Cyberfeminism as Science Fiction. Drawn in Japan

Abstract

In the 80’s representatives of the second wave feminist theory nurtured hopes that new technologies would become an effective instrument of liberating from binary oppositions of patriarchal culture. Donna Haraway saw the potential of social transformations in cybernetic technologies. The fusion of biological, mechanical and cybernetic was to have led to the emergence of new cyborg subjectivity. It should be capable of creating its own culture as well as a new world. Later this narrative would be widely criticized, but in this optimistic form it greatly affected science fiction of the period. The author makes an attempt to present the theoretical components of cyberfeminism as science fiction that engenders cognitive estrangement. Catchy images of cyborgs were born in the performative framework of cyberfeminist theory and popular culture. They continue to affect imagination to the present day. Japanese animation stood at the vanguard of this cultural process. The article considers the visions drawn in Japan as a narrative that represents historical evolution of cyberfeminism. The end of anime’s “golden age” meant the end of a thorough work with cyberfeminism in the language of popular culture. The findings of the study reveal that cyberfeminism is a part of general theory that has subsequently become a part of global discourse of a new posthuman subject. The article emphasises the other part of the phenomenon – cyberfeminist practice – that has successfully adapted to the modern world.