Cyberfeminism, Xenofeminism, & The Cyborg Manifesto

In this episode, Simone and Malcolm Collins dive deep into Donna Haraway’s 1985 “A Cyborg Manifesto” — a text Grimes called “one of the greatest things ever written” and a foundational (yet strangely forgotten) work that sparked cyberfeminism, xenofeminism, and black cyberfeminism.Why have so few people actually read the essay that’s cited more than almost any other in feminist theory and science & technology studies? How did a response to a socialist-feminist call during the Reagan era become a poetic, blasphemous celebration of blurred boundaries — human/machine, male/female, organism/technology — and a rejection of rigid identity politics?We explore:1. The Cyborg as a metaphor for post-gender, post-origin-story politics2. Haraway’s call for “affinity” coalitions over essentialist identities3. How the manifesto was twisted into new identity-based feminisms (cyberfeminism → xenofeminism → black cyberfeminism)4. Why the original text feels closer to pronatalist, post-identity futurism than to modern progressive frameworks5. The Santa Cruz / Bay Area cultural context that birthed this fever-dream masterpiece6“ Terra Nationalism,” 7. Post-cyberfeminism vs. xenofeminism.If you love Grimes, transhumanism, feminist theory, online culture, or just wild 1980s philosophy that predicted our AI-saturated present — this episode is for you.🔗 Full text of A Cyborg Manifesto: https://web.archive.org/web/20120214194015/http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html

Episode Outline

* I saw a post on X by Grimes recently in which she refers to A Cyborg Manifesto as “one of the greatest things ever written.”

* She added: “What’s crazy abt cyborg manifesto is even if you pretend it has nothing to do with feminism it’s still a masterpiece of general philosophy and is filled with banger poetry”

* So I checked it out

* Because she is also the person who turned me on to Iain Banks’ Culture series and it changed the way I view AI and the future of humanity

* And the rabbit hole commenced

* It turns out “A Cyborg Manifesto”—originally published in 1985—is so well known in certain academic circles, it is almost never discussed as it’s assumed to be such tacit knowledge

* As @ALilInternet puts it: “Its seen as a kinda cliche reference in academic contexts or lectures, because it’s assumed everyone has already read it, which is prob why u don’t encounter it — I think in general it’s a shame with this happens to important works, because young ppl etc might NOT know it.”

* It is considered to be one of the most influential essays in feminist theory, science and technology studies (STS), and posthumanities.

* And it is one of the most cited essays in the humanities and social sciences worldwide.

* Basically, it:

* Argues that the cyborg—a hybrid of machine and organism—is a powerful metaphor for breaking down rigid boundaries: human/animal, organism/machine, physical/non-physical, male/female, nature/culture.

* Rejects essentialist identity politics and traditional socialist-feminism in favor of “affinity politics” (coalitions based on shared interests rather than fixed identities).

* Embraces irony, partiality, and blasphemy against origin stories (both religious and secular).

* Key quotes that are endlessly repeated:

* “I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess.”

* “The cyborg is a creature in a post-gender world; it has no truck with bisexuality, pre-oedipal symbiosis, unalienated labor, or other seductions to organic wholeness.”

* “We are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism.”

* And this manifesto gave birth to cyberfeminism, which gave birth to xenofeminism, and both sound SUPER intriguing, so I thought we’d dig in!

A Cyborg Manifesto

A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century By Donna Haraway

Context

Who is this woman?

* UC Santa Cruz professor, which, if you know Santa Cruz, explains everything.

* To me personally, Santa Cruz epitomizes a culture:

* Unmoored from history and origin stories (you’ve got modern and historical transplants of people who repeatedly rejected—and importantly, forgotten—the cultures of their homeland)

* E.g. From Germany to Ireland to New York to Chicago to California, losing culture with each move)

* Very crunchy

* Steeped in tech and normalized to its cutting-edge development

* Born in 1944 in Denver, Colorado

* As of 2025, she is Emerita Distinguished Professor of the History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC)

* Looks like a typical Santa Cruz lady

* Trained in biology (PhD in Biology from Yale, 1972), zoology, and philosophy.

* Deeply influenced by Marxist feminism, science fiction (especially authors like Joanna Russ, Samuel Delany, and Octavia Butler), Catholic symbolism (she grew up Irish-Catholic), and post-structuralism.

Why did she write this?

* The essay originated in response to a 1983 call from the Socialist Review (a West Coast leftist journal) asking feminists to reflect on the future of socialist feminism amid Ronald Reagan’s presidency, the rise of the New Right, the decline of traditional leftist movements in the US, and escalating Cold War tensions (including the Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars” program).

* Haraway aimed to revitalize socialist-feminism by addressing what she called the “informatics of domination”—how new technologies of communication, control, and production were reshaping power, labor, gender, and identity in ways that older feminist frameworks couldn’t fully grasp.

* So basically a Marxist publication wanted feminists to butthurt about conservatives, and instead she like… went off the reservation and it was glorious

* Like, instead of “Reagan wants me to become a housewife and spoonfeed jellybeans to my husband!” she’s like “LET’S BECOME CYBORGS AND FORM SPECIAL GROUPS AROUND OUR AUTISTIC SPECIAL INTERESTS!”

What’s the context in which she wrote this?

* It’s the 1980s

* It’s the Silicon Valley Bay Area

* Biotech and personal computing are beginning an insane upswing

* There’s a crisis on the Left as 1960s and 1970s social movements are fragmenting

* Second-wave feminism (emerging in the early 1960s, peaking in the 1970s):

* Often called the women’s liberation movement, it grew out of experiences in civil rights and anti-war activism. By the early 1980s, it fractured due to the “feminist sex wars” (debates over pornography, sexuality, and power), critiques of white/middle-class dominance excluding women of color and lesbians, and splits between liberal, radical, and socialist branches. Haraway explicitly critiqued how taxonomies of feminism policed “official women’s experience,” leading to endless splitting.

* The New Left (1960s–early 1970s):

* A broad student- and youth-driven movement encompassing anti-Vietnam War protests, free speech campaigns (e.g., at Berkeley), and demands for participatory democracy. It declined sharply after events like the 1970 Kent State shootings and the war’s end in 1975, fragmenting into sectarian groups or identity-focused politics. Many activists moved into feminism or other causes, but the overarching “New Left” coherence dissolved.

* Civil Rights/Black Liberation Movement (1950s–1970s):

* The nonviolent phase (e.g., led by MLK, SCLC, SNCC) transitioned in the late 1960s to Bl