critical review

In the article, "A Cyborg Manifesto" Haraway tries to create "an ironic political myth"(p.65) which combines postmodernism with socialist feminism. "Taxonomies of feminism produce epistemologies to police deviation from official women's experience."(p.71) As a result, theories and systems lose their utility for collective political action. Haraway critiques the organic self which is sometimes used as a basis for identity, suggesting feminists cannot use an imagined organic ontology as a point of politics or …

…afraid of permanently partial identities and contradictory standpoints."(p.69) In Haraway's paradigm, nature melds with technology, becoming indiscriminate. Nature is not subdued but subverted. Categories which were useful determinants in the past are all in question ideologically. Identity politics are no longer effective when identities are constantly being reworked. REFERENCES Haraway D. 1985 "A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology and Socialist Feminiism in the 1980s" Socialist Review 80: 65-107 in H298 Representation and Gender 2000 Murdoch University Reader