Simians, Cyborgs, and Women
Donna Haraway
In Chapter 4, “In the Beginning Was the Word: The Genesis of Biological Theory”, Haraway opens the chapter by bringing up several questions about the existence and objective of feminist inquiry about natural science. She wonders if feminists should focus only on critiquing science and its production, or if they should create a new theory of scientific knowledge. She wonders if the feminist theory of knowledge should be similar to existing theories of representation. She asks if feminist epistemology would do away with the separation between object and subject, or between “non-invasive knowing and prediction and control?” (p.71). She also brings up the question about whether or not feminism is going to be able to master science and offer a new understanding between science and humanism. She declares that she would like to bring up these questions through the analysis of four books, which direct the attention to contemporary natural science.
Haraway points out the debate about the interpretation of men from a strictly biological perspective and human nature. She declares that feminism has developed a “story in a patriarchal voice” and that feminists have received knowledge from a paternal line.
The author refers to Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s study of nineteenth-century women writers, in which the authors describe the painful process women went through to create and establish creative presence as writers. They describe the role of the author as somebody who has the power to create. In addition to authors producing natural knowledge, they should decode biological theory that was created by men. Haraway references Gilbert and Gubar in The Madwomen in the Attic as they describe the techniques used by women writers in the nineteenth century to impose authority; they made a reinterpretation of the original text and made it right, or they created a new history. In correspondence, Haraway declares that feminists working in biology should recreate poor science about evolution, brains and hormones to show a biology “without conflict between reason and authority” (p.72). Feminists should impose the terms of speech.
The author refers to the David Baresh’s book, The Whisperings Within (1979) that tries to reveal the central knowledge of biology in a cultural framework in order to teach people about themselves and achieve their potential. Barash makes use of parts of Genesis, and his first quote is from Pius XII on natural law and reproductive sex in marriage. According to Haraway, his central concern and strategy is about lineage. He supports his statements in the authority of the father - patrolineage is his technique to produce facts. In conclusion, Barash establishes necessary biological determination, which is used for male dominance.
Haraway analyzes an essay included in Gregory et al.’s collection, Sociobiology and Human Nature (1978). This book was published based on a symposium created to explore humanistic involvement in socio-biological research. Haraway points out that Marjorie Greene, the only woman invited, was assigned to discuss socio biological implications for a philosophy of the mind. The author describes this book as a well reasoned one, however, she points out the limitations of analysis imposed to maintain it out of feminist scientific discourse. Haraway argues the authority of some people invited to symposium like David Barash, or Pierre L. van den Berghe, who declares that only a return “to the pastures of biology will we root the human science in the soil of truth”(p.75). For all, and each of the participants, Haraway points out their tendency to support patriarchal points of view and to not support the truth of scientific theories.
The author wonders about the room feminists have to recreate and reshape the production of science, and she addresses this question through the analysis of Hubbard and Lowe’s book Gene and Gender (1979). Haraway analyzes the tendency of Hubbard and Lowe to reinterpret stories and she is, as well, concerned about lineages like David Barash. Haraway points out that the authors mention the ubiquity of “bad science” with relation to sex differences, for a historical need of feminists to begin with “the heritage of names in a patriarchal voice”(p.77). Hubbard and Lowe declare that bad science is not an accident, that it is constant, and in the case of sex and gender is almost impossible to analyze because is not possible to disconnect, or step away from daily life, and this creates a contradiction when feminists want to tell new stories about sex and gender with authority. According to Haraway, the critique of bad science, which leads to the principle that all scientific statements are historical fictions, creates a problem when feminist “want to talk about producing feminist science which is more true” (p.78).
Haraway refers to Hubbard’s essay, Have Only Men Evolved, by critiquing theories of representation, and different ideologies of objectivity in science. Hubbard declares that language plays an important role in creating reality, however she continues, “all acts of naming happen against a stage of what is socially accepted as real”(p.78). To this Haraway declares as well that language generates reality in the context of power, but that this does not stand for or point to a knowable world hiding somewhere outside the ever-receding boundaries of particular social-historical enquiries. Haraway states, “that feminists want a theory of representation to avoid epistemological anarchism. An epistemology that justifies not taking a stand on the nature of things is of little use to women trying to build a shared politics”(p.79). However the author recognizes that feminists know the importance of naming a thing, the power of objectifying.
Haraway refers to Nancy Hartsock and Sandra Harding as they point out that these two authors have argued that for women’s historical position it is possible to have a theory of objectivity, and a possible end of dominating by naming - that “subject and object can cohabit without the master-slave domination” (p.80).
Finally, and referring to Hartsock and Harding, Haraway declares that feminists have finally entered in the debate about the nature and power of scientific knowledge with authority.
