---
title: "Feminist technoscience"
chunk: 3/3
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_technoscience"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:36:42.012246+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== Bioethics and capitalism ===
The development of reproductive technologies blur the lines between nature and technology, allowing for the reconfiguration of life itself. Through the advances of genetic technologies, the controlling of pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood has become increasingly possible through intrusive means.  These advances in biotechnology are serving to develop life as a commodity and deepen monetary inequality - a link made by feminist theorists such as Donna Haraway.  Genetic engineering also brings about questions in eugenics, leading early radical feminist analysis to declare and attempt to reclaim motherhood as a foundation of female identity. The idea of a green, natural motherhood was popularized by ecofeminists who celebrated the identification of women with nature, and natural life.
Haraway instead chooses to embrace technology as feminist instead of reverting to this idea of naturalized femininity. By embracing the image of the cyborg,  an amalgamation that is neither human/animal nor machine, Haraway explores the ideas of technoscience and gender, conceptualizing a space where gender is an arbitrary, unnecessary construct.
The corporatization of biology through the alteration of nature through technology is also a theme explored by Haraway. The OncoMouse is a laboratory mouse genetically modified to carry a specific gene which increases the creature's chance of developing cancer.  Until 2005, American conglomerate DuPoint owned the patent to the OncoMouse, reconfiguring and relegating life to a commodity. This development in genetic engineering brings up questions about lab animal treatment, as well as ethical questions around class and race. Increasing breast cancer rates in Black women are discussed in ecofeminist analysis of the modification of lab animals from breast cancer research to being the discussion into an ethically ambiguous space.  Haraway in particular raises the question of whether modifying and expending a live commodity like OncoMouse is ethical if it leads to the development of a cure for breast cancer.
The reconfiguring of life in biotechnologies and genetic engineering allow for a precedence to be set, leading to capitalist cultural consequences.  Through these technologies technoscience becomes naturalized, and also becomes increasingly subject to the process of commodification and capital accumulation in transnational capitalist corporations. Similar to Marxist and Neo-Marxist analyses of sciences, biotechnologies allow for the concept of commodity to become fetishized as genes are reified to have a monetary value outside of use value.  This also positions life and nature as things to be exploited by capitalism.

== See also ==
Cyberfeminism
Digital rhetoric
Annemarie Mol
Donna Haraway
Evelyn Fox Keller
John Law
Judy Wajcman
Karen Barad
Lucy Suchman
Nina Lykke
Sandra Harding
TechnoFeminism

== Further reading ==
Faulkner, Wendy (January 2001). "The technology question in feminism". Women's Studies International Forum. 24 (1): 79–95. doi:10.1016/S0277-5395(00)00166-7.
Giordano, Sara (2017). "Feminists increasing public understandings of science: a feminist approach to developing critical science literacy skills". Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies. 38 (1): 100–123. doi:10.5250/fronjwomestud.38.1.0100. JSTOR 10.5250/fronjwomestud.38.1.0100. S2CID 152248924.
Xavier, Mínguez Alcaide (January 2015). "Métodos de Diálogo con Grandes Grupos. Herramientas para afrontar la complejidad". Revista de Estudios Sociales (51): 186–197. doi:10.7440/res51.2015.14.

== Notes ==

== References ==
Booth, Shirley (2010). Gender Issues in Learning and Working with Technology: Social Contexts and Cultural Contexts. Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference. p. 69. ISBN 978-1-61520-813-5.
Whelan, Emma (2001). "Politics by Other Means: Feminism and Mainstream Science Studies". The Canadian Journal of Sociology. 26 (4): 535–581. doi:10.2307/3341492. JSTOR 3341492.
Wajcman, Judy (2004). Technofeminism (Reprint ed.). Cambridge, United Kingdom: Polity. ISBN 978-0-7456-3043-4.
Elovaara, Pirjo; Mörtberg, Christina (2010). Travelling thoughtfulness: feminist technoscience stories. Umeå: Department of Informatics, Umeå University. ISBN 978-91-7459-094-4.
Weber, Jutta Davis, Kathy; Evans, Mary; Lorber, Judith (2006). From Science and Technology to Feminist Technoscience (PDF). pp. 397–414. ISBN 9780761943907. In: Handbook of Gender and Women's Studies; Davis K, Evans M, Lorber J
Åsberg, Cecilia; Lykke, Nina (5 November 2010). "Feminist technoscience studies". European Journal of Women's Studies. 17 (4): 299–305. doi:10.1177/1350506810377692. S2CID 146433213.
Gill, Rosalind (March 2005). "Technofeminism". Science as Culture. 14 (1): 97–101. doi:10.1080/09505430500042130. S2CID 219715620.

== External links ==
Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
van der Velden, Maja; Mörtberg, Christina (November 2012). "Between Need and Desire: Exploring Strategies for Gendering Design". Science, Technology, & Human Values. 37 (6): 663–683. doi:10.1177/0162243911401632. S2CID 146481731.
Review of “Technofeminism” of Judy Wajcman, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Spanish)
Norma (Nordic Journal for Masculinity Studies)
International Journal of Feminist Technoscience
Kvinder, Køn & Forskning
Tidsskrift för genusvetenskap
Tidsskrift for kjønnsforskning
Centre for Gender and Women's Studies