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By Megan Hasenwinkel
James Tiptree, Jr.
As always, the view presented by cyberpunk is not a homogeneous one. There are some writings which could be considered feminist cyberpunk. James Tiptree Jr.'s (a pseudonym for the writer Alice Sheldon) short story, "The Girl Who Was Plugged In," can be considered as an early example of feminist cyberpunk. This work tells the story of P. Burke, who is "the ugly of the world." (80) When she is found after an attempted suicide, she is offered a job of a "waldo." She becomes the brain for an empty perfect human body, Delphi. Again, we are faced with the female cyborg. However, Tiptree's work, like that of C. L. Moore, portrays the cyborg in a less favorable light.As Delphi, P. Burke gets to live the life she has always wanted, she is young, beautiful and popular. She forgets that she has a body of her own, instead immersing herself totally in her identity of Delphi. She eventually meets and falls in love with the handsome Paul. When Paul learns that someone else is controlling his beloved Delphi, he rushes to rescue her. However, instead of freeing P. Burke, Paul murders the woman who he thinks has enslaved Delphi, not understanding that she is all that allows Delphi to live.
This story can be interpreted as a statement that women and technology should not mix, or perhaps that men will not understand the result when they do. Heather Hicks, in her article, says "P. Burke should not be read so much as a personalized expression of an alienated individual as the embodiment of the intense misogyny Alice Sheldon understands to be the norm in Western culture." (7) In this light, Paul's murder of P. Burke is the rejection of the "real woman" in favor of the woman created by technology. It is also possible that female authors have a clearer conception of the difficulties of the combination of gender and technology.
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