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The Feminine and Technology in Distant Cultures

By Oksana Cheypesh.

Published by The International Journal of the Humanities

Marshall McLuhan distinguishes between “oral” cultures, or privileging emotionality, and
“visual,” mostly Western cultures, or those emphasizing rationality. This paper will discuss the local
reinterpretation of Western cultural patterns by presenting a comparative analysis of representations
of the feminine and technology in Western and Eastern European cultures. Marina and Sergiy Dyachenko’s
science fiction-fantasy novel The Wild Energy: Lana and Donna Haraway’s essay “A Cyborg
Manifesto” will help to illustrate differences between Western and Eastern European cultural perceptions
and interpretations. In Western science fiction, technology and the masculine are the usual attributes
of power, while the feminine is excluded from this alliance. Haraway’s argument illustrates
this tendency by subordinating the feminine cyborg to technology. The Dyachenkos’ novel connects
technology and power, a concept borrowed from the Western tradition; however, the Dyachenkos reinterpret
the Western pattern while incorporating matriarchal elements into their novel and associating
the feminine with technology and power.

International Journal of the Humanities, Volume 7, Issue 2, pp.89-100. Article: Print (Spiral Bound). Article: Electronic (PDF File; 1.208MB).

Oksana Cheypesh

PhD student, Comparative Literature, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada