From Androgynous to Hybrid Cybernetic Bodies: Salvation or More Subjugation?

Abstract

Throughout the world, the predominant understanding of gender is based on the claim that there is a causal relationship between sex, gender, and body. The assumption is that first there is a sex, which is conveyed through a socially constructed gender, and then bodily desires and sexuality are shaped in accordance with that constructed gender. However, Virginia Woolf, one of the prominent literary figures of the twentieth century, persistently tries to challenge this assumption that all people fall into one of the two distinct gender categories, masculine or feminine, established on biological sex traits. For her, de(con)structing the gender distinctions and liberating the imprisoned body from the phallocentric determinism is possible through a dynamic and fluctuating quality of identity accompanied by a non-exclusive form of androgyny. In keeping with Woolf’s idea of androgyny, Jeanette Winterson, a contemporary British writer and critic, also stresses the importance of breaking free from the constraints imposed by heteronormativity through multifarious identities and gender fluidity. Nevertheless, Winterson takes this androgynous exploration of Woolf to a new level in her The Stone Gods (2007) by delving deeper into the concept of hybrid cybernetic bodies constructed through the implementations of twenty-first-century technology. Thus, considering the above discussions of Woolf and Winterson and basing its argument on gender and body politics of posthumanism, this paper explores whether this d/evolution from androgynous bodies to hybrid cybernetic bodies heralds salvation from phallocentric restrictions or poses more risks of subjugation for nonhu(man)s through the implementations of heteronormative technology.

Keywords

• Androgynous
• Hybrid
• Cybernetic Bodies
• Jeanette Winterson
• The Stone Gods

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