In some personal, post-writing cyborg thoughts, I’m more than halfway through this pregnancy so I think I’m now authorized to say this:
I really can’t believe this is how we are making new people still!!
Like, why? My experience is totally fine and uneventful, but it seems like there should be a technological alternative by now
My mom is horrified that I don’t feel thrilled to be the embodiment of the divine feminine by now 😅
It’s cool when the kid kicks sometimes (though other times annoying), but generally pregnancy is just a mildly annoying and bizarre, temporary medical quirk to me still
V excited to meet the future person, though!! It’s just that having my body make them feels divorced from them being their own person in the future.
Also should add: I am in no way anxious or depressed due to pregnancy. Still feeling less anxious and more confident + hopeful than at any other point in my adult life! Don’t worry!!
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One of the things I want readers to know about the Cyborg Manifesto is that it's mostly about mundane technologies and modes of organizing work + family that hugely predate the 1980s
The paper is often taken up as being about futures, acceleration, new modes of technological enhancement and achievement and the dangers they pose.
But also!
It's about being a feminized secretary and vulnerable to a boss's lewd gaze; about the re-establishment of gender roles in the home among white, US engineering elites; about women and girls oppressed by global capital + intimate patriarchy doing hazardous industrial work by hand
Ok so, more bad COVID math and uncritical reception of "science" on the tl today: that COVID risk calculator map is interesting, but remember that due to politics, racism, economic policy, and American refusal to act in solidarity, COVID + COVID risk IS NOT evenly distributed.
And very specifically in relation to attending family Thanksgiving gatherings: if you are the type of person thinking it's a good idea to travel and/or visit with 10+ family members right now in the first place, you're probably exposing yourself way more than me to begin with.
Plus, we know that risk isn't evenly distributed due to racism (Black, Latinx, Filipino people more likely working in healthcare and other essential jobs) and classism (low-paid jobs don't offer paid sick leave, health insurance, and are the ones mostly classified as "essential")