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Going Commando: Prosthetics and the Politics of Gender
Citation
Grant, R, Going Commando: Prosthetics and the Politics of Gender, Platform: journal of media and communication, 6, (2) pp. 61-73. ISSN 1836-5132 (2015) [Refereed Article]
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Copyright Statement
Copyright 2015 the Author Licenced under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia (CC BY 3.0 AU) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/
Official URL: https://platformjmc.com/2015/10/27/vol-6-2-a-manif...
Abstract
In light of cultural discourses that position femininity at odds with technology, I was inspired by the work of
Donna Haraway to examine how women amputees experience and negotiate feminine embodiment with
prosthetic limbs. In her germinal Manifesto for Cyborgs, Haraway theorised the cyborg as a feminist symbol of a
utopian "post-gendered world," asserting that techno-hybridity has the potential to destabilise embodied gendered
subjectivity—prompting a rethinking of sex, bodies, gender and humanity. In this paper, following a critical
discussion of Haraway’s work, I argue that the cyborg continues to be a provocative concept in feminist sociologies
of the body, enabling us to explore the complex new subjectivities that are made possible through feminine
techno-embodiment. Through an empirical exploration of women amputees’ experiences of living with prosthetic
limbs, I found that women can embody and incorporate prosthetic technologies into their feminine selves in
multiple, complex, gendered ways. My findings indicate that cyborgian hybridity may have the potential to
destabilise some aspects of gendered embodiment and performance for women with prosthetic limbs, which can
be experienced as both limiting and liberating.
Item Details
Item Type: | Refereed Article |
---|---|
Research Division: | Human Society |
Research Group: | Gender studies |
Research Field: | Feminist theory |
Objective Division: | Health |
Objective Group: | Specific population health (excl. Indigenous health) |
Objective Field: | Women's and maternal health |
UTAS Author: | Grant, R (Dr Ruby Grant) |
ID Code: | 104911 |
Year Published: | 2015 |
Deposited By: | School of Social Sciences |
Deposited On: | 2015-11-25 |
Last Modified: | 2016-05-31 |
Downloads: | 81 View Download Statistics |
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