Gender, Technology, and Cyborgs

By Megan Hasenwinkel

Early Examples

Metropolis portrays a class struggle where the elite live in lush gardens and live off the labor of the poor masses who work 12 hours a day in a deep underground factory to provide a living for the rich. Central to this struggle is the figure of Maria, a worker who advocates a non-violent protest of their treatment by the upper class. When those in control realize the influence that Maria holds over the workers, they decide to make a robot image of Maria to lead the workers to their own destruction. Once the workers have destroyed themselves, they can be replaced by robot with no thoughts of rebellion.

This robot Maria is one of the first representations of the intersection of gender and technology, and is also an early representation of a female cyborg. It is interesting to note that the robot is a female before she becomes Maria. Why would the prototype robot be a female? In her book, After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism, Andreas Huyssen argues that the men in Metropolis create a female embodiment of technology in order to overcome women's monopoly on nature and creation. "Woman, nature, machine had become a mesh of significations which all had one thing in common: otherness, by their very existence they raised fears and threatened male authority and control." (70) The solution to overcoming these fears is the creation of Maria, a combination of the femininity, nature and the technology that were so feared. With this creation, they hope to control these elements that they do not understand.

However, Maria proves rather difficult to control, thus defeating their purpose. She fails in her mission to destroy the workers, instead we find her partying with the rich men. Thus, she causes the rebellion that she was created to stop. In the end, the angry mobs burn her at the stake.

Another example of early science fiction (written by a woman, this time) that addresses the combination of gender and technology is C. L. Moore's short story, "No Woman Born." This is the story of Deirdre, a beautiful actress whose body is ruined in a fire. Her brain is preserved, however, and a metal body is constructed to hold it. Again, we have an early exploration of the cyborg. Is Deirdre still human? Is she still a woman? Maltzer, who is the scientist who creates Deidre's body, says, "She hasn't any sex. She isn't female anymore. She doesn't know that yet, but she'll learn." (39) The concept of "woman" is so intertwined with nature that when the natural is lost, the woman is lost as well.

Does Deidre represent a combination of technology and nature (which is so often associated with women)? This story, while more directly addressing the issues of technology and gender, does not predict a happy outcome. Again, Maltzer says, "She isn't a human being anymore, and I think what humanity is left in her will drain out little by little and never be replaced." (40) The ending is ambiguous at best: "'I wonder,' she repeated, the distant taint of metal already in her voice." (64) Would the ending be so ambiguous if the brain locked inside the metal body had belonged to a man?

One can see from these early works that there is a tension between the femininity of nature and the masculinity of technology. How are these issues to be overcome? Two recent trends in science fiction lend some differing (and contradictory) insights to this intersection. An examination of the distinct science fiction genres of feminist science fiction and cyberpunk add many interesting dimensions to this discussion.