Cardenas’s offering of the Android Goddess model in her piece, “The Android Goddess Declaration: After Man(ifestos) really illuminated to me a new perspective to a debate I was having with a Davidson student recently; an issue I come back to again and again. We were discussing the evolution of humans and whether the results of violent capitalism were “biologically inherent” due to the need for humanity’s survival as a whole. In their view, the systems of institutionalized racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, etc., although horrific, were ultimately engrained because such violence from humanity was a key aspect to our broader evolution and survival, where a group must assert their dominance in order to not become the oppressed. I was very interested in the “our” to whom they were referring.
I pushed back against this idea, stressing that we are more than our most animal instincts, that our capacity for empathy and nuanced decisionmaking past nonsensical violence is what sets us apart. That perhaps there are other solutions past the patriarchy we have grown to believe is the only option for existence. I wish I had read Cardenas’s piece before this conversation occurred, because of her emphasis on the point: “What is at stake in the definition of humanity, and the humanities, is the life or death of those who live near the borders of the definition of humanity.” Our solidarity with these historically marginalized groups is integral to our preservation of humanity as we know it.
Her thorough connection to eco-feminism, or the extension of our empathy to all humans, and then past humans themselves for the sake of preserving our safety on this planet, hit home for me. The realization that the Western capitalist heteropatriarchy arbitrarily assigns humanity to some and withholds it from others makes more clear the possibility that there are, in fact, other, more empathetic ways of approaching conflict. The subversion of those systems that is required is often a tricky concept to grapple with. But Cardenas’s vision of the Android Goddess begins to structure the framework needed to face these issues head on.Â