“I should have let her die”: a Posthuman Future between (Re)- Embodiment and Cyborgian Concepts

Abstract

The scenarios invoked in science fiction literature derive from imaginative concepts and futuristic technologies, and set out to fabricate and explore a potential future. Whereas the early development of science fiction stories showed a stronger emphasis on scientific and technical accuracy–hard science fiction–this has in the present day become increasingly dispensable, coining the expression of soft science fiction. Science fiction is the umbrella term for a wide range of genres which share various recurring themes including futuristic time settings in the future, scientific achievements that challenge state-of-the-art physical laws, and alternate social systems that depict a post-apocalyptic or post-scarcity world. Especially soft science fiction allows for the close investigation of social circumstances, philosophical reevaluations of what it means to be human, and contesting gender roles, while simultaneously emphasizing their impact on an imaginative society or even a posthuman state. Therefore, the depiction of gender roles functions as an important theme in science fiction literature, as it allows for a critical evaluation of stereotypes and underlying disparities. Focusing on the three short stories, C. L. Moore’s “No Woman Born” (1944), James Tiptree, Jr.’s “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” (1973) and Shariann Lewitt’s “A Real Girl” (1998), this paper illustrates the notion of gender and embodiment, with particular consideration of the advantageous influences the posthuman state has on female gender roles. Each of these short stories serves as examples of enhancement in the portrayal of the female gender in science fiction literature and the different representation lays bare its struggles within the genre. Whereas “A Real Girl” addresses the issue of the female gender as a sexually desirable object as perceived through the eyes of the self-appointed female AI, “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” and “No Woman Born” thematize becoming a cyborg, the oppression of the female body by a dominant sovereignty, a desired ideal state of femininity and the imprisonment of gender, set in a highly technologized society. Whether in the form of exclusion through otherness based on differences between computers and humankind, or gender marginalization, these short stories depict social standards which the main characters fail to fulfill. However, the futuristic worlds the stories are set in allow for adjustment in order for the characters to take part in society. This paper, hence, will explore what could be called science fiction standard, its relation to gender roles and also investigate the thought- provoking–and uncanny–aspects of the cyborg figure and a critical evaluation of the posthuman-state as such.