A Cyborg Manifesto

Though Haraway is a feminist, she criticizes the radical feminism that most political leftists support. Since gender, race, and class are social constructions, she argues that there aren’t any essential qualities that join people together within these categories. Since gender is not a natural or inherent quality within people, then “There is nothing about being ‘female’ that naturally binds women” (16). Haraway doesn’t believe in the reality of even “being female.” She thinks that the term “female” is a harmful way of categorizing people, as the modern conception of what it means to be “female” was born of the immoral practices of patriarchy and capitalism.

Different groups within the political left constantly try to create new identities by searching for “a new essential unity” (17). The movements Haraway refers to here are things like radical feminism or ecofeminism. Equivalent movements today might include those within fourth-wave feminism, such as transfeminism. Haraway argues that instead of forming political identities like these, people should form political affinities instead. 

Haraway cites the work of Chela Sandoval, who coined the term “oppositional consciousness.” Sandoval exemplifies women of color as a group of people who have no “essential” trait that binds them. American women of color simply found that they were not typically included or heard in political conversations about women, nor in those about Black people. Out of necessity, they consciously and intentionally created a separate coalition: “Woman of color” is a term of self-identification that is based on affinity rather than any supposed natural essence.

Haraway notes that the scholar Katie King also advocates for affinity over identity in her writing. King criticizes the tendency of feminists to divide themselves into specific groups labeled by their political identities, like “socialist feminism.” This tendency marginalizes women who don’t agree with a specific political leaning, and thus it controls and restricts what is seen as the voice and experience of all women. Haraway draws a parallel between King and Sandoval, and praises both of them for their shared ability to build “political unity […] without relying on taxonomic identification” (20).

Haraway is herself known publicly as a socialist feminist. Though she may not self-identify with this label, she is aware that she is typically cited as such. In A Cyborg Manifesto, she explains that socialist feminism is an important movement insofar as it “expand[s] the category of labor” (22) to include the duties of a typical woman who spends most of her time on childcare and housework. Haraway acknowledges that analogizing childcare and housework with what is traditionally seen as “labor” (i.e., typically wage labor performed by men in industrial or formal settings) is an achievement. Still, it is not enough to provide any “essential” basis that binds all women, as not all women have children or spouses. Haraway writes that all women do have a responsibility “to build unities, rather than to naturalize them” (23). Therefore, doing unpaid labor in the form of housework is not an essential quality of being a woman, but it is a common experience that many women can build an affinity, or kinship, over.

Haraway criticizes Catherine MacKinnon’s views of radical feminism. MacKinnon is a feminist legal scholar and a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, whose books have become well-known within both law and academic feminism. Haraway chooses to focus on MacKinnon’s writing as she feels that her views epitomize the “appropriating, incorporating, totalizing” nature of identity politics—in other words, MacKinnon’s views highlight some of what Haraway regards as the most harmful aspects of the leftist political scene of the 1980s. 

Haraway contrasts MacKinnon’s ideas with Marxism. Instead of thinking of society as comprised of different social classes, MacKinnon sees society, first and foremost, as broken up into two genders. The troubling aspect for Haraway is that this is seen as a “generative relationship,” meaning that womanhood only exists as a function of male sexual desire. In a way, this is akin to a Marxist view, as women produce a “product,” which is satisfying men’s desires. However, in MacKinnon’s view, women are not “alienated” from their product in the same sense that laborers are in a Marxist view. Instead, women don’t even really exist. They only exist as an extension, or answer to, male desire, which means that they don’t exist in and of themselves.

Haraway and MacKinnon do agree that Marxism does not offer a basis for uniting women. Haraway’s complaint about Marxism is that it erases individual differences among women by positing that there is some false “essence” that binds them all together. MacKinnon, on the other hand, offers a different binding “essence,” which is basically (in Haraway’s interpretation) their shared nonexistence. Haraway argues that this notion has the exact same harmful result of erasing differences among women. Socialist feminism (the Marxist take on feminism) and radical feminism (MacKinnon’s view) both offer totalizing views of society, when they should only attempt to offer partial views. Neither of them leaves room for any discussion of different races as social groups.

Haraway does not blame socialist feminists or radical feminists for advancing “essentialist theory,” which erases differences among individuals. She cites the work of another contemporary feminist and critical theorist, Julia Kristeva, who notes that “women” as a category only became a social group around the time of World War II. Haraway admits that it does seem like all social groupings—into categories like gender, race, class, and sexual orientation— emerged fairly recently. The late 20th century is a time when “networks of connection among people on the planet are unprecedentedly multiple” (27). Haraway explains that the theories and philosophies that she criticizes are to be forgiven, as they were conceived of at a time when it made more sense to conceive of them. Now, however, she believes, “we have less excuse” (27). Society has a responsibility to acknowledge differences among people without conceding that we are all simply too different from each other to make meaningful connections.

Haraway’s final statements in this section summarize her proposal for affinity politics (as opposed to identity politics). In her view, trying to find one single trait that binds a social group will end up marginalizing people. Instead, groups should bond over shared experiences. Haraway thus supports the idea of Feminism as an Intersectional Alliance rather than a political identity or affiliation.