“A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century” By Donna Haraway talked about a cyborg that is a combination of machine and human being. Cyborgs seem to merge between reality and fiction. There have been many movies that try to create the story of cyborgs. When I saw the title of the article, I thought of the Terminator, Edward Scissorhands, Bicentennial Man, Star Wars, and A.I. movies but when I read it I was surprised that the author could link the concept of cyborg with gender, race, class, sexuality, ethnics, and politics. It does not seem to go together but she did it. I thought this article would be about sci-fi or high-tech but it turned out that it is quite intense in detail. However, the author did a good job on tightening technology-cyborg with socialist-feminism. The author also points out that actually we are cyborgs, even though we don’t know we are. The advanced medicine we take, the food we eat, and other things that relate in our lives have changed us from regular human beings to cyborgs. For example, people with Rheumatoid Arthritis may have to joint replace with metal and plastic joints. This makes them like cyborgs. I like the part where she talked about three border crossings: humans and animals, humans and machines, and the physical and nonphysical. Modern technologies such as cross genus transplantation, DNA modification, biotechnology, genetic engineering, cryptography, the Internet, social software and social networking allow people to change their daily lives. Cyborgs are with us and co-inhabit everywhere we live. I liked the end of the article that the author said “the machine is us.” I am also wondering why Prof. Kathleen uses as her URL name http://machines.pomona.edu. Is it related to this context?

The Body and the Screen: Theories of Internet Spectatorship by Michele White is also linked to feminism and gender like Haraway’s article. This book is quite new compared to other articles and books that we read in class. The author looked at the connection of the virtual and the real, similar to the fiction and the reality of Haraway’s article. This book and Haraway’s article talked about feminism but in the movies that I have watched I found that only male actors are the main characters. Most of the cyborgs in the movie don’t want to be created like this. They have no choice. Humans built them and ordered them to be what humans want. I liked the Edward Scissorhands of Tim Burton. Edward is a young gentle man who has real love for a lovely woman but he can’t love her because his hands can’t touch anything without destroying it. It is not his fault but he has no choice. There also is the lovely legend of the snow. White talked about cinema theory and media in the digital age such as the Internet.

Last Friday, I attended a MMP conference at CGU and I had a chance to listen to Agi’s research. Her interesting study relates to girls and computer games. She conducted a longitudinal study and provided information about the power of girl buyers who usually spend their money on cosmetics, clothes, and accessories. But a few of them do pay for games. The question is why women don’t like to play games as men do. What is the boundary that makes male and female so different? Perhaps because game programmers are men, they know and understand what men like. I think most men like to play games and are willing to pay for. Only a few women I know like to play games. Why? Agi is still conducting research on this question.