Dissertation Final With Name - Kaosher PDF

Covert Dystopia in Postmodern Fiction: Persistence
of Patriarchal Cynicism or Gender Role Reversal?
Kaosher Ahmed
Examination Roll No. 120271
Session: 2011-12
A Dissertation
Submitted to the Department of English
In partial Fulfillment of Requirements of the Degree of
MASTER OF ARTS IN
LITERATURE IN ENGLISH AND CULTURAL STUDIES
at
JAHANGIRNAGAR UNIVERSITY, DHAKA
On 27 April 2013
Covert Dystopia in Postmodern Fiction: Persistence
of Patriarchal Cynicism or Gender Role Reversal?
Kaosher Ahmed
Examination Roll No. 120271
Session: 2011-12
A Dissertation
Submitted to the Department of English
In partial Fulfillment of Requirements of the Degree of
MASTER OF ARTS IN
LITERATURE IN ENGLISH AND CULTURAL STUDIES
at
JAHANGIRNAGAR UNIVERSITY, DHAKA
On 27 April 2013
Signature of the Supervisor Date
Signature of the Chair Date
MA (in Literatures in English and Cultural Studies)

Examination Committee, 2012
Covert Dystopia in Pomo Fiction ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Firstly, I would like to convey my humble gratitude and respect to my supervisor,
without whom this research would not have made any ground. His careful examination
and guidelines have helped to make this research see any day light. Secondly, I would
like to convey my due respect and gratitude to a certain teacher of the English Dept. for
helping me with my research by providing me with some new ideas for my research.
I thank my closest friends who are my fellow competitors, sufferers and for better
or for worse you guys were always there for me when I needed you the most. You guys
were, are and will be a constant inspiration for me. We laughed together we cried
together and we will be doing it in the coming days that’s why this research is a toast to
all times sake.
I also pay my due respect and gratitude to my late father Mohammad Momin
Uddin. I wish you could see me now, your son is a post graduate from Jahangirnagar
University, Dept. of English. Though I am sure you are watching over me constantly and
specially in my sleep. Obviously I am forever in debt and grateful to my Mother. You are
my biggest inspiration and you always provided me anything that I ever needed. Though
I don’t acknowledge in real life, I am acknowledging it here that you are the best cook in
the world. Besides everything else it is your food that inspires me the most. Also I
express my gratitude to my brother, my sister and my niece, for no particular reason at
all.
Kaosher Ahmed
27 April 2013
Covert Dystopia in Pomo Fiction iii
AUTHORSHIP STATEMENT
I, hereby declare that, this research paper is prepared and completed by my own
self. If any form of plagiarism is to be found with necessary evidence, then the respective
authority will have the power to take proper action and any actions taken by the
evaluation authority of the paper will be considered by me, the final judgment without
further question. Therefore, the citations used here are duly recognized and
acknowledged. The properties of this paper solely belong to the author. No part of this
paper should be used or reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without
prior permission.
Signature
………………………..
Kaosher Ahmed
27 April 2013
Covert Dystopia in Pomo Fiction iv
ABSTRACT
Covert Dystopia in Postmodern Fiction:
Persistence of Patriarchal Cynicism or Gender Role Reversal?
by
Kaosher Ahmed
Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka, 2013
Under the Supervision of Mr. Sanyat Sattar, Chair, Dept. of English
Cyborg or Post human does initiate the blurring of frontiers between traditional gender
roles in the post-modern era, transforming itself into a politicized entity which in turn
creates scope for discourse. William Gibson’s Neuromancer as a pathfinder of this genre
does try to dissolve the boundaries through his female characters by balancing the power
quota with the help of the non- gendered entity of the Cyborg. Harway’s prophecy tells
that there will be a dawn of new cyborg era causing a gender role reversal. May be
Haraway underestimates patriarchy by taking an essentialist position. The objective in my
thesis is to find out whether or not patriarchy still exist in the prophesized era of the
cyborg. My Focus is to reveal the hidden patriarchy which still exists in the postmodern
world. To do so I will draw attention to Neuromancer in revealing how patriarchy is
persistent there and from there I move to the real world. I will try to prove through my
thesis that 1) how and why did the prophecy of the cyborg came about and its necessity.
Harway under estimates patriarchy by supposing that cyborg will be essentially feminist
but 2) she failed to find out the hidden body politics that exist in the postmodern era. 3)
Neuromancer does celebrate third wave cyber and cyborg feminism but 4) in the apparent
infotopia the covert dystopia of patriarchy exists. 5) Lastly Patriarchy does not only exist
Covert Dystopia in Pomo Fiction v
but our print media helps for its perpetual persistence. So my focus is on patriarchy and
how it operates in the age of internet. So the question remains, is this so called ‘light of
hope (cyborg)’ would prove to be another villain behind the mask just like modernism
has been triumphant in representing the women into a more or less ‘sex object’. Trying to
escape from the strangle hold of patriarchy, feminism have put their faith in Haraway’s
prophesied figure but is this the ‘Pied Piper of Hamelin’ who is leading the rats into their
grave. As prominent writers like Donna Haraway, Katherine Hayles and third wave
feminism, all express the importance of an entity of post/pseudogenderism to fight off
patriarchy. This certainly seems to be the case because in the end all of the women in
Gibson’s novel perish, a very familiar form found in the movies of the 1980s when this
novel came out. Will this act of defiance with entity of cyborg prove to be a futile
resistance getting succumbed into the politics of post-patriarchy, is still waiting to be
theorized.
Keywords: Covert Dystopia, Patriarchy, Cyber-feminism, Neuromancer, Media,
Body Politics, Cyberspace.
Signature of the Supervisor Date

Covert Dystopia in Pomo Fiction vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents Page No
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT………………………………………………………….. ii
AUTHORSHIP STATEMENT…………………………………………………….. iii
ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………… iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………………… vi
1.0 Introduction……………………………………………………………............... 1
1.1 Literature Review……………………………………………………….. 5
1.2 Methodology……………………………………………………………. 6
1.3 Design…………………………………………………………………… 7
1.4 Rationale ………………………………………………………………... 8
1.5 Objective ………………………………………………………………... 8
1.6 Scope…………………………………………………………………….. 9
2.0 CHAPTER 1 – The Making of a Prophecy……………………………………… 10
2.1 From Suffering to Suffrage……………………………………………… 10
2.2 The Radical Thinkers……………………………………………………. 13
2.3 Transition………………………………………………………………... 15
2.4 To Cyborg and Beyond………………………………………………….. 16
3.0 CHAPTER 2 – (Re)Locating the Body………………………………………….. 21
3.1 Butler’s Iterability……………………………………………………….. 22
3.2 Data Body vs. Posthuman………………………………………………... 24
3.3 Hard and Soft SF………………………………………………………… 26
3.4 Domination as Normalcy………………………………………………… 27

Covert Dystopia in Pomo Fiction vii
Contents Page No
4.0 CHAPTER 3 – Neuromantic Feminism……………………………………...… 30
4.1 Razor Grrrl Molly………………………………………………………. 31
4.2 Passive Case………………………………………………………......... 35
4.3 Smoldering Flame of the Beat………………………………………….. 36
5.0 CHAPTER 4 – The Game of Shadows……………………………………….... 39
5.1 Commercialized Cyberspace…………………………………………… 41
5.2 Sensual Cyberspace and the Female Rollercoaster……………………... 42
5.3 Technofetishism………………………………………………………… 46
6.0 CHAPTER 5 – The Perpetual Dystopia……………………………………….... 48
6.1 Sex Sells………………………………………………………………… 49
6.2 The Cloak of Disability…………………………………………………. 51
6.3 Hyperfeminism………………………………………………………….. 52
6.4 Willing Submission……………………………………………………... 54
7.0 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………. 56
REFERENCES
Covert Dystopia in Pomo Fiction 1
Introduction
Human history is a culmination of changes but it is these changes that we are
most uncomfortable toward. The discomfort arises from a habituation to the previous
culture. Since the dawn of time human have lived in a patriarchal culture. When started to
understand their rights and began to fight for their equality we were not afraid because
women might take over the world but we were afraid of the change that was about to
follow. Thus where there is change there is resistance. The resistance brews out of the
fear of change because the previous ruling force is afraid of being dethroned. When the
age old patriarchal culture faced change from feminism, women too faced a lot struggle
because while men fought for conquering lands, women were no more willing to be
enjoyed as spoils of war. Throughout (his)tory women were oppressed, repressed,
dominated and subjugated by men. With the turn of the twentieth century women started
to fight back the patriarchy, not with guns and missiles but with pen. Women specially
from middle class got together in the fight against patriarchy. Thus according to
Wikipedia “[F]eminism is a collection of movements and ideologies aimed at defining,
establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women.” They
started to address all of the places where women were being dominated and protested
against it. This looked like a futile resistance because patriarchy would not descend its
throne that easy but neither would women protesting against it rest. With major turning
events of the last century women’s protest also evolved. Change in belief and change in
the thought process were the major reason behind these evolution. This fight for
women’s right is known as feminism. Radical feminist thinkers started to appear after
World War II and gave their ground breaking theories. Thus feminism as a field of study
and research started getting accepted into the universities. Feminism as an ever evolving
field of theory used other popular theories to portray the injustice that was being dealt
against women. One thing that worked like a constant amplifier for the evolution of
feminism is technology because all of the wars is not only a battle of human power but
also battle of the destructive power of technology. With the advancement of technology
feminism found a new diction in the end of the twentieth century. With the advent of the
internet, feminism found a new ground for resistance. As internet provided people with
bodiless identities feminism saw this as a utopia for women where women could fight
back against the gender politics that patriarchy used to dominate women. Thus internet
initiated the era of the postgender. According to Wikipedia “Postgenderism is a diverse
social, political and cultural movement whose adherents affirm the voluntary elimination
of gender in the human species through the application of advanced biotechnology and
assistive reproductive technologies… Postgenderism as a cultural phenomenon has roots
in feminism, masculism, along with the androgyny, metrosexual/technosexual and
transgender movements.” Postgenderism blurred the gender frontiers and gave women
the subversive tool to fight back against patriarchy. Internet came to be known as the
cyberspace where anyone could do anything with information. The possibilities were
practically limitless. Patriarchy on the other hand didn’t just sit back, it evolved with
feminism also to find out new ways of subjugating women. With cyberspace providing
infinite opportunities patriarchy too found out new ways to use cyberspace for its own
agenda. So whether patriarchal cynicism persisted in the era of the cyberspace or
feminism will force patriarchy for a gender role reversal is the topic of my dissertation.
Cyberspace is a complex network of communications. Wikipedia says that
“cyberspace refers to the global network of interdependent information technology
infrastructures, telecommunications networks and computer processing systems in which
online communication takes place.” Basically cyberspace is the World Wide Web
(www). The word cyberspace was coined by William Gibson in his novel Neuromancer.
Gibson’s cyberspace is a bit different from our world wide web. In Gibson’s cyberspace
people actually live virtually by leaving their physical bodies. In that sense Gibson’s
cyberspace is a combination of virtual simulation and the internet. We already have that
sort of technology which is called MUD or multi-user domain. Here people create their
virtual selves and interact with others around the world. So with the opportunity to create
virtual selves MUD has become the way to transgress gender. It has become both for
women to cross the boundary of gender and for transvestites a way to live their fantasy.
Cyberspace as William Gibson describes it is a “consensual hallucination” (Gibson, P.1).
Thus cyberspace helps to transgress gender boundaries and attack patriarchy the way they
were so long doing to women. When we talk about genderless future Donna Haraway’s
cyborg comes into being. In Donna Haraway’s 1984 essay “A Manifesto for Cyborgs,”
she talks about a possible entity which is genderless. According to Wikipedia “cyborg,
short for "cybernetic organism", is a being with both organic and cybernetic parts.”
Cyborg is a hybrid of machines and organisms. For Haraway cyborg crosses three
essential boundaries human vs. animal, human vs. machine and physical and the non-
physical. As cyborg is a hybrid it cannot be typified into any gender. Haraway argues that
cyborg is without history and therefore does not have any complexes (i.e. Oedipal,
Electra). So there is less stigma attached to cyborg. As it does not have any exact gender
or any complexes like Oedipus or Electra it is an entity which remains aloof patriarchic
politics. With advanced body augmentations and prosthetics human can become a
cyborg. Thus it has the potential to reshape the power balance. With the emergence of
cyberspace and the cyborg Donna Haraway hopes for a possible gender role reversal. Her
last words from “A Manifesto for Cyborgs” is “I would rather be a cyborg than a
goddess.” These last lines connote to the embodiment politics of ecofeminism where
women were used as a stand in for Nature. Haraway wants to be a disembodied entity, an
entity which does not have any politics of gender attached to it. That’s why cyborg holds
the light of hope which could probably repel patriarchy and usher the dawn of a new era
where gender roles will be reversed.
My dissertation title refers to “covert dystopia.” To understand dystopia we must
first know what is an utopia. As stated in Wikipedia “utopia is a community or society
possessing highly desirable or perfect qualities…The term has been used to describe both
intentional communities that attempt to create an ideal society, and fictional societies
portrayed in literature.” So basically utopia is an ideal city but what ideals are we talking
about? Ideals based on a set of thoughts. Say for example a society based on Plato’s
Republic and at the same time the citizen support and believe the ideals. If a society or
community is built on feminist ideals it could be called a feminist utopia. So we can very
well understand what would be a dystopia. According to Wikipedia “dystopia is a
community or society, usually fictional that is in some important way undesirable or
frightening […] Dystopias are often characterized by dehumanization, totalitarian
governments, environmental disaster, or other characteristics associated with a
cataclysmic decline in society.” Dystopia is a society which is undesirable by its citizen.

There could be many kinds of dystopias. Totalitarian dystopia, cyberpunk dystopia, crime
dystopia, alien dystopia etc. The dystopia I am talking about in my dissertation is a
feminist dystopia. A dystopia where women are oppressed and the role of women have
been diminished. In feminist dystopias patriarchal dominance is explicit. But what I talk
about is “covert dystopia.” With the advancement of technology and feminism, patriarchy
in postmodern times is not explicit. In the wake of the resistance of feminism patriarchy
now works covertly. It works though ideologies and through audio visual representations
of the media. That’s why I talk about a covert dystopia because patriarchy is not
explicitly seen but its presence can be felt. My bias is to expose this hidden patriarchy.
Dystopias usually exist in fictions. As a prominent science fiction novel William
Gibson’s Neuromancer is a dystopian novel. To portray my dystopian condition there is
no better novel than this. In depicting my research in the light of our culture, I also show
the covert dystopia in the light of Neuromancer too. In doing so it will make the situation
more understandable to the readers.
1.1 Literature Review:
It is a qualitative research. According to Wikipedia “Qualitative researchers aim
to gather an in-depth understanding of human behavior and the reasons that govern such
behavior… In the conventional view, qualitative methods produce information only on
the particular cases studied, and any more general conclusions are only propositions
(informed assertions).” Quantitative research on the other hand helps to find empirical
support for the hypotheses claimed using theories in qualitative researches. Critical
analysis of patriarchy will be done to find out whether patriarchy is persistent in our
postmodern lives and to what extent. A lot of researches have previously addressed the
issue but I don’t think any of the researches addressed the issue of patriarchy as its main
focus. My research question is, whether patriarchy is persistent in postmodern age or not?
Firstly I start by addressing the issue that how the prophecy of Donna Haraway come into
being? Then I move on to the body politics that can be found in the cyber era. William
Gibson’s Neuromancer being a prominent text of the science fiction genre it celebrates
the feminism but then I quickly deconstruct it to prove that what appears to be good
might not be so. In the last chapter I discuss how patriarchy using the media in this age of
multimedia to perpetuate its dominance. I finish off by stating the probable problems of
Donna Haraway and her fellow feminist in what issues they probably underestimated. My
research problem could have been approached differently for example just by analyzing
the pros and cons of the feminist prophecy but I think it is more important to address
patriarchy more explicitly because not addressing patriarchy could mean that I am taking
a stance for patriarchy. My theoretical framework is built with that of prominent feminist
theorist like Donna Haraway, Judith Butler, Susan Bordo, Katherine Hayles and so no. It
also follows Cultural theories of Stuart Hall and Marshall Macluhan. As I am talking
about postmodern dystopia Jean Baudrillard eventually comes. Critical analysis of many
critics like Kaye Mitchell, Nicola Nixon and Joseph Lanza have helped me come to new
points of research. Through them I address the overall cultural issues and that’s why my
thesis fall under Cultural Studies. My research will be particularly helpful to those who
are interested in Gender Studies and also to feminist thinkers.
1.2 Methodology
The following is a library research. This method includes going through different
books and journals regarding the issue and collecting data which work as the sources for
the research. After selecting the books of the critiques and the articles which are relevant
to my cause, has been studied and restudied to organize the basic structure of my
research. Also in the way I would be able to contribute to the criticism that is there in the
literary world. First draft of the research involved brain storming, second draft involved a
hand written extract of my research data and final draft which the paper itself is the
result. Library revision has been performed to make sure that the quotes were properly
cited and correction of any minor mistakes.
1.3 Design
The Research is divided into seven chapters including the introduction and
conclusion. Introduction which establishes the central issue of the research and the
methodology that has been applied. From Chapter one I start to dive into my research
problems. This chapter deals with the evolution of feminism and how did it come to be
what it is at present and how it’s going to be in the future. This chapter is important
because cyborg might not have a history but the struggle for women’s rights have a
history. Without the history a body is rendered disembodied, so it is quite important to
have a good conception of the history. The second chapter deals with the politics of the
female body as a sight of resistance and oppression and how it is represented in Science
Fictions. In the third chapter I talk about how Neuromancer celebrates the cyborg in
creating a post-gendered world. The fourth chapter is called “The Game of Shadows,”
and this is where I establish my point that patriarchy is there in the postmodern
prophesized world of the Neuromancer and women are still the ones to suffer. The fifth
chapter is called “The Perpetual Dystopia,” and here I disclose that how we are
continuously living in this dystopia created by patriarchy and being oblivious to it. I also
establish how media is helping to perpetuate this dystopia. Summing up the whole thing I
will conclude by reaching for a possible solution and provide hypotheses. Thus the
subsequent chapters builds up the totality of my research and eventually draws a
resolution to my dissertation. As par formatting rules are concerned, I have grounded my
dissertation on Cultural Studies and more specifically Gender Studies, so the thesis
follows the recommended APA format for Cultural Studies researches.
1.4 Rationale
As a part of the fulfillment of my M.A. this dissertation sheds more light on the
understanding of the patriarchy in the postmodern world. The heart of this research is
assessing to what extent the prophecy of cyborg is correct and to what extent it failed. It
will provide a better understanding of patriarchy in the postmodern world and will
enlighten us about how it is working. I might borrow ideas that are already there but
compiling existing ideas, giving own interpretations to them and reaching for a possible
new conclusion from those existing ideas is research. As my thesis is not for commercial
purpose that’s why I think my research will help my fellow juniors of the English
Department the most. Secondly, it will help many academics who are connected with the
Dept. of English, Jahangirnagar University. As it is the age of the internet who knows
what the potential of this research might be.
1.5 Objective
My objective is to find out whether patriarchy in the era of cyborg feminism
exists or not? My aim is to find out the hidden patriarchy that is still operating in the
postmodern era and how it is perpetuating or interpolating itself to become the overseer
who demands willing submission.
1.6 Scope
The scope of my thesis is to unravel the mystery of the postmodern patriarchy. I
hope to trace out the entity of post-modern patriarchy. As society has changed and is
changing so did the form of patriarchy. In the Science Fiction genre dystopian society of
the post-war future does not only witness the spectacle of postgenderism but also a new
form of patriarchy which has merged with the technology of the media engulfed the
world and is working from the shadows. Basing my research on William Gibson’s
Neuromancer, the father of the cyber-punk genre, I want to show how patriarchy is
persistent in that simulated reality. With all the hopes of feminism riding on the entity of
cyborg or post-gender, will cyborg be able to fulfill the prophecy? That is the scope of
my dissertation.
CHAPTER 1
The Making of a Prophecy
If the world was served in a silver platter we wouldn’t need revolutions.
Feminism started out as a synonym for ‘femininity’ in the 19th century but eventually it
evolved into a protest against patriarchy and turned into a revolution. For women were
always under the suppression of patriarchy. Where feminism stands today it was not an
accomplished in a day. Feminism adapted itself with the demands of the different age and
evolved until it came to be what it is today. This chapter tracks the evolution of feminism
from the very start till present day. This chapter also works as my theoretical framework
and explains many terminologies that are crucial to understanding the thesis.
2.1 From Suffering to Suffrage
If we trace back history we will be able to find dominance of patriarchy but the
change actually started to come about after the invention of writing and after that, the
print media took it to a whole new level. Many literary texts and writings addressing the
issue had started to come about since the 15th and 16th century. It was texts such as Jane
Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights and Nathaniel
Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter that portrayed the position of women in the social sphere that
paved the way for the revolution called feminism to manifest. But it was not until the 19th
century that feminism had started to get attention of the academics. It is only after the
first wave of feminism that it was accepted and acknowledged as eligible for academic
studies and feminism had become the full-fledged theory that it is today. Feminism is
unique in the sense that it incorporates any theories that can help explain women’s
situation and makes it its own. It’s an ever evolving theory. That’s why if we take a look
at feminism in the past one hundred years we will be able to comprehend that throughout
the history feminism has mutated according to the demands of the age until becoming the
revolution that it is today. The revolution had also followed a step by step process that’s
why feminism can be termed as an organized revolution. As an ever evolving theory thus
feminism can be classified into three waves or stages. Waves could be considered as
demands and according to those demands struggle made by Feminism in a particular age.
As I speak of a certain age, thus the waves of feminism can be outlined in the historical
demography. There are three waves of Feminism. First wave of Feminism started in the
18th century and lasted till World War II. Second wave of Feminism began from the
World War II and lasted until the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Third
wave of Feminism started after that and is still continuing today. After all of this talk
about Feminism one thing is very clear to us is that feminism is that notion which
retaliates against the oppression of patriarchy and demands equal rights for women all
over the world. Overall feminism struggles for the liberation of women. We have
witnessed many struggles and revolutions throughout history. Now the question is will
this struggle succeed or will this be another struggle against patriarchy which will bite the
dust. When I say ‘another struggle against patriarchy,’ I mean an umbrella term
“patriarchy” which as an oppressive institution tries to dominate and keep social control.
Thus we have patriarchy against males and children too. So my major point of concern is
about patriarchy against feminism or women.
The first wave of feminism appeared out of a political protest. It was the protest
for the right of suffrage for women. After World War I America was yet to provide the
right of suffrage to women where Germany had already legislated it in their country. So
women in protest to this responded with placards in front of the White House in the land
of ‘so called’ freedom. Women started comparing America with Nazi Germans. Though
acknowledged later for their point of allegory, the government was outraged at the
comparison of Germany and America which was considered to be treason. Middle
classed white women, dressed in their Sunday best, were protesting and showed little
resistance when they were being taken into jails. This caught the eye of the world through
the coverage of the media. As a result a worldwide protest had started. In France too in
the attempt to overthrow monarchy and to elect a democratic government where women
were being left out from the world of politics. In Australia at the same time the struggle
for the right to suffrage had begun. Even in Persia because of the influence of a
conference held for women, a wave of change for the right of women suffrage had begun.
All these protests happening at the same time around the world had synchronicity in time
and theme. Starting out as a protest for the right to vote, they started to address all the
other inequalities faced my women against men. First wave protesters who would later
appear as the founders of second wave feminism, like Simon de Beauvoir had started to
influence the academic world with her book called The Second Sex (1942). Feminists
started providing reasons for their inclusion into politics and the public sector. Though
controversial, they had claimed that women were much higher in morality than men. So
this would ensure less corruption and more justice. These kind of claims seems really
vague if we look at the two female leaders of this country and may be this is one of the
reasons why the first wave feminism made way for the second wave because Feminism
required more ground to stand on. World War II has seen a changed world when
humanity itself is questioned. So this marked the beginning of an era and a new wave of
feminism. First wave of Feminism had seen the rise of women conscience and ended in
getting their rights to politics and suffrage. It also commenced the academic study of
Feminism as everybody had started to treat Feminism with respect.
2.2 The Radical Thinkers
With slogans like “The Personal is Political,” second wave feminism began in an
attempt to demonstrate that any kind of oppression, whether it is racial, class based or
gender are all related and stems from one single point. Letting one go without
questioning makes way for all of the others to emerge. Second wave feminism surfaced
with one goal in mind and that is to ensure equal rights for women in every sphere of life.
They even wanted legislated acts which would lawfully ensure equal rights for women.
Thus demanding suffrage was a thing of the past, now came the time when women were
demanding equal wages as men. As women were the wage free workers of the indoors,
women started to point out that why were their work discredited. But the Equal Rights
Amendment (ERA 1980) failed where women demanded equal rights in the workplace
and reproductive choices. Second wave feminism also saw the rise of the hippies, the free
sex movement. As much as it was about going back to nature it was more about the
equality of women and with free sex practice they were celebrating their demand.
Eventually the movement did not succeed because of its own flaws and the age saw a rise
in HIV. But the second wave feminism was radical in its thinking. It started incorporating
theories like Marxism and Neo-Marxism, Capitalism and Psychoanalysis to explain the
idea and constraints faced by women from patriarchy. Many feminist theorists had started
to explain the politics of sex and gender, saying that one is a biological term and another
is cultural term. Another thing that second wave feminism tried to achieve is that it
wanted to create an affinity amongst women by creating a worldwide sisterhood.
Claiming that women are morally superior to men they wanted to form an international
sisterhood where women would communicate only with women. They went as far as to
promote lesbianism and bisexuality. Feminist writers such as Hélène Cixous gave ground
breaking theories like Écriture feminine which was basically a specialized women
language which only women could understand because the language which was
controlled by patriarchy had failed to. That’s why second wave feminism had given rise
to radical feminism which was very radical or revolutionary in its thinking. Second wave
Feminism also gave rise to Ecofeminism. As women being mothers and their established
allegory to mother earth, it was argued that they were much closer to nature than any
other. Out of this thought of Ecofeminism came that women were more peaceful and
morally strong. So their involvement in the public political sphere is a must in order a
nation to accomplish. Also they were the natural advocates of environmentalism. As
many other movements going on at the same time like the “Black is Beautiful,” and the
Vietnam War, the issues of second wave feminism started to go in the background. A
wave that had started as a protest against the Miss American Pageant in Atlanta which
raised its voice against the sexual objectification of women had turned into a form of
radical feminism. Women protested this objectification and demanded to be subjects. But
with emergence of the internet age the second wave feminism came to an end but the
radical thinkers of that era had already made way for coming wave. Internet had given
them the opportunity for a subversive resistance.

2.3 Transition
Before the move from second wave feminism to third wave feminism there is a
transitional moment. This transitional moment is called postfeminism. Postfeminism
marks the end of second wave feminism and makes ground for the third wave feminism.
But this cannot be considered as another wave but to simply put, it was a phase of
confusion in feminism. When the second wave feminism was coming to an end or more
likely failing, the era of postfeminism started. According to critics we entered the era of
postfeminism in the 1990s because many thought that feminism was suffering from an
‘identity crisis’ or that it was near to its demise. As a transitional phase post-feminism
emerged as several factors which were working against feminism. First claim was that the
overall support for feminism had declined. Écriture feminine seemed no longer to speak
the language of the new generation. Firstly, Previous feminists were being thought of an
outdated generation and the new generation thought it’s about attitude. Second claim was
that there were a growing number of pockets of antifeminism. These were thought to be
the new generation of women who were not familiar with spirit of feminism of the
previous generation. For one thing because colored minority women thought that
feminism, a movement, which grew out of white middle-class women’s discontent had
left them out of the bigger picture. Third point of claim was the irrelevance of feminism
because people thought that feminists in the new era had become extremists. They
portrayed women as helpless victims despite many cases which stand against it. They
were stuck in academic studies which they used to counter men oppression and label
anyone as “misogynist” who would disagree as enemies to feminism. Fourth and final
claim is of the “No, But…” Feminism. There are women nowadays who does not want to
be labeled as feminist but they still incorporate feminist objectives of gender equality.
These claims are postfeminist perspectives which dramatically change the social
landscape for feminism. Also the media had worked to bring about the era of
postfeminism. Thus a new sort of feminism was finding credibility among women and
the new generation was starting to think differently. Though we talked about the
emergence radical feminism in the second wave, the radical thought seemed to have
remained. Thus with the emergence of a new era these gene code of radical thought
amongst women had remained and it was going to make way for a new kind of feminism.
With the eminent emergence of a new kind of feminism for the new generation, this
feminism would address all the issues that were previously left out. Thus the transition
from Academic to chick and then to grrrl had emerged through postfeminism. This new
entity of the ‘grrrl’ would change the face of feminism forever.
2.4 To Cyborg and Beyond
With the dawn of deconstruction came the Third Wave feminism. Third wave
feminism deconstructed all the previously held beliefs and gave it a new thought. With
the emergence of this new form of feminism the center has been destabilized because no
more there remained a universal womanhood. The politics of the body has been realized
which eventually made way for the destabilization of heteronormativity. Third wave
feminism tried to make a mean between two extremes. It celebrated femininity and at the
same time it celebrated the brain which was previously denied in the two waves of
feminism. It was now possible for a girl to be smart and sexy at the same time. The
internet had made a new horizon of possibilities giving birth to a new generation of
cybergrrrls. According to the Oxford Dictionary a grrrl is “a young woman regarded as

independent and strong or aggressive.” These grrrls had developed a new rhetoric of
mimicry by calling themselves ‘sluts’ and ‘bitches’ which would eventually deprive the
patriarchy from using any demeaning terms against the grrrls. The cyberspace had
created ‘grrrls only’ spaces where they could meet and chat. The best thing about the
internet is that it lets one create a new identity and at the same time it lets one cross
gender boundaries. This eventually blurred the issue of gender itself. At the same time it
provides the opportunity to build up a multicultural grrrlhood by crossing boundaries
through the cyberspace. Third wave feminism made way for the previously unheard
voices and gave rise to postcolonial feminism, generational feminism and ecofeminism.
Postcolonial feminism explores the’double colonization’ of women. It helps to rewrite
‘history’ into ‘herstory.’ Postcolonial Feminism points out the colonial legacies that exist
even today after the end of the colonization period. How is Capitalism affecting the
mother and her child in the developing world is also a concern for this feminism. It tries
to understand the condition and position of women in the developing and neocolonial
worlds and try to work for women empowerment. It also tries to build theories from the
embodied perspectives of the third world woman. On the other hand generational
feminists are women who are living in equal rights as men and they are very much aware
of their sexualities. They are living multiple identities for example mother, officer and in
the internet. They have taken the personal is political and made it theoretical. This
generation of girls have given birth to a movement such as “Riot Grrrls.” They were an
underground feminist punk rock movement of the 1990s. These sort of groups worked to
empower grrrls. They disobey the culturally forced gender role. Ecofeminism in third
wave feminism deconstructs the dichotomy of nature vs. culture. It addresses the politics
of men and women as disembodied and embodied entities and deconstructs the politics
that is inherent. But one thing that celebrates the gender blurring in the third wave
feminism more than any other is the prophesized entity of ‘cyborg’ by Donna Haraway.
This entity is prophesized to rise above all possible gender politics and pave a new way
for gender role reversal. We have already entered the world of the post-human. Now it
remains to be seen that whether this entity is part of the radical feminism that third wave
feminism is or will it get succumbed to the body politics once again.
With the advent of the internet a new form of resistance had started inside the
cyberspace. Through the many communities that developed inside the cyberspace, they
addressed how women could benefit from this new technology. With the opportunity to
mask one’s identity internet had created an even ground for long running vendetta of
gender roles. Cyber identity had given women a new voice. This new found genderless
identity had given women the power to rethink their strategy for fighting women and how
it could help women all over world to unite under one roof. This new age subversive
space had given rise to cyberfeminism. Cyberfeminism makes women’s voices heard all
over the world and at the same time they are inventing new paths to address the
domination of patriarchy. It is a postmodernist term and cyberfeminism views cyberspace
as the new utopia. When the word cyber comes the entity of cyborg quickly follows.
Cyber organisms or cyborgs are the next evolutionary step for human beings. Donna
Haraway first provided the concept of gender role reversal through the cyborg. Being a
hybrid of human and machine cyborg would essentially be genderless. This genderless
entity would therefore be able to subvert the politics of gender. Thus cyborg created a
kind of feminism called the cyborg feminism. Feminist who are believers and supporters
of the entity of cyborg and who supports Donna Haraway started this movement. In the
belief that cyborgs will fulfill the so called biological lacking, would eventually give
power to the weak. Where cyberfeminism holds the cyberspace as the utopia, cyborg
feminism believes that cyborgs will create a utopia that will essentially empower the
women. On the other hand where ecofeminism supported embodiment of women, cyborg
feminism also supports embodiment but into a stronger empowering body. But as
ecofeminism previously proved that embodiment has politics of its own, so a new form of
feminism looked toward the disembodiment of women. Previously femininity was
compared to embodied entities and masculinity was compared to disembodiment (i.e.
masculinity was sort of like a philosophy). Patriarchy being philosophical,
disembodiment gave patriarchy the edge to escape any sort of politics but embodiment
had become the reason for all the gender politics against women. That’s why feminist
looked for disembodiment. Cyberspace had already provided them with that opportunity
but the politics that already persisted needed to be uprooted. That is why a new form of
feminism had emerged which is called corporeal feminism. Corporeal feminism doesn’t
reject the body but supports disembodiment. Its sole purpose is to avoid the embodiment
politics and promote disembodiment.
The prophecy of the cyborg did not come about in one day. It embodied the need
of the new generation. Donna Haraway being among the radical thinkers cyborg was the
result of radical thinking. Starting from first wave feminism to second wave feminism
women were unable to escape the gender politics of patriarchy. Machines as extensions
and part of human beings provided humans with identity. Cyborg is that identity which
denied the gender politics. Cyborg is the result of all the oppressions against women.
Now it is only a matter of time before we find out that the cyborg will provide salvation
for the women or it will give rise to new politics.

CHAPTER 2
(Re)Locating the Body
At the very least they envisage these technologies (informational, medical,

cybernetic and other) as offering new possibilities for self-transformation
and empowerment, rarely acknowledging the more pessimistic,
Foucauldian possibility that technology may be working to perpetuate and
extend the complicated network of power relation and modes of self-
regulation already in place.
(Mitchell, Kaye “Bodies That Matter: Science Fiction, Technoculture and
The Gendered Body” 110)
Following the path of radicalism, feminism, does prophesize a self-transformed
future with the cyborg, in an attempt to find salvation from the claws of patriarchy. A
genderless entity that holds the key to rise above the politics of the body. In creating a
new equilibrium a genderless entity seems to be most promising because a being without
the question mark of gender, eliminates the body politics that was so long used to justify
male domination. Donna Haraway, the most prominent feminist of the third wave
feminism thus provide the prophecy of the cyborg entity on her essay “The Cyborg
Manifesto.” Written in the language of Écriture feminine, the manifesto seems to be an
encrypted message for the women which hold the promise of a new future where women
will not the subjected to dominance rather they will hold the equal power to domination.
So, in the near future we might be submerging into the world of cybernetics and virtual
reality but as a prophecy of the cyborg which will bend the gender roles still seems to be
a distant future. Haraway might be daring to overlook the politics of the gender and the
body in the postmodern world. For me, Haraway’s underestimation of the prevalence of
patriarchy and ignoring the fact of gender politics, is dangerous on several levels. This
not only creates room for politics but also leaves no room for alternative/counter
measures. The reason that renders this prophecy as flawed because Haraway takes an
essentialist position. An essentialist position is taking a side deliberately for one’s own
cause by underestimating the possible politics. Ignoring the possibility of the spawning of
new kind of politics Haraway takes the position of that of the optimistic feminist which
assumes that the entity of the cyborg is essentially feminist. In the process of creating an
entity bearing no question (genderless), Haraway contradicts herself by taking a one-
sided essential position with the cyborg. Thus her essential feminist position will help to
give rise to newer gender politics which will eventually put us once again in the dreaded
loop whole of gender struggles in this info-topia. On the other hand a genderless entity
may create the ground for a posthuman identity crisis. This identity crisis might
eventually create an all-out existential crisis, just like the post-war conditions of WWII.
This identity crisis might lead to the essentiality of gender. That’s why when we are
talking about a post-gender world simply eliminating the factor of gender does not
eliminate the factor of politics. Thus, as it was in the history of feminism, the post gender
body becomes the site of discourse. This is what Haraway had failed to anticipate. This
chapter discusses the possible body politics that is prevalent in the postmodern era.
3.1 Butler’s Iterability
The idea that Haraway argues which will keep cyborg out of the reach of the
politics of patriarchy is that cyborg is without any history. So, a being which is without
any history or origin, doesn’t have a gender tag on it, will be devoid of any complex
(Oedipus or Electra) and will probably be able to rise above the politics of the body.
According to Judith Butler, the boundaries of sex and gender cannot be so easily
transcended. In her book Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (1993), she
tries to explain the misconception of gender performativity. No matter what gender we
might pick to perform it is through the everyday practices of culture that we eventually
follow a particular track of gender performativity. Iterability, a word which Butler
borrows from Derrida, is the repetition of cultural and social norms which in itself creates
a set of cultural norms for everyone to follow. So no matter what, as a social being we
eventually get succumbed into the dominant heterosexual hegemony. Even though
cyberspace or the internet has given the opportunity for the blurring of boundaries
through virtual IDs (ID = Identification) but can we really transcend the boundaries even
in the cyberspace? In the popular social networking sites the process of Iteration is very
much prevalent. Through group activities, through group photos and for the virtual public
commentary space created by these sites, everybody’s gender orientation is molded to a
certain path of performativity. Slavoj Žižek’s second veil of ‘inter-subjectivity’ can be
remembered here because we become what other want us to become. As we post our
group photos and activity on social networking sites for other people to comment on and
see, we are influenced by their comments and the process of Iteration takes place. As the
cyberspace has become the ground for many revolutions, it has provided feminism with
women only spaces but on the other hand in this age of virtual reality, it has also become
a meeting place. So even though we are witnessing an era of postgenderism, gender in
cyberspace does become an issue. Again we are bound by the cultural Iteration. Cultural
Iteration is the act of becoming habituated with certain activities by the constant
repetition and performance of those activities. That’s why, as we fail to truly transcend to
the concept of postgenderism, cyborg is maybe without history but not without culture.
Rising above the politics of culture proves to be our biggest challenge yet, thus rising
above the politics of the body seems to be far-fetched. Observing a bit closely clears our
vision about the politics regarding the female body in the cyberspace. One of most
popular social networking site named “Facebook” started out as a rating site for hot
women. As the digital age has grown so did the world of digital porn. As porn become
more and more explicit, women are being demeaned and humiliated more than ever
before to fulfill the perverted sexuality of certain men. With the growing popularity of
pay-per-view sites we can enjoy female humiliation from the comfort of our homes and
the most extreme of these porn genres has taken male dominance and cruelty to another
level which is snuff. Interactive porn has provided us with the power to make a girl do
anything we want. With the advancement of technology we have even more descended
into the dominance of patriarchal cynicism. So, our idea of post gender transcendence of
gender roles needs to be refined and redefined, as we start to better comprehend that body
either real or virtual, is socially constituted (Culture & virtual communities).
3.2 Data Body vs Posthuman
We live in an age of information utopia where information is available to anyone
and has become an indispensable part of our lives. In the info-topia (Informational
Utopia) data is the currency of exchange. Continuously what we are exchanging to get
our way through this infinite cyberspace is data. That’s why Arthur Kroker has termed
the post-modern, post-human body as the “Data Body” (Mitchell, 112). According to
Kroker we are continuously emanating data from our bodies. From the most basic data
like gender and sex to more complex data such as personality. For this reason a body can
never be known without its data. That’s why without the data emanating from our bodies
which might the case with post-gender, it might become impossible for a body to survive
as data is the life blood of the post-modern world. This concept contradicts Katherine
Hayles’s idea of the post-human. In her book How we Became Posthuman (1999), she
describes how the data lost its body. As data has lost its body, now it is possible for
humans to transcend the boundary of the physical and enter the non-physical virtual
world as post human. But she is unsure of the possibility that how a human brain can be
fully transformed into data with all its complex neurological and electromagnetic
functions. Will data define the body or will it leave its host, we will let future be the
judge of that but for now we can reach a denotation that in this info-topia we can exist
without being Data Bodies because information is data.
As discussed in the previous chapter nature vs. culture duality in eofeminism, the
dichotomous thinking of bodies with data and without data might become clear to us. In
eco-feminism there was an attempt to take women back to nature in trying to compare
them with feminine entities like mother earth who is naturally good and docile. Women
were compared to embodied entities like nature and men were compared to disembodied
entities like culture. Men as disembodies entities held the politics and women as nature
became the subject of politics because nature is always dominated by culture. Thus the
woman body itself becomes the ground for discourse and patriarchic politics. As cyborg
is devoid of history but not culture, brings back the nature vs. culture dualism and the
dominance of patriarchy. Women as embodied entities, as data bodies, will continue to
remain as the subject of patriarchal dominance. As data remains of utmost importance in
explaining the identity of the body, so does patriarchal politics. The continuous
production of data from our bodies create our identity and our identity is related to our
gender and as long as we are gendered there will be body politics because post-gender
itself is a gender.
3.3 Hard and Soft SF
The celebration and the realization of the post-gender had originally begun from
the SF (Science Fiction) novels. During the 1970s and 1980s technology were thought as
masculine, hence the term boys toys. As technologies were thought of as masculine, the
then science fiction novels were targeted for the male audience. Then the genre was
divided in two categories. Hard and soft science fiction. Hard science fictions were those
of male writers and soft were those of feminist writers. It is only after the works of many
feminist theorists that the SF genre started to change to accommodate the women readers
also. William Gibson’s Neuromancer is one of the first ground breaking novels that had
celebrated feminism. Then again it did have body politics in it, though camouflaged. The
possible reasons behind the labeling of the SF as hard and soft are, firstly, hard science
fictions are of course guy phantasy. Secondly, labeling women science fictions as soft has
an inherent politics on its own. It’s a politics mentioned by Stuart Hall in his essay “The
Spectacle of the Other” which is the politics of ‘infantilization.’ It is the politics of
stripping someone off power by making them appear or comparing them to infants or
children. The process can be fully understood if we look at the razor girl Molly from
Neuromancer. At first site she might appear as an empowered independent girl but if we
look closer we see that she is bound by men. Molly is bound to Case through simstim
(Simulated stimulation). Though she worked as a body guard and a deadly assassin, she
needs rescuing by Case at the end like a damsel in distress. On the other hand why is
Case a console ‘cowboy?’ Because cowboys handle ‘cows’ and he is the representation
of the West’s masculinity. Even the AI’s (Artificial Intelligence) appear as male figures.
We can find digital Freud through the AIs. The oedipal complex is evident when we see
that Marie France Tessier has configured the two AIs to become stronger than her
husband Ashpool. Thus the m/other figures are othered through the infatilization process.
They are ultimately rendered powerless. Cyborg future not only offers advanced
prosthetics for women empowerment but also it offers fetishization of feminism. In
Gibson’s future where she works a meat puppet, the title of a dangerous girl (femme
Fatale) who has razor sharp nails and other body enhancements might be forming a male
phantasy who is commanding and controlling enough to become a fetish mistress. In the
world of hardware and software, ‘wetware’ (humans as thinking machines = cyborg) has
made its mark as the other. According to Wikipedia “Wetware is used to describe the
elements equivalent to hardware and software found in a person, namely the central
nervous system (CNS) and the human mind.” As humans become more like machines
and machines become more like humans, the question mark upon the cyborg might make
them outcasts because they are not normal just like transsexuals. If cyborg is the best of
both worlds then it might be a gender on its own taking no essential position. And if
technology is masculine then cyborg just might add a new dimension to male pleasure
principles.
3.4 Domination as Normalcy
After all these potential politics why does Donna Haraway put so much faith in
cyborg? Haraway’s faith might rest on some gambols! May be radical thinking and at the
same time creating something as a last ray of hope Haraway takes the position of an
essentialist. Technology will change our future for better or for worse but she assumes
that cyborg will be essentially good and feminist. This daring assumption overlooks and
probably underestimates the prevalence of patriarchy. Looking through the concept of
Disability Studies provided by Lennard J. Davis, women as oppressed, dominated and
objectified, are potentially disabled. According to the concept forwarded by Lennard J.
Davis, this helpless dominated condition of women is an enforced normalcy appropriated
by the patriarchic society. As Haraway too has helped influentially in the Disability
Studies through her concept of the cyborg, she too might have had a deep seated urge to
transgress the boundaries and politics of gender enforced by patriarchy. If we consider
deconstructing “disability” it might expand to that of a “dis-abled” person who is
“desiring-ability.” Because only a blind person can comprehend the blissfulness of
vision. This dis-ability or desire-for-ability may drive a person to achieve the state of
normalcy enforced by the hegemonic society. That’s where Haraway’s cyborg comes in.
A cyber organism is an entity that uses prosthetics to enhance its abilities. Thus cyborg
not only enables but empowers. Surpassing normal human ability is a break in the set
normalcy and surpassing normalcy enables women to surpass previously enforced gender
performativity. Thus cyborg hold the prophecy for a possible gender role reversal and a
power-shift. But no matter what, the world is still ruled by money and these kind of
prosthetic enhancements are expensive. Late-capitalism will be banking on this new
enhancement scheme for sure and that’s why the problem is that technology can only be
used by those who can afford it. So technology will not be able to help women from the
third world and developing countries. In the quest to become empowered, to be enhanced
women might become willing victims of male subjugation. Just like Molly. Before she
became a lethal assassin and an independent women she would work as a meet puppet to
afford her bodily enhancements. Cyberfeminism on the other hand keeps the question of
racism and the torments of the women of color out of the scenario. That’s why
cyberfeminism, considering the access and affordability of technology is creating a
hegemonic discrimination. Thus for a girl technology might be forcing a willing
submission to patriarchy. Technology is assuming the position of masculinity. In the
quest to become independent and liberate their body it seems that they must first submit
to the will of patriarchy in order to earn their freedom. So no matter the possibilities
cyborg holds through merging technology, it essentially has a darker side too. The very
gender boundaries that feminism is trying to transcend might eventually become their
shackles. That’s why as long as patriarchy is prevalent it will difficult to avoid the
politics of the body and avoid subjugation to the dominant patriarchy. Harway’s
prophecy might turn out to be false after all because the cyborg entity fails to transcend
the gender and body politics and with technology on its side it seems that patriarchy will
be pervading in the cybernetic postmodern dystopia.

CHAPTER 3
Neuromantic Feminism
01011010 01100101 01110010 01101111 01110011 00100000 01100001

01110010 01100101 00100000 01100100 01101001 01110011 01110000
01101100 01100001 01100011 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000
01110000 01101000 01100001 01101100 01101100 01101001 01100011
00100000 01101111 01101110 01100101 01110011
(Binary output of the sentence, “Zeros are displacing phallic ones”)
Sadie Plant in her book Zeroes + Ones posits optimism about the subversive
potential of the internet that could potentially transform the life experience of the women.
She starts by deconstructing the binary language that is used in programming and asserts
that the binary coding language itself has the potential to offer itself to the females. She
argues that in the binary codes the ‘zero’ is essentially female and the ‘one’ constitutes
the male phallic order. She holds that in the nonlinear world of cybernetics, the zeroes are
displacing the phallic ones indicating a digital future which is essentially feminine. Thus
starting from the coding language of the cyberspace itself, the digital future hold infinite
possibilities for women. With the advancement of the internet, it has created new
potentials for feminism, hence cyberfeminism. Cyberfeminism developed individually
because internet has the potency to create private and public spaces for everyone. Internet
is a unifying entity which can unify women of all classes into a common space. Though
the question of colored and third world women being subsided surface, internet opens up
space for everyone in a unity of sisterhood. Marching in the roads with festoons and
placards demanding equal rights have become a thing of the past. Now there are
movements which are occurring online. These are known as ISMs or Internet Social
Movements. There are also blogs, online communities and social networks which
constitute and contribute to these movements. Movements such as the issue regarding the
black subaltern women. Also the cyborg entity creates the conditions of postmodern and
postgender which eventually helps women to transcend their so called ‘biological’
constraints. No other Novel addresses these technological advancements in celebrating
women other that William Gibson’s Neuromancer. This chapter discusses how
Neuromancer celebrates feminism. Through advanced body augmentations Gibson’s
characters does help to create a cyborg future and at the same time the bodiless exaltation
of the cyberspace enables one to leave one’s body behind, thus escaping the prison of
one’s own body to transcend beyond boundaries of gender and sex. Moving beyond the
physical, places brain over brawn, creating an even ground for everyone because the
mind has the power to transcend physical limitations. If we are talking about postmodern
transcendence then its transcendence from the physical, from gender and from
dominance. At the same time this transcendence is not metaphysical rather it has a
material manifestation which means this transcendence is palpable and possible. The
celebration of the cyborg future is evident if we observe one of the main characters of the
novel, Molly. She is the embodiment of Harway’s prophecy. Molly is everything what
third wave feminism is all about. By assuming the position of a cyborg she initiates the
gender role reversal in Gibson’s dystopian infotopia.
4.1 Razor Grrrl Molly
William Gibson’s character Molly Millions is probably the first fictional character
to appear as celebration for cyborgfeminism. She is rough and tough and in command of
the male characters of the novel Neuromancer. She is independent and very much
ruthless if it comes to achieving anything what she wants. Thus by familiarizing herself
with the attitudes and behaviors that was once allotted to masculinity, she is the
fulfilment of the prophecy of Donna Haraway. With advanced prosthetics and body
augmentations Molly has been stripped off her feminine attributes and sores beyond the
two normative gender identities. This new born entity and the vagueness surrounding this
entity provides cyborg with an edge because the failure to grasp and understand this
entity creates a sense of fear. This fear provides cyborg with the power to overturn the
power relations and provide women with the power they lacked to escape the tyranny of
patriarchy. Thus Molly becomes the lethal razor girl who acts as the muscle of all the
operations conducted in Neuromancer. She commands the ruthless Panther Moderns
whom she uses to hack into the Sense/Net and steal the construct of Dixie Flatline. She is
the main ground operative for the invasion of the Villa Straylight. Among her body
enhancements there are, silver eye cover implants, heightened neural response, a digital
visual read out and most shocking of all improvements is the retractable razor blades
beneath her burgundy nails. Thus she becomes the manifestation of Freddy Krueger from
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) but only this time she becomes the nightmare for
patriarchy. Sneering remarks on gender are no longer an issue to sit quiet upon. That’s
why when Teribashjian makes a sexist comment on Molly regarding women, Molly
instantly reply’s that if he had made such comments again he would have to pay dearly.
Molly and Reviera both have dangerous body augmentations. Riviera can project images
with his eyes. They both represent the second stage or condition of Baudrillard’s
simulation which is, Simulacra mask and perverts the basic form of reality. Molly being a
cyborg, her obvious resemblance to simulacra is evident and Reviera with his ability to
create and project a distorted reality into anybody’s mind is his ability to pervert and hide
the reality. It is this simulacra that is created by technology, in my sense has a positive
aspect. Because by escaping the real through technology and the real, where patriarchy
had ruled, this distortion allows for a subversive resistance against patriarchy. For her
expensive body augmentations, Molly had to work as a ‘meat puppet’ to pay for it all.
But she only did it because perhaps she had no other ways. She did not like it one bit
because when she would lend her body as a meat puppet she would be unconscious. Once
she woke up in the middle of one of her works and found out that she had been used in
some kind of a snuff. This inner rage of being used as a ‘meat puppet’ enables her to
repel the misogynistic exploits of Reviera and at the same time this might be
contradictory but that habituation of being used as a puppet allowed her to get
manipulated by Reviera in the first place. Third wave feminism celebrates the women
body. Girls are considered to have assets and no more showing of or using these assets to
uplift a women’s condition is considered shameful rather now it is possible for women to
use her body as a site of resistance. That is what Molly does to bring about her change
and break the shackles of patriarchy. It is not only considered that women are
biologically inferior but also too much emotional in the cognitive aspect of the body.
Thus Molly’s body augmentations enables her to get rid of her emotions.
“I don’t cry, much.” “But how would you cry, if someone made you cry?”
“I spit [Molly] said.” “The ducts are routed back into my mouth.” (Gibson,
119)
Through her augmentations Gibson strips Molly of any kind of emotions and at
the same time she is made more masculine. Thus Molly not only strips off her feminine
identity but also she forms a new one which is more masculine and at the same time
individualistic. Her body enhancements along with cyberspace, too provide us with
ability to shift our identities. This identity shift enables us to cross gender and body
boundaries. Lisa Nakamura in her book Cybertypes first coined the word “identity
tourism.” This simply means that member of a particular group try on the identity of
another group with different race or gender. Now a days anyone can have multiple
internet profiles without having to know what that person’s gender is. This opportunity
has opened up space for transvestite or cross dressers because in real life a person
wearing another gender’s clothes is considered socially unacceptable. Cyberspace opens
up the space for living in the identity of another gender. Thus Molly, who is a street
samurai in real life, is also the commander in charge inside the Matrix. Matrix is the
simulated virtual cyberspace in William Gibson’s Neuromancer where everybody “jack-
in” leaving their bodies to enter that cyberspace only using their minds. For her advanced
body augmentations she is a lethal character to trade with in real life and inside the
Matrix, where the cyberspace helps her fully leave her gender identity. She also passes
through the test of endurance. When in their last run in the Villa Straylight Molly is
critically injured. Though with her wounds she carries on with her mission. At that time it
was only Henry Dorsett Case who was linked to her through simstim, could feel what sort
of pain Molly was going through at that time. Even with that pain Molly does not give in
to her pain and makes the mission a success. Thus by overcoming barriers of power,
sense perception, emotion and endurance does Molly is able to escape her previously
considered weak body. Molly was so bent on overcoming these barriers to improve her
dominated condition to become an independent cyborg that she was not afraid to work
even as a meat puppet. That’s why Molly is the representation of third wave feminism in
its most radical form.

4.2 Passive Case
Neuromancer’s story revolves around Henry Dorsett Case. Though case is the
main character, Molly takes much of the action. So much so that Case is rendered an
‘anti-hero.’ An anti-hero is a person who being the leading character does not take any
action and he works for the villains knowingly or unknowingly but he is good from the
soul. So instead of taking actions rather his actions are taken by others and this time
around the actions are taken by Molly and Case is just along for the ride.
For a few frightened seconds [Case] fought helplessly to control Molly’s

body. Then he willed himself to passivity became the passenger behind
her eyes. (Gibson, 39)
This ‘passivity’ renders him an anti-hero, hence the name Case meaning the case
or chassis of a computer. Case is just a shell of a man who does not take any actions
rather he follows Molly’s lead and just feels what she feels through simstim. Even
sexually Case does not remain in the dominant position rather Molly takes control and
initiates the erotic endeavor in the Coffin hotel by herself. Maybe case was an action
taker when he was a freelancing console cowboy till whom he used to work for, the
Russians, disabled him from “jacking in” to the Matrix. This can be another reason that
because of his disability he thinks that he has been imprisoned inside his own body. Thus
in order to take action, the only way left for him is the cyberspace or the Matrix. He
cannot take action in real life because Molly is in control of the operations and Case is
working under her. In order to prove his prowess and his worth, he must escape to the
cyberspace in attempt to become a posthuman wetware. According to Lennard J. Davis,
the enforced normalcy of not being able to log into the cyberspace renders Case an anti-
hero. Davis also talks about the capitalistic era where workers not having a perfect body
for work or in this Case unable to log in is a stigma. A stigma that case wants to remove
at any cost even if it means working for the bad guys. Case also has body augmentations
but rather than improving his abilities they work to decrease case’s abilities. Case has
toxin sacks planted inside his body which will melt if he tries to double cross his
employers and he has his pancreas removed, so that he cannot reach the hallucinated state
of the drugs. Thus agreeing with Jacques Lacan which Lennard J. Davis uses in his book
Enforcing Normalcy: Disability, Deafness and the Body, Case might be trying to make
his fragmented disabled body whole and the only way to do this is to leave his fleshy
body and escape into the cyberspace. There might be another thing which might provide
him with sense of wholeness and that is drugs. Thus in the end of the story when Case
comes face to face with Linda lee resurrected by Neuromancer in cyberspace, he is able
to wake up from that ‘Mummified state of immortality’ (Case’s mind would remain in the
cyberspace as a construct) only when the Rastafarian Maelcum injects Case with a drug
strong enough that would work instead of his disabilities. The drug probably gave him
the sense of wholeness outside cyberspace. Thus with all his disabilities Case remains as
an antihero leaving actions to be taken by Molly.
4.3 Smoldering Flame of the Beat
The Beat Generation starting from the post WWII period provided a deviation
from traditional thinking patterns. They were bringing innovation to style, experimented
with drugs, alternative sexualities and showed a great deal of interest in Eastern religions.
The things that they were doing provided unorthodox ground breaking practices.
Specially they were creating a ground for the women. That’s why William Gibson’s
Neuromancer got such popularity among the Beat Generation because it supported the
counter culture movement of the Beat Generation. Many of the terms from Neuromancer
started to be used in daily lives. Beat was popular among all sexes because it supported
radical feminism. Experimentation with drugs were done in hope of transcendence or
more likely to have the feeling of disembodiment. Ecofeminism tried to portray women
as embodied entities and men as disembodied entities. The problem of such dichotomy is
that the embodied entities can be stigmatized but the disembodied entities remains aloof
and becomes more philosophical. Thus, if women had to be free they had to escape
embodiment. Hence, Haraway’s cyborg which creates a new entity, a hybrid which is
better than the two normative genders. Internet or cyberspace provides that opportunity
for disembodiment. Just like in Neuromancer where people can connect into the
cyberspace where they can be disembodied and that space levels the ground for gender
struggle. Recalling Virginia Wolf’s A Room of One’s Own, Nouraie Simone describes
cyber space as a “liberating territory of one’s own.” (Daniel’s 2009, P.109). She
describes cyberspace as a place of resistance. It is a place where it is possible to discuss
gender politics, feminism or patriarchy and she states that it is possible for women to
discuss this matters more intimately and on a personal level. According to Simone
cyberspace become a liberating space for many women just like Molly Millions in
Neuromancer. Addressing the issue of violence against women online becomes a safer
ground to address and make arguments about such sensitive matters. Thus cyberspace is
safer for women than real life. In the race to become cyborgs another issue that needs to
be addressed in the issue of body invasion. The technologies that we are using and going
to use are invading our bodies. For better or worse technologies will be invading but it’s
our choice whether we use it for greater good or for criminal activities that’s up to us.
Like everything else technology too has its pros and cons. Here Gibson trades carefully in
excluding the negative connotations of body invasion. Gibson wants to show that body
invasion is positive and welcomes the technologies to invade us because this is what he
also thinks will liberate women for the greater good. Cyborg ushers the era of a paradigm
shift. A shift which George Orwell talked about regarding the government he portrayed in
his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). His suggestion is that, better to jump out of the
system than to govern it.

CHAPTER 4
The Game of Shadows
The power of money [can] force all of life into prostitution [making] our
system out to be a kind of Christian pimping. (Werlhof, ‘Losing Faith in
Progress: Capitalist Patriarchy as an “Alchemical System”.’ 34)
This is the belief that lies at the core of capitalist patriarchy. Zillah Eisenstein in
her book Capitalist Patriarchy and the Case for Socialist Feminism (1979) defines the
term ‘capitalist patriarchy’ as descriptive of the “mutually reinforcing dialectical
relationship between capitalist class structure and hierarchical sexual structuring.” Men
are above women in capitalist patriarchal class structure. In this postmodern techno age,
with this quasi-religious belief that ‘money is god’ is constructing the core of capitalist
patriarchy which controls the whole scenario of profit making and subjugating the ones in
need of that money into willing obedience. Neoliberalism promotes corporate
privatization of resources which in the turn ensures the maximum profit attainable out of
those resources. Capitalist patriarchy banks on neoliberalism making sure that they are in
control of information because it is the most valuable resource in the postmodern era.
Data is the basic code of conduct in the cyberspace. Data after getting processed creates
information. Information has the ability to create knowledge. Knowledge on the other
hand produces, maintains and perpetuates power relations. Power relation maintains the
hegemonic structure of the society. This is known as the “informatics of domination.” In
this chapter I discuss how capitalist patriarchy uses this informatics of domination to
perpetuate its control. Marshall McLuhan in his book Understanding Media describes the
politics of such information. According to him the medium itself which carries the
massage must be understood and the message that is conveyed by that media itself carries
the politics. He says, “When IBM discovered that it was not in the business of making
office equipment or business machines, but that was in the business of processing
information, then it began to navigate with clear vision” (McLuhan, 11). IBM began to
navigate with clear vision because it understood that whoever controlled the information
had control over everything else. In the infotopia that we are living in could make anyone
submit to the will of whoever holds the information. Informatics of domination works by
providing a chosen few. Though there are laws which should ensure that information
must be made available to all but it works sort of like democracy where a selected few
from the public would get the opportunity to hold that information. The selected few can
be the corporate privates or the educated class. They then have the power to manipulate
people into subjugation who are in need of that information. Though whoever has money
can buy that information but that is where the politics lies. As it is a monetary society
anything can be bought with money and if someone who needs that particular
information will have to get money to buy the information. So in that search for money
people will do anything that is necessary because information has become the life blood
of this age. Previously libraries were the store house of knowledge but now internet has
become the storehouse of knowledge which is information. Patriarchy heading
McLuhan’s words carefully has understood that the medium is the message and uses this
informatics of domination to control everyone. Though with the emergence of
cyberspace, feminism talks about liberation, through the informatics of domination
patriarchy retains control and subjecting women into servants of patriarchy.

5.1 Commercialized Cyberspace
Internet has the ability to accommodate anything and make everyone’s voices
heard. This accommodation of everything has a unique aspect because internet has the
ability to commercialize anything. Thus sex has been commercialized which has become
a booming business. From webcam chats to sites which post voyeuristic photos to be
rated, everything has been made possible by internet. The major customers of this
internet sexuality are males and in turn patriarchy. Girls perform for money and boys
provide the money. As women are being lured into this business for money the labeling
of girls as “whores” and boys as “pimps” has been perpetuated. Girls are the ones who
sell their bodies and there is a reason why a lot of stigma is attached to the word “whore”
and not to the ones who pay for it (boys). Going with the proverb “might is right,”
patriarchy dominates the information era through money which is the might. Though
Molly Millions from Neuromancer is a very independent and strong woman there is a
stigma attached to her also. She has advanced body augmentations which allow her to
cross her gender limitations but how did she pay for her expensive prosthetics? She paid
for her prosthetics by working as a “meat puppet.” A meat puppet is a prostitute in
William Gibson’s postmodern world. As the name suggest the meat is only valuable and
thus she is made unconscious when renting herself to her customers by just being a chunk
of meat. Hence her customers can use her body anyway they want in an attempt to fulfill
their necromantic snuff perverseness. So the question comes that, though Molly has
become the independent dangerous street samurai by doing prostitution, is she really free
from patriarchy? The answer is quite possibly, no. She has become a victim of the
informatics of domination. As psychotherapy says that “there are no victims, only

volunteer,” she has been a volunteer to this submission to patriarchy. She did it because
to begin with she herself being a woman was in a dominated state. Molly with her will to
be liberated from her compromised position had to attempt to become a technologically
advance cyborg. Her will to become a cyborg lies might be in the thought that technology
would help her to overcome her biological deficiencies, as because she later became a
street samurai and a body guard. To have those expensive body augmentations she
needed money as they are expensive and to make quick money there are few better ways
than prostitution. Thus she falls in the circuit of the informatics of domination. Third
wave feminism celebrates the sexual freedom of women. Using this concept of sexual
freedom, patriarchy forces women into willing submission to male urges with the
informatics of domination. Molly herself comes to hate her past self when she was used
as a snuff doll because whatever the price is, that degrading position is not worth it.
5.2 Sensual Cyberspace and the Female Rollercoaster
Cyberspace by William Gibson has been described as a “consensual
hallucination” (Gibson, 1). A conceptual and a sensual hallucination. Virtual reality
offers that sensual experience. Virtual reality being immersed in a world which is the
simulation of the real world can let anyone have their wildest dreams come true. This has
also become a site of suppression for women. As the commercialization of cyberspace is
made so is the sex industry taking over the virtual world. It is now possible to have the
experience of real sex through sex simulation games. Virtual reality thus become
essentially a place controlled by patriarchy. As virtual reality is sensual, viewers can see,
touch, feel and smell. Thus Baudrillard’s conception of simulation comes true as the lines
between real and the unreal gets blurred because virtual reality becomes more than real.
Joseph Lanza in his essay “Female Rollercoasters” compares virtual reality with a
coaster. He imagines a ride through virtual reality which would provide an ecstasy of
riding a female. Before that he deconstructs the rollercoaster. The classic roller coaster
from the beginning of the 20th century was very simple with a few ups and downs and a
few quick turns. Seen against the more masculine rides like the train which were faster
and with straighter lines, rollercoaster were a symbol of woman. The coasters were
named femme fatales. After the World War II with advancement in technology they
began to change. With aerodynamics coming into play, they were now loops and bigger
thrilling drops. With the advancement in coaster even a simple ride like a rollercoaster
began to hold gender politics. Joseph recognizes the loops as female breasts and the cork
screws of sudden plunges are seen as phallic symbols. Thus as containing the politics of
both genders the thrill of a rollercoaster became a postmodern gender bender. What got
his most interest was a notion of Atari. According to Joseph, “My interest rekindled after
reading a Time article about how Atari founder and cyberspace enthusiast Nolan
Bushman “eagerly foresees games in which people would not just play but actually be
Ms. Pac-man”” (Lanza, 53). The concept of being and feeling the sensation of a female,
can be achieved through virtual reality. This technology is present in Neuromancer and it
is called simulated stimulation or in short “simstim.” Through simstim henry Dorsett
Case is connected to Molly. Case feels every bodily sensation that Molly has but he is
unable to respond because it is a one way transmission. It’s a one way transmission
because it’s a feeling system not a communication system. Now the question can be
raised that is it not like the same technology she had when she was working as a meat
puppet? This technology can be best described from the following words,
He heard the words and felt her form them. She slid a hand into her jacket,
a fingertip circling a nipple under warm silk. The sensation made him
catch his breath. She laughed. But the link was one way. He had no way to
reply. (Gibson, 39)
Patriarchy has made technology masculine. Just like real life rollercoasters Molly
just becomes a ride for Case. It’s a one way ecstasy where molly is the provider and Case
is the receiver. Thus simstim/masculine technology holds the potential to subjugate
women because
Travel into a time-space warp. Swim through your own birth canal and
even be the woman giving birth to yourself. The thrill ride of the future is
with us today. Let her entertain you! (Lanza, 51)
Though Neuromancer celebrates feminism through Molly, what about the others?
To start with let’s look at the female characters of the story. Firstly, there are only a few
female characters compared to the male characters in the novel. With these few number
of women the male characters almost all the time occupy the scenario. Secondly, though
Molly is an independent strong girl, at the end of the novel she needs rescuing by case
like a damsel in distress. Thirdly, all the female characters perish at the end. Molly goes
away, Linda becomes a computer construct and 3jane and all the others die. Like in the
movies of the seventies and eighties, all the female transgressors would meet their doom
because of crossing the patriarchy and in Neuromancer too we see all the female
characters perishing because they had crossed patriarchy. Gibson certainly seems to be an
agent of patriarchy when he carefully makes his girls strong and commanding and in the
end throws them to hell fire because they have crossed patriarchy. Lastly, the AIs or the
Artificial Intelligences seems masculine and patriarchal. Though being AIs they are out
of the question of gender because as machines they have no gender but for one thing
Wintermute never takes control of a girl, he always appears with the help of Armitage or
The Finn. Even the computer construct Wintermute steals Dixie Flatline who is a male.
So Wintermute is constantly referred to as a he not a she. Even the other half
Neuromancer resurrects Linda Lee but only to lure Case into the Matrix. When the two
are united, together they become or take control of the Matrix, a patriarchal masculine
trait to conquer and control everything. Not to mention the feminized place the Matrix.
The meaning of matrix is “the womb,” where all the cowboys “jack in,” which becomes a
unity of two genders and the cowboys being in the active position. Neuromancer and
Wintermute together taking control of the Matrix means conquering the feminine land,
just like America, which before it was conquered was the virgin land. Cyberspace is not
only a subversive place for women but also for “lesser” males. The console cowboys of
Gibson’s world are computer hackers but in real life they would be known as “nerds.” So
the real life nerds had been given a masculine makeover. With the name itself “cowboy,”
masculinity has been endowed with power. With all the knowledge and technology,
masculinity has been allotted to Case. With all the cuts and bruises that has been inflicted
on Case and his constant drug addiction, he seems to be a cowboy right out of a
Hollywood “guy” film. Masculinity is thus a burden on males too because it’s a constant
attempt to act masculine. Like gender performativity techno-masculinity or masculinity is
constructed because it depends on props.

5.3 Technofetishism
With the day to day improvements in technology, we are developing a fetish for
technology. Our techno lust is swelling day by day as new technologies arrive and change
our lifestyle. For example, showing off an ‘i-pod headphone’ has become a major trend
among our young generation, not as much as the ‘pod’ itself. According to Laura Mulvey
in her essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” a female body is fetishized to
create a disavowal from the castration complex. Disavowal being an act where the fetish
diverts the attention of the viewer from the castration anxiety towards that fetish. In this
age of technology there is also technofetishism. For females the fetish appears in two
ways either by showing hyper-femininity or by being an action girl just like Molly.
Hyper-femininity is the act of being excessively feminine by wearing make-up, girlish
attitudes and showing off flesh. Also in the techno age there is also fetishization of
masculinity. Cyborg being without gender there has been created a necessity of
fetishizing the body because the cyborg body is a lack. As patriarchy feels that there is a
need to fix gender so the technique of fetishization is applied to hide the lack. Thus
masculine fetishization also work in two ways. Showing off hyper-masculinity like in the
Terminator movies where Arnold Schwarzenegger is the lack and that lack is disavowed
by displaying hyper-masculinity. Also by creating a disavowal through technology like
our console cowboy Case the disavowal is created. As Case has been portrayed as the
follower not the action taker, he might be suffering from an identity crisis or he seems to
have been castrated. For Case the thrill of the cyberspace is everything and for that fixed
position of masculinity he wanted to escape the physical.

In the bars he’d frequented as a cowboy hotshot, the elite stance involved
a certain relaxed contempt for the flesh. The body was meat. (Gibson, 8)
Case’s indomitable urge to be the one with matrix creates the fetish and a
disavowal is created through the cyberspace and drugs. As drugs and cyberspace creates
the disavowal from the castration complex, it is also female empowerment which is
disavowed.
In Neuromancer there is another place where patriarchy dwells and that is the
Zion of the Rastafarians. Though the Zionists look up to Molly as a hero but all of Zion
is male inhibited. People would argue that it is the culture of the Rastafarians but there is
a reason why Maelcum helps Case. Being a patriarchal culture the Rastafarian Maelcum
decides to help Case not Molly. Maelcum becomes a patriarchal male sidekick for Case
as he helps him to learn the ways of the patriarchy.
Jean Pfaelzer observes that for women the present is flawed and the future is
perfect, as she also supports the technological age (Nixon, 219-20). I think there is a flaw
in the futuristic prophecies of the female thinkers because we live in the present not in the
past and not even in the future. Thinking and not taking any action in the present only to
wait for the future is a mistake made by many. If women don’t take action for themselves
the ‘lack’ of action will help to perpetuate the domination of patriarchy. This might be the
reason why we are more interested to trace out the anti-hero not the anti-heroine.
CHAPTER 5
The Perpetual Dystopia
Starting from the first wave feminism for suffrage rights women have come a
long way ensuring their rights. Now women have started working in every sphere of life
alongside men. They are getting equal and more opportunity than men. This is to provide
them with better opportunity to join the workforce and to compensate for the injustice
they have faced over the years. They have come out of their indoor imprisonment to
provide for their families and their own livelihoods. Now a days a lot women are seen
working in the factories. Specially in the garments sector, most of the workers are
women. Despite many women joining the workforce women in high ranking positions are
few in number. This is the politics of capitalist patriarchy because it creates sexual
hierarchy. As high ranking positions are only for a privileged few, most women are from
lower middle class to lower class who work in factories. Garments sector’s main work
force is women because sewing is a typical household woman’s job so they require little
training. Garments workers in our country are low paid and on top of that capitalist
patriarchy says that women are thought to be weaker than men so they do less amount of
job than a man and thus less paid than a man. Just like men women are taking their
chances to go abroad to find work. They go there as maids, nannies and cooks but most
of the times they are tricked and sold as sex workers. More or less women are trying to
come out of their cocoon and they are fighting for it. The effects of women’s triumphs
are also seen in the media, specially in the advertisements. Here I want to recall an
advertisement by “Radhuny Gura Mosla” called “Ma-Meye.” Here it is seen that a girl
who was taught to be strong and stand up for her rights. She seems to be protesting where
there is injustice and works in a good organization. But in the end it is seen that after all
the teachings her mother gave her, she is taken inside the kitchen to cook and by the last
words it is understood that her greatest triumph will be in the kitchen. So the point that I
am trying to make here is that the empowering of women remains through typical women
labor. Women are going abroad to find works but what kind of works? Not the kind of
jobs that men do when they go abroad. They do the same sort of work they did back at
home, the only difference is the place. Why is there so many women workers in the
garments sector because sewing is a household job. This tendency to keep women
constrained in the same household jobs is particularly promoted by the media. The media
promotes that the most success a women can achieve in work is through these household
works which they are good at. This way they promote the propaganda of making women
happy with their own typical state. On the other hand doing unconventional or manly jobs
have scared patriarchy of the encroachment of manly space. That is may be the reason
why a very few women are seen in the high ranking positions because men don’t want
women to boss them around. In this chapter I discuss how patriarchic politics of the
media is keeping women constrained.
6.1 Sex Sells
One thing about the media industry is that it is very much commercialized. One
aspect of making any thing commercial, by which to gain more profit from an
advertisement or a T.V. serial, is to make it sensual. Sensuality thus relates to sex. In our
media industry sex sells. Sex is used to make any product more appealing to the
consumer. That’s why starting from cars to food advertisements everywhere there is a
tendency to use sex to sell the product or to increase the sale of a product. Take for
example the car exhibitions where beautiful models are used to showcase a car. A man
could have been used on that place but girls are used to make the product more appealing.
In simpler sense it conveys the message that the particular car is a “chick magnet”
meaning that car will attract beautiful women. That’s why in our country even a simple
thing as a lip gel to prevent cracking, sex is used and not to mention the body sprays. One
thing is similar which is that everywhere women are becoming the object of gaze. The
only exception can be found on male underwear ads or macho movie posters. But one
important thing to be noticed here, which is the concept of Susan Bordo’s leaners and
rockers. Men sexualized posters contain both leaners and rockers, leaners being the
models not making any direct eye contact with the audience and rockers are those who
gaze back at the audience. Leaners take a more passive position inviting the gaze with a
leaning body and Rockers take a more active position challenging the gaze with a rock
solid stand. Sexualized advertisements where girls are used most of the time she takes the
position of a leaner. Thus she invites the gaze of the male audience and invites them to
take her as if she is waiting to be conquered. Now to relieve the male audience of the
castration complex which Laura Mulvey talks about another technique is used. Which is
the hypersexualization of the female body. With sensual gestures and perfect body and
with the help of computer technology, the female body is presented as an almost flawless
goddess. As a result the hypersexualized female body or an organ may be a hand or lips
or the cleavage become a fetish which creates the disavowal from the lack. Thus male
gaze is facilitated on that hypersexualized female body and the longer the gaze the better
the impact of that product on the consumer’s mind. Though female sexualization is
targeted for male audiences, these kind of attractive advertisements attract both male and
female and other gazes. Thus female sexuality is used for commercial purposes.
6.2 The Cloak of Disability
Make-up is a kind of disabling tool because it hinders anybody’s ability to do
anything freely. Wearing make-up has become a part of the feminine identity. But make-
up as an artificial beauty enhancement instrument, how did it come to define a gender?
Well the archetype of a women has been defined by patriarchy from ancient times but
today’s archetypes are there before our eyes but we are just not aware of it. Lennard J.
Davis in his book Enforcing Normalcy talks about the broken Venus De Milo statue as
the apex of Greek archetype of beauty though the statue is severely deformed. Drawing
on the dichotomy of Medusa and Venus, Davis says that our conception of beauty is
socially constructed. As our conception of beauty is socially constructed anything
differing from that are considered as abnormal or ugly. To escape the social realm of
ugliness girls have been taught to use make-up to make themselves beautiful. Following
the path of Davis a dichotomy can also be drawn between girls with make-up to that of a
clown. Again our social conception of beauty comes into play creating a divide between
what can be called a clown and what beauty. So make up constructs our modern day
conception of beauty. So if the make-up falls off they would become ugly. Thus to keep
the make-up on their faces they have to be always vigilant. The make-up that made them
normal is in turn making them disabled. This is what I call the cloak of disability. This is
one extreme. Another extreme can be considered the Hijab. It is said that for Hijab a girl
cannot show anything but their eyes when they go outside of the house. I find similarity
with a particular animal that man has been using from ancient times. It’s the mule. Mules
have black straps to cover their eyes so that they only see in front and move in one
direction. Hijab is like that of a directed mule which disables the women. I am not saying
that it is the religion but the enforcement of the religion is obviously done by man and
patriarchy has used hijab to keep women in control just like the mule. In this age of
global media the archetype of female beauty are set by big movie industries like
Hollywood or Bollywood. The glamorous superstars form the archetypes of beauty in
modern time both for women and men. Men archetypes represent how to be more
masculine and for women obviously, how to be more feminine. This ever widening gap
makes way for patriarchy who itself has set those archetypes for everyone to follow.
Even women want to follow what brand of make-up their favorite starts are putting on.
This is the glamour trap set by patriarchy in this age of media. Capitalist patriarchy make
money off those superstars and sets them as archetypes for everyone else to follow.
Money talks and capitalist patriarchy has money. Patriarchy has also defined the criteria’s
on how to be glamorous. It can only be achieved through wearing long gowns and hi-
heals and a lot of make-up. After all, we must remember who taught women to wear
heels because it is the set social normalcy to act like a woman and to accentuate the
figure of a woman. In case of mobility heels are also a disabling tool.
6.3 Hyperfeminism
According to Dick Hebdige subcultures develop as a resistance to the main stream
culture. When the subculture becomes mass culture or popular culture the main stream
culture tend to incorporate the culture within itself. Thus the subculture which started out
as a counter culture becomes that of the main stream culture. Main stream culture does
not let any counter culture to exist outside itself. Feminism can also be said to have
started out as a counter culture because women were deprived of their rights in the main
stream culture. So main stream culture can be labeled as patriarchic culture where the
hegemonic structure itself decides what will be culture and what not. When a subculture
is consumed by the main stream culture the popular culture becomes that of the main
culture and the hegemonic structure is renewed and perpetuated in the society. Main
stream culture is always morphing and adapting itself to whatever resistance comes its
way. Mainstream culture as patriarchal and subculture as feminine, feminism has been
incorporated into our media industry. Now a days we see the celebration of feminism in
advertisements, films and Reality shows that are being produced where we find
feminism. Popular Hollywood films like I Spit on Your Grave (1978) to classic films like
Stage Door (1937) or more recent films like Made in Dagenham (2010) all celebrate
feminism. If the main stream culture is patriarchal and the subculture is feminine then we
can come to the conclusion that feminism is a lack (castration complex) and a threat to
patriarchy. Threat also in the sense that feminism might also come to appeal many others
even when it is a part of the main stream culture. So to create a disavowal and to fend off
the threats, a notion of hyperfeminism has been created in the film industry. This is
achieved through the portrayal a female characters doing extraordinary feats of action
against a lot of men. This can be termed as a female maverick motif. In movies like Salt
(2010) or Underworld (2003) a single women is seen killing thousands of men. These
kind of films prevent men and women a like to feel affinity towards feminism by making
feminism appear as an attack upon patriarchy and masculinity and on overall humanity.
This sort of hyperfeminism cultivate misogynistic attitude inside men towards the female
folks. Hyperfeminism presents women as conquering everything unjustly and prevents

people from appreciating the cause of feminism. Through hyperfeminism the threat upon
patriarchy is averted by creating a make believe story about feminism. Media Industry
which represents all the cultures is essentially patriarchal and it intends to dominate
feminism through the concept of hyperfeminism.
6.4 Willing Submission
Media industry is constantly portraying women as how patriarchy wants them to
be. By portraying women the way I explained previously they are setting an ideal for
women. Anyone not fitting into the category is an outcast. She won’t be considered
woman like. The ideal set by the media is someone who will do household chores and
look real pretty and act womanly. By defining what a women should be like the media
industry is interpolating the idea of womanness. Interpolation is the method of integrating
an idea. An idea which is so deeply injected into the brain that anyone thinks that the way
s/he is behaving is natural and nobody taught them that. The ideal of a typical woman is
embedded into the psyche of the female folk that they tend to think women should be like
that and they cannot be anything more or less. What this process is doing is that it is
engineering women to walk a tight rope with a balancing stick. Media also sets ideal for
men too because it is very unmanly to do household chores. Thus media is defining
gender roles and why we should stick to our acts. By defining gender roles patriarchy
perpetuates its presence. By all of the media productions media is not only setting
archetypes for gender role but also manufacturing consent. Noam Chomsky in his book
Media Control (1997) describes the notion of manufacturing consent by the notion of
engineering opinion. Through the different images that we see in the media we are
becoming unwilling or willing participants of a brainwashing procedure. Whatever

propaganda that the hegemonic patriarchy tries to circulate it does through the media. The
constant circulation through advertisements, films and serials they embed the messages in
the viewer’s minds. That is how patriarchy manufactures consent for typical gender roles
paving the way for a patriarchal domination. But how do we take in what they are
intending without having to think otherwise because the interpretation of the decoded
message can differ. Stuart Hall in his essay Encoding/Decoding tells that there is always
a preferred reading of an encoded message. The decoded message might have three
possible responses. Dominant, negotiated and oppositional. The dominant meaning is the
intended preferred meaning. Negotiated meaning depends upon agreement and
disagreement. Oppositional meaning is totally opposite of the preferred meaning. The
producer of such patriarchal propaganda intend for the programmes to give the dominant
preferred meaning which most of the audience can grasp. This dominant preferred
meaning of the programmes provide and perpetuates the idea of typical gender roles.
Thus the media literally spoon feeds us on how to behave or who to be. So what is being
shown in the media it is what we are doing in real life. Our behaviors have come to be
materialized through the media. The things which did not exist before but have come to
exist through the media is called media materialization. Present media age have worked
covertly to put women on their typical positions in the name of freedom. Media have
been successful in normalizing the degraded position of women. Thus media plays a big
role in perpetuating the patriarchal dystopia.

Conclusion
Haraway talked about a Utopia in the dystopian future. A cyborgian Utopia
because she along with many others who believed in that prophecy thought that cyborg
will create a new era for women. But as we became data bodies the information emitting
from our bodies gives rise to new kinds of politics. Patriarchy is that hegemonic structure
which uses these information to dominate the women. So why did so much hope was put
on the emergence of a genderless entity? Is it only because it has no gender it will be able
to escape gender politics? Patriarchy uses the information of this information age to
reinscribe the bodies with the information of gender. Thus the body of the cyborg can
also be gendered. Even when we log into the cyberspace we need a gendered identity to
find a partner. So it is not that easy go usher in a genderless future. That’s why if gender
cannot be overcome the politics of the body and more specifically politics of the female
body cannot be overcome. Haraway had made the mistake in the outset, when she
thought the figure of cyborg to be essentially feminist. Because of her essentialist
position she cannot but help to overlook the factors of possible politics lying inherently.
Without knowing the technology first hand it is quite impossible to announce that the
figure of cyborg will change the future for women. Cyborg is without history and devoid
of any complexes but it isn’t devoid of culture. So as long as patriarchy is there cyborg
cannot rise above the politics of patriarchy. Within all the tug of war about gendered
entity and non-gendered entity I think we are forgetting a very crucial part, what it is to
be human. May be without trying to find a solution to this gender war with a non-
gendered entity, I think it is more important to respect each other as a fellow human
being. If we have respect for another fellow human being I think all of the troubles can be
avoided. Say for example in the matriarchal societies of Rangamati or Bandarban we see
males and females working in the fields together harmoniously. We have never heard of a
news of rape from the tribal people of our country and the reason behind this is because
as matriarchal societies men have a certain level of respect for their women. By this I am
not saying that we need matriarchal social system in our society too but what I am saying
is, we the male folks definitely need to show more respect for our women. If we respect
our women we would in turn be able to end this hate game. I can only think of a utopian
society, where everybody will respect the person equally of the opposite gender. True
equality and harmony between gender relations can only be achieved through respect.
That’s why to create a better future for all of us we do not need any man and machine
mongrel but what we do need is a lot of awareness and respect for the opposite sex.
In this age of information technology, information has become the life blood of
the generation. The cyberspace or the internet is just a network of information. It is not
that hard to get information about someone from the cyberspace, it is just a matter of
going online. Anyone with a hacking ability could get access to more personal
information about a person which could be used to deal critical damage to his livelihood.
Just by looking at Julian Assange and his “wikileaks” we can comprehend the power of
information. That is why information is the most valuable commodity and at the same
time it is the most vulnerable commodity. The potential of information is virtually
limitless. If patriarchy gets hold of such vulnerable information it could very well mean
the perpetuation of the patriarchal covert dystopia and the perpetuation of hegemony.
That is why cyber security is a big issue. If cyber security is not ensured properly then it
is a constant threat that this big ocean of information could fall into the wrong hands.
Cyber security has to be ensured if we want to create a better future because there are a
lot of revolution that is taking place online. At the same time it has to be remembered that
information as a commodity has come to serve only a chosen few. In order to get the
maximum benefits out of the information must be made available to everybody. To break
the informatics of domination we must ensure that everybody has proper access to the
information s/he requires to uplift her position. This is specially appropriate for the
women in third world countries. As they do not have proper access to the internet or
cyberspace they are under the domination of informatics. To escape this domination
information has to be made easily accessible and available to everyone. Information only
when it is distributed equally can help in the greater good of humanity.
Media is always used by the dominant class for manipulation. In media there is
always hypocrisy of the dominant class to subjugate the lower class. The most important
thing about this media manipulation is that the brainwash process is a silent process. So
without media literacy it is quite impossible to know about the media politics. Media
literacy is that ability to critically analyze what is being communicated through mass
media. It is the ability to question to find out the motif behind the images on the screen.
There are three stages to media literacy. First stage is to become aware. Second stage is
the questioning of the presented material. Third stage is to find out the makers purpose. If
media literacy is there it will be harder for the dominant class to manipulate the masses.
Moreover it will be harder for patriarchy to spread its propaganda and dominate the
women.
Transcending through technology holds the ultimate form of potential for a
human being. Transforming oneself to nothing but data creates the opportunity for
mingling with infinite amount of data. Transcendence through technology also provide us
with opportunity of immortality. But on the other hand we are relatively new to this sort
of technology, so we are still unsure what this transcendence is capable of. If we are not
careful with the use of technology we might fail to grasp the potential of our neural
circuit. The fusion of technology with our minds can prove to be dangerous because the
future prophesized by cyberpunk could release a monster. Meddling with technology
which we do not yet fully comprehend could release monster from our ‘id’ if cyberspace
do become a projection of our mind just like in the film Forbidden Planet (1956) or the
famous anime Akira (1988). All this talk about transcendence but very few are caring for
the importance of the body. I think it is easier said than done to escape the body. The
body forms our identity without this body there is a chance that we might suffer from
identity crisis. The external information that each of our body constantly emanates about
our sex, about our attitude, our postures and gestures define us. Without these external
information we lose a very important defining factor and another thing is that even if we
do escape our bodies, can we continue our existence without these information, is a
question of much debate.
Cyborg alleviates the politics of gender it also at the same time alleviates the
human power of reproduction. The human machine fusion creates a ghost in a shell
because our mind becomes a construct inside a shell of a body. Just like the famous
anime Ghost in the Shell (1995) major Kusanagi is nothing but a human mind construct
in a mechanized body. ‘It’ is just a machine without any human emotions. If we are
talking about machines then comes the question of industrialization. Corporate industries
will start to mass produce these human like machines, decreasing human dignity to
nothing but cold metal. We would then be nothing more than products. That’s why it is
important to think about what will be the condition of humanity in the cyborgian future.
Machines are the products of mass production and mass production can substitute
reproduction.
This is the age of post feminism. Post feminism holds that patriarchy has been
defeated and celebrates feminine attitudes like beauty and shopping. There is also another
aspect of celebrating sex and encouraging women more into doing parties and one night
stands. This seems women are fulfilling men’s need. Louis Althusser’s ISA explains
these ideology injection for hegemonic purpose. In the subtler level patriarchy is working
through ideology can be termed as postpatriarchy. According to Althusser, the family
works as an ideological state apparatus or ISA. Ours is a patriarchic chivalrous culture.
The males from a very early age is taught chivalry. For example, Women and children
first, opening a door for a lady or not to hit girls etc. Now a days these acts are considered
as of beholding women as weak. In our patriarchic society these ideas are instilled into
children by their parents. Also from educational institutions children are taught these sort
of ideas. Thus through ISA patriarchy is operational in our society and postpatriarchy is
accomplishing its ends. So we don’t need a feminism that just simply seeks equality for
everyone but we need a feminism that looks forward to annihilate sexist oppression as
well.
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Covert Dystopia in Postmodern Fiction: Persistence

of Patriarchal Cynicism or Gender Role Reversal?

Signature of the Supervisor Date

Signature of the Chair Date

MA (in Literatures in English and Cultural Studies)

Firstly, I would like to convey my humble gratitude and respect to my supervisor,

all times sake.

express my gratitude to my brother, my sister and my niece, for no particular reason at

Haraway underestimates patriarchy by taking an essentialist position. The objective in my

world. To do so I will draw attention to Neuromancer in revealing how patriarchy is

feminism, all express the importance of an entity of post/pseudogenderism to fight off

resistance getting succumbed into the politics of post-patriarchy, is still waiting to be

Keywords: Covert Dystopia, Patriarchy, Cyber-feminism, Neuromancer, Media,

Body Politics, Cyberspace.

Signature of the Supervisor Date

AUTHORSHIP STATEMENT…………………………………………………….. iii

1.1 Literature Review……………………………………………………….. 5

1.4 Rationale ………………………………………………………………... 8

1.5 Objective ………………………………………………………………... 8

2.0 CHAPTER 1 – The Making of a Prophecy……………………………………… 10

2.1 From Suffering to Suffrage……………………………………………… 10

2.2 The Radical Thinkers……………………………………………………. 13

2.4 To Cyborg and Beyond………………………………………………….. 16

3.0 CHAPTER 2 – (Re)Locating the Body………………………………………….. 21

3.1 Butler’s Iterability……………………………………………………….. 22

3.2 Data Body vs. Posthuman………………………………………………... 24

3.3 Hard and Soft SF………………………………………………………… 26

3.4 Domination as Normalcy………………………………………………… 27

4.0 CHAPTER 3 – Neuromantic Feminism……………………………………...… 30

4.1 Razor Grrrl Molly………………………………………………………. 31

4.2 Passive Case………………………………………………………......... 35

4.3 Smoldering Flame of the Beat………………………………………….. 36

5.0 CHAPTER 4 – The Game of Shadows……………………………………….... 39

5.1 Commercialized Cyberspace…………………………………………… 41

5.2 Sensual Cyberspace and the Female Rollercoaster……………………... 42

6.0 CHAPTER 5 – The Perpetual Dystopia……………………………………….... 48

6.1 Sex Sells………………………………………………………………… 49

6.2 The Cloak of Disability…………………………………………………. 51

6.4 Willing Submission……………………………………………………... 54

Human history is a culmination of changes but it is these changes that we are

enjoyed as spoils of war. Throughout (his)tory women were oppressed, repressed,

Wikipedia “[F]eminism is a collection of movements and ideologies aimed at defining,

initiated the era of the postgender. According to Wikipedia “Postgenderism is a diverse

assistive reproductive technologies… Postgenderism as a cultural phenomenon has roots

in feminism, masculism, along with the androgyny, metrosexual/technosexual and

agenda. So whether patriarchal cynicism persisted in the era of the cyberspace or

Cyberspace is a complex network of communications. Wikipedia says that

“cyberspace refers to the global network of interdependent information technology

infrastructures, telecommunications networks and computer processing systems in which

Cyberspace as William Gibson describes it is a “consensual hallucination” (Gibson, P.1).

where gender roles will be reversed.

My dissertation title refers to “covert dystopia.” To understand dystopia we must

first know what is an utopia. As stated in Wikipedia “utopia is a community or society

well understand what would be a dystopia. According to Wikipedia “dystopia is a

community or society, usually fictional that is in some important way undesirable or

frightening […] Dystopias are often characterized by dehumanization, totalitarian

governments, environmental disaster, or other characteristics associated with a

cataclysmic decline in society.” Dystopia is a society which is undesirable by its citizen.

dystopia, alien dystopia etc. The dystopia I am talking about in my dissertation is a

Dystopias usually exist in fictions. As a prominent science fiction novel William

Gibson’s Neuromancer is a dystopian novel. To portray my dystopian condition there is

more understandable to the readers.

1.1 Literature Review: