Research On The Female Body In Cyberspace

Body has always been an important academic research topic in the feminist history for thousands of years,the patriarchal society has almost completely projected denial and discrimination into the female body through political,economic and cultural means.In this sense,to better justify the female body,it is very necessary for the feminism to break the fixed,masculine binary body concept,and further construct her own body theory.Feminism is also an important component from the perspective of the entire body research and its academic development history.it would be a fresh perspective for body research,and better revealing body differences and its interaction with culture and ideology to re-examine the relationships between body and technology,consumerism,politics,culture and education etc.,if taking feminism as a methodology,thus enriching the body theory greatly.Since the beginning of the 21st century,the rapid development of digital virtual technology has promoted the birth of cyberspace,which takes the computer and other electronic devices as the window,network information and virtual technology as the foundation,as well as new ways of communication as the medium.This new form of space folly realizes the interaction of body and technology,making the center of body activity gradually transforms from the traditional space to cyberspace.Thus,a series of new problems have arisen,such as the new changes in the living conditions of the body,as well as the blurring of the body boundaries in the new space and the reconstruction of the subjectivity,leading to great changes in aesthetic experience and consumption,and further forming new challenges to ethics,which gradually become the new theoretical and practical focus in the field of contemporary technology and humanistic philosophy.Currently,the most realistic situation faced by body is to coexist with cyberspace in a way that is surrounded by cyber technology in all directions,so what does this mean to women?With the combination of the body theory,phenomena and practice,and taking feminism as the research perspective and methodology,this paper mainly adopts the literature review,logical analysis,interdisciplinary and comparative research methods to conduct a comprehensive and objective summary of the changes and problems faced by female body from four aspects;namely,body and space,body and technology,body and consumption and body ethics,,in order to understand female body comprehensively and therefore form a clear mind of the rights and problems brought by cyberspace.Introduction:Through reviewing the research history and current situation of body,as well as the problems in the previous feminist research,this part proposes new body problems faced by women in cyberspace,and also summarizes the corresponding research methods,basic ideas and goals.Chapter One Body travelling;from physical space to cyberspace.Based on the introduction of the cyberspace concepts,this chapter focuses on the following aspects to provide foundation for this paper,including the history review and summary of space theories,the definition of cyberspace,as well as the relationship between body,physical space and cyberspace.It can be concluded that the cyberspace has gone beyond the traditional geopolitics,capital space,urban space and other postmodern space forms,and become a two-way superpositional "super space" formed by the subject mind space and digital virtual technology,which has the characteristics of real experience,virtual reality,mutual communication,open freedom,fragmentation and structural field.In other words,it is a combination of utopia and heterotopia,a mixture of reality and non-reality,as well as the contraction of cybernetics and freedom,thus bringing to female body the unprecedented opportunities and challenges,and emancipation and alienation,and also inspiring new reflections of female body in cyberspace.Chapter Two Technological female body.This part mainly discusses the new features and the new problems caused by virtual technology in the cyberspace.Specifically,firstly,from the history of technology,this part reviews the relationship between body and the technology,their separation at the very beginning,till the gradual developed interaction in the current cyberspace,has indicated that the technology gradually internalize itself into human body,making the boundary between body and technology gradually blurred.Then,it introduces cyberfeminism and Donna J.Haraway's body image of cyborg.based on the above,this paper further proposes cyborg a hybrid of human and electronic machinery,as the subjectivity body in the cyberspace,declaring that "everyone is nothing but cyborg".then the paper further explores the denotation and connotation of cyborg body,interpret its theoretical significance,practical value and limitations from the perspective of feminism.Then it is to focus on the two development directions of the cyborg:disembodied cyborg and embodied cyborg in the cyberspace.It proposes they are not quite opposing to each other.On the contrary,they are the development directions for connecting the internal body cognition and external interaction.In this sense,the dilemma caused by disembodiment in feminist body theory and practice can be resolved only by returning to the embodied nature in the age of technology.Then,the paper discusses cyborg imagination in science fiction and practice by biomedicine/information technology,suggesting that there is a gap between the technical body imagination of feminist and the social technical reality.In other words,the feminism should not only clarify the emancipating effect of technology on the body,but be aware of its close connection with the patriarchal society and consumerism as well:cyberspace may aggravate gender violence in depth and breadth;disembodiment may block women from her own unique body experiences,and seduce women to pursue an ideal sexual body stereotype for men's gaze has never been challenged in technological communication;The technical cyberspace may the depth and breadth of technical the physical separation given by virtual reality may lead to the lack of unique experience closely connected with women's bodies;men's gaze is not challenged in the technical communication,and women who are far away from the "weight of the body" may move towards an extreme gender solidification,a ubiquitous preference supported by big data and fake information on Internet would also reduce women's freedom to a piece of empty talk,and lead them to a choice from "no choice".Chapter Three Symbolic female body.Based on the previous chapter,this chapter mainly focuses on the new characteristics and problems of body in cyberspace from the perspective of consumerism,which explains the symbolization of female body with the help of a causal interaction between new consumerism and cyberspace.In the virtual era,there is a gradual transition in market logic from the traditional consumerism to new consumerism which caters for individual body imagination t and cyberspace is becoming the link between this body imagination and the new consumerism.On the one hand,the "simulation" and "hyper-reality" technologies in cyberspace enable the immersed body to complete its imagination,better pursue the personalized and enjoyable way of life advocated by the new consumerism,and further obtain a short-term,limited freedom.On the other hand,it can magnify the symbolic meaning of body,which makes it become an equivalent under the new consumeristic environment of virtual reality.From the consumer society to the cyberspace,the body has been continuously deconstructed and reorganized by the Internet and intelligent technology,thus becoming a public,fragmented,aesthetic and imaginative body.As a symbolic sign of sex and desire,the body has been infinitely extended,making it become superficial and vulgar in the interactive passiveness with cyberspace and consumerism.Moreover,the disembodiment of the body given by cyber-technology has seriously exacerbated the complexity of body issue and also prompted new thinking of the body ethics.Chapter Four Moral body.This chapter is mainly a summary of the responses and classification of the body problems discussed in the above chapters.First of all,through reviewing the literature,this chapter lists out challenges towards traditional ethics out of technology breakthroughs and feministic discoveries,which promotes a turn to body ethics.Secondly,with body ethics and feminism,this chapter mainly divides the above-mentioned body problems into two major categories.One is the identity and self-alienation,including identity/self-identity crisis and self-alienation in the cyberspace,while the other is the individual and public issues of the body,including the body presence/absence,privacy exposure,cross-domain display and erotic body,which can help further explore possible solutions from the dialectical balance between the virtual and reality,freedom and responsibility,as well as globalization and localization.Conclusion:Technology,cyborg body and ethics "on the road".The comprehensive review and conclusion actually point out that the continuous advancement of body technology can directly lead to the body and its ethics on the road.Therefore,to correctly and comprehensively understand the female body in cyberspace,it is not only necessary to grasp the relationship between body and space beyond the duality of body and mind,but clearly understand the limited freedom and liberation given by the technology.In this way,the corresponding body ethics research must also keep up with the changes in technology and body.