The Politics of Being a Cyborg

According to Kameron Klauber, in the MIT course on Gender and Technology,

After reading Donna Haraway's 1985 piece "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century" I've learned to appreciate the identity of a cyborg as much more than physical.  According to Haraway a cyborg is more in the political realm ... because of their relationship to society as well as their rejection or acceptance of societal norms.  In this respect the monster is still not fully a cyborg.  Although he is created by Victor, who then abandons him, the Monster seeks acceptance from society but never succeeds because of his terrifying physical appearance.  He then proceeds to learn to read and speak in order to overcome the barriers that society has built for him.  The monster hopes to transcend his appearance, to conform, to learn the language, and eventually create the nuclear family by asking Victor to create for him a bride. 

By attempting to fit into the box society has deemed the "norm" the Monster is really a rejection of modern cyborgism.  According to Haraway a "cyborg does not dream of community on the model of the organic family".... From Haraway's standpoint, 'women of colour' are much more cyborgian than Frankenstein's creature ... a "potent subjectivity synthesized from fusions of outsider identities" in a society where often women of colour are the "preferred labour force for the science-based industry" (174). The women themselves are in some ways the technology based on their role in the labor force.  Because they encompass multiple outsider persona's they are also capable of accomplishing the strongest sense of unity.

As a political entity the cyborg is something that represents a different more radical way of thinking.... The Monster of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein on the other hand is an outsider but does not have radical aspects to his character outside of his gruesome appearance.