umanist<\/em>\u00a0context. Donna Haraway\u2019s \u201cA Cyborg Manifesto\u201d (incidentally published in the same year as\u00a0Neuromancer)\u00a0provides a useful framework for a posthumanist feminist reading of\u00a0Neuromancer. A cyborg, in my distillation of\u00a0Haraway\u2019s terms, is a fusion (and confusion) between human and animal, human and machine, physical and nonphysical. Haraway advocates that we take pleasure and find freedom in the confusion of binaries, and\u00a0that the breakdown of binaries serve as the basis of political coalition and alliance.<\/p>\n Accordingly, we may\u00a0understand Molly\u2019s body modification as a deformation of gender essentialism facilitated by technology. Molly\u2019s mirrored lenses prohibit others from seeing her eyes, freeing her from gender essentialist associations between femininity and\u00a0vulnerability. Even Molly\u2019s female sex characteristics are metaphorized as masculine, as evident in Case\u2019s comparison of Molly\u2019s breasts to a \u201cwar plane\u2019s fuselage\u201d (44).<\/p>\n Obviously Haraway\u2019s work leaves us much to unpack in\u00a0Neuromancer\u00a0and cannot be fully explored in this post. However, my initial inquiry suggests that Molly\u2019s transgression and confusion of gender coheres with Haraway\u2019s theories of a posthumanist,\u00a0postgender world.<\/p>\n\n Posted from Digital Studies<\/a> by Hannah L.<\/a><\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A superficial feminist reading of Neuromancer might explore questions of Molly’s “empowerment” in black and-white terms—is Neuromancer a feminist work? Was Molly truly “empowered” in her work as a meat puppet (a Neuromancian prostitute)? Does Molly attempt to conceal or reduce her feminine qualities through body modifications? While these questions are interesting, they often leave us with glib judgements on … Continue reading “A Cyborg Feminist Reading of Molly Millions”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":169,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10],"tags":[81,82,83,84,85],"class_list":["post-260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-group-c","tag-cyborgs","tag-feminism","tag-gender","tag-queer-theory","tag-scifi"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p95kZR-4c","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig101-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig101-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig101-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig101-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/169"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig101-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig101-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":284,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig101-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260\/revisions\/284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig101-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig101-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig101-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}