Feminism Meets Transhumanism

Speaker 1

I am pleased to introduce Claire Osborne. Claire is one of the leading voices on the intersections of Mormonism, feminism, and transhumanism. She currently serves as the director of the Mormon Transhumanist Association.

Speaker 2

Having been our CEO. Blair holds a GFA in design from the International Academy of Design and Technology, Seattle. She’s pursuing a second bachelor’s degree in philosophy with an emphasis in gender studies. She’s passionate about. Aesthetics, religion, human sexuality, queer theory, social philosophy, and art. And she’s a fine artist. She and her husband Drew reside in Utah with their three children. Please welcome the fire. Sorry, just a second.

Blaire Ostler

It says be advocate sort of the way there was a lot of Much feminism can learn from transhumanism, and much transhumanism can learn from feminism. Today, I have the lofty goal of converting all feminists to transhumanism, and all transhumanists into feminists. And I have 15 minutes to do it.

Blaire Ostler

I’ll start by walking you through a brief history of U. S. feminism that engages, that, when engaged in constructively, should lead to transhumanism. This will include a critique, a post-feminist critique of feminism.

Blaire Ostler

Dispensing my critique of feminism could be seen by the most orthodox and dogmatic of feminists as the sort of apostasy that condemns me to the fires of feminist hell. But I will also be giving a mild critique of the transhumanist movement. Essentially, this means I run the risk of offending everyone in the room. So, the most important thing to do is to listen, keep an open mind, and reach the conclusion that I am right.

Blaire Ostler

Before I go further, I offer a brief disclaimer. Post-feminism is not anti-feminism. I value women’s liberation, and the purpose of this criticism is not a public flogging of feminist thought, but to point out room for improvement. specifically in relation to science, technology, and philosophy. Though I offer my heretical critique of my feminist community, I will still defend anything in feminism that is virtuous, lovely, or of good report. or praiseworthy.

Blaire Ostler

My intentions are genuine gender liberation, and transhumanism offers bodily liberation beyond even the queerest of most contemporary gender theorists and philosophers. When I say gender liberators, I am suggesting a view of feminism or perhaps post-feminism that moves beyond gender equality. Gender liberators seek to create an existence Where gender does not mandate unnecessary expectations or limitations of what a person is capable of.

Blaire Ostler

First wave feminism. First wave fragmentism roughly occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries, though its origins have roots in the 18th century, particularly During the Enlightenment, political philosophy encountered controversy over gender differences. The critical discourse at hand was one of women’s participation in state government. This is known as women’s suffrage.

Blaire Ostler

In the Utah Territory, Mormon feminists were at the forefront of the women’s suffrage movement. Utah women were among the first to vote in the U. S. Emmeline B. Wells, Liza R. Snow, and Zina D. H. Young, all of whom served as General Relief Society presidents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Are among the most notable women’s rights advocates participating in the women’s suffrage movement, representing Utah Territory as polygamous women. Y’all knew I was going to bring them up.

Blaire Ostler

Liberal feminism was born during the first wave feminism. Liberal feminism is concerned with ending sexism within the existing form of governance and abolishes laws prohibiting female participation. Liberal feminist philosophers Harriet Taylor Mill and Jon Stuart Mill would argue in The Subjection of Women and the Enfranchisement of Women for one. the legal rights between the sexes, two, for the independence of women, and three against social theories of biological determinism Biological determinism suggests that human behavior is determined by one’s genetics and often at the expense of recognizing social and environmental factors.

Blaire Ostler

Liberal feminist views did not specifically seek to challenge other systems of oppression that were intimately connected to economics, race, and sexuality. The narrow scope of liberal feminism, though useful, did not accomplish genuine gender liberation. Even though the feminist movement in some regards was correlated with the abolitionist movement, Wealthy white women were often the face of the movement.

Blaire Ostler

One of the most egregious sins of contemporary liberal feminism is women adopting the role of patriarch and calling it their own. And no, that’s not a compliment. Many f liberal feminists today have demonstrated that women can be just as good as patriarchs as men.

Blaire Ostler

This makes patriarchy a multi-gendered oppressor that is no longer limited to men, but also the women who choose to adopt the role of oppressor.

Blaire Ostler

Second wave feminism. Second wave feminism. violence, domestic abuse, and marital rape, which did not exist governmentally until a woman had the right to refuse sex from her husband. Second wave feminism made positive contributions to deconstructing myths about women’s roles in society.

Blaire Ostler

Radical feminism, birthed during the second wave feminism, is concerned with eliminating male supremacy. Supremacy in social and economic contexts beyond the legalities and political process. However, radical feminist views also assert that men are the oppressors of women.

Blaire Ostler

This men versus women battle of the sexes approach pitted one gender against the other in a symbiotic game of identity politics Arguably doing more harm than good and does not liberate genders.

Blaire Ostler

Many second-wave feminists, ignorantly or not, reinforced gender essentialist views. One sec. Reinforced gender essentialist views and approaches to feminism that would result in trans-exclusionary radical feminism. This gender-critical view of what it meant to be woman further supported the idea that gender stereotypes, roles, and expressions, and oppressions that radical feminists claimed to be dismantling were in fact being enforced.

Blaire Ostler

Under this view, trans women were seen as the total appropriation of women’s bodies. If that is the case, first wave feminists who sought for the right to vote and wear pants were once accused of appropriating men’s roles. Yet, according to liberal feminist bases, this practice was not only acceptable, but encouraged.

Blaire Ostler

Why then is it permissible for a woman to adopt roles, performances, and expressions of man yet man is unable to adopt the roles, performances, and expressions, even biological expressions, of woman. The entirety of the question alone assumes that there were essentialist roles even to begin with. The view of radical feminism continued to enforce gender-essentialist views that prescribe performances against genuine gender liberation.

Blaire Ostler

Meanwhile, non-feminist women during the second wave feminist movement were othered by second wave feminists. Feminism failed to acknowledge that not all women share liberal or radical feminist goals. such as capitalistic gains or marginalization of caregiving and child rearing.

Blaire Ostler

Though child rearing is not generally monetized occupation in a capitalistic economy, it is a vital and essential base to what communities depend on. Feminists who devalue childrearing as a lesser occupation because it’s not paid play into the oppression of capitalism that puts a human contribution in dollar signs.

Blaire Ostler

For example, the feminist asked the stay-at-home mother, why are you a stay-at-home mother? The mother replied, because that’s what I want. The feminist condescendingly sneered, sure you do, because that’s what capitalist patriarchy told you you wanted. The mother asked, why do you work? The feminist replied, because that’s what I want. The mother condescendingly sneered, Sure you do, because that’s what capitalist feminism told you you wanted.

Blaire Ostler

Each was convinced that the other was a brainwashed victim, either by patriarchy or feminism. Both unwittingly broke the most cardinal of feminist rules, the disrespect and disremoval of women’s autonomy and volition. Instead of the feminist and the non-feminist being willing to participate in the mutual acceptance of each other’s desires, they patronizingly framed one another as the enemy of women’s liberation.

Blaire Ostler

Women effectively divided each other by asserting that women’s desires, unlike men’s desires, were the product of coercion. Men’s volition was not in dispute, but women still insisted on disputing each other’s volition in a game of girl-on-girl misogyny. Thus, in this context, it was woman who stripped woman of her autonomy by painting her desires as the product of the oppressor’s brainwashing ability on an unwitting victim.

Blaire Ostler

Woman will never be free until she is respected and treated as entanist being by her peers. In this regard, it is woman who must liberate woman.

Blaire Ostler

Third wave feminism. Third wave feminism emerged around the 1990s and is commonly recognized for its concerns with intersectionality. Intersectionality is recognizing that systems of oppression are layered and discrimination takes place in various forms and social categories such as race, class, ability, gender, religion, orientation, mobility, and marital status.

Blaire Ostler

Feminist discourse began to more fully acknowledge that social categories played a significant role in how people experience oppression. While previous feminist views claimed to liberate us, there was much dispute over who is us. What is woman? Under what political context can a person call themselves woman? Is she white? Is she rich? Is she trans? Is she brown? Is she biologically ambiguous? Does she have a penis? Is she bisexual? Let’s not delude ourselves into believing that there is any single type of woman struggling to define the elusive us.

Blaire Ostler

If us is everyone, instead of seeking unity through homogenization, third wave feminists should consider Seeking unity through diversification.

Blaire Ostler

Trans feminism gained popularity during this third wave of feminism and has generally been defined as an approach to feminism that is informed by transpolitik. Transfeminism is essential to the feminist movement in that it called for a new freedom of identity and performance, which also called for a new episteme of actualization.

Blaire Ostler

Not only has transfeminism challenged socio-political norms of gender, but also biological adaptations. Science and technology have advanced to a point where a person may perform their identity in unprecedented ways. Hormonal treatments and gender confirmation surgery are only the beginning.

Blaire Ostler

Cis women are already receiving uterus transplants, which allow them to gestate and deliver children. It will likely only be a matter of time until trans women are allowed access to these experiences as well. With enough science and technology, there would likely be a point where there is literally nothing a man can do that a woman can’t do. or nothing a woman could do that a man couldn’t do.

Blaire Ostler

Trans feminism, armed with new technologies, are hacking gender social codes with their own biology. Third-wave feminism at large has exploded with the introduction of advanced technologies.

Blaire Ostler

Techno-feminism arrived during of technology and gender, particularly woman and machine, and giving rise to feminist technoscience. Feminist technoscience focuses less on interpersonal relationships of man and woman, but instead on broader issues concerning the production of knowledge how gender or how bodies manifest realities and how these realities are actualized in societies.

Blaire Ostler

Feminist technoscience is integrating intersectionality with technology and giving birth to fourth wave feminism. Fourth wave feminism, though still in its infancy, is defined by technology. The internet most notably has connected feminists across the world in ways that first wave feminists likely couldn’t fathom. Fourth wave feminist goals are mostly characterized by cyber feminism, which is most commonly expressed in social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr, or Blogger. Some notable examples of fourth wave feminism include the Me Too campaign, Everyday Feminism, the Mattress Performance, and the 2017 Women’s March.

Blaire Ostler

Unfortunately, seeping into fourth wave feminism is some of the same flaws and shortcomings that were in the previous waves. Some argue that by the feminist movement being led by technology Feminism will benefit wealthy white able-bodied women with access to expensive technologies.

Blaire Ostler

Some also argue that cyber feminism has created a mean girl effect where feminists can participate in public floggings. It can sometimes feel that cyber feminists are lined up, ready to take a digital whip to the back of the next person who steps out of line in our calling out culture. Though she is in pain, rightfully so, this is not an effective way to promote gender liberation. Instead of calling out, let’s start calling in.

Blaire Ostler

Fourth wave feminism doesn’t need to be characterized by its faults or limited to social media. Arising out of fourth-wave feminism is a phenomenon called xenofeminism. Xenofeminists debate over how existing technologies could be repurposed to be more useful in society and overall not be used as a tool of gender discrimination. Xenofeminists affirm that biology is not destiny and advocate for post-capitalist forms of government, similar to Marxist feminists. Also notable is that xenofeminists advocate for the proliferation of gender difference.

Blaire Ostler

Taken from the Xenofeminist Manifesto, it is the version of a future. which is the realization of gender justice and feminist emancipation contribute to a universal politics assembled by the needs of every human being. Cutting across race, economic standing, and geographical position. With this universal form of feminism,

Blaire Ostler

Why is feminism still feminism? Is feminism, even the word, any oppressive when it no longer concerns itself with just the plights of women? Post-feminism is a term used to describe reactions against and contradictions and absences in feminism.

Blaire Ostler

Like xenofeminism, various forms of fourth-wave feminism, post-feminism strives towards deconstructing expectations of gender libera of limitations of gender. Genuine gender liberators move beyond feminist goals. Into interpersonal and transformations of the human body that transcends contemporary socio-political and biological limitations. Those who seek genuine gender liberation might find what they’re looking for in transhumanism. Likewise, transhumanism can learn from both the progress and pitfalls of the feminist movement.

Blaire Ostler

Transhumanism. Transhumanism is an intellectual, social, and philosophical movement aimed at transforming the human condition. Through the development of sophisticated technologies. I don’t have to tell you that, I’m speaking to transhumanists. But I am giving this to feminists in two weeks, and they will have no idea what I’m talking about.

Blaire Ostler

One important aspect of human enhancement is making technologies widely available to improve intellect and physiology. This includes overcoming socio-political limitations. Transhumanism considers the risks and benefits of emerging technologies as well as the ethics.

Blaire Ostler

The prevailing transhumanist thesis is that humanity with the use of science and technology, can overcome human limitations by directing their own evolutionary biology to becoming post-human. Post-humans are those so far evolved from humans that they would warrant a new label. Pre-humans are to humans that Humans are to post-humans.

Blaire Ostler

Transhumanist theory has strong feminist and post-feminist undercurrents. After all, feminism has been around a lot longer than transhumanism. If one is to unmask transhumanist and feminist doctrine, at its core you would find the desires, hopes, and aspirations of liberation. Which was to create an existence where we transcend unnecessary expectations and limitations of what we are capable of, even the oppression of death. Whether this is liberation from sexism or liberation from death, both seek liberation.

Blaire Ostler

For feminists, this includes the expansion and access of advanced medical technologies which have the ability to move procreation beyond heterosexual reproduction into diverse forms of multi-parent, multi-gendered reproduction. This also includes technology, which would enable people to experience a diversity of genders. These technologies would allow for autonomy, flexibility, and fluidity. Technological advancements provide worldviews that no longer mandate heteronormative or cisnormative ideas as the only means of human reproduction.

Blaire Ostler

Medical technologies such as surrogacy and in vitro fertilization allow a distinction between sexual orientation and sexual reproduction. Technology is changing the landscape of sex bodies in unprecedented ways.

Blaire Ostler

Though transhumanist demographics are dominated by white males, there is nothing inherently sexist about transhumanism. According to Nick Bostrom’s essay, In Defense of Post-Human Dignity, we can work to create social structures that accord appropriate moral recognition and legal rights to all who need them, be they male, female, black, white. Flesh or silicon.

Blaire Ostler

Transhumanist goals of morphology, morphological liberty, include gender, but extend beyond gender. Transhumanists have diverse visions of the future, and the most prophetic and inspiring visions include diversity, not simply of gender, but embodiment. Moving beyond gender liberation, transhumanist aims are concerned with influencing and directing human evolution. This means embracing human agency beyond both biological determinism and technological determinism.

Blaire Ostler

I do not intend my remarks with any irreverence towards my feminist comrades, but the feminist movement needs transformation which inspire discourse towards a more constructive gender liberation. Just as first wave feminism led to second wave and second to third and third to fourth, each wave gets closer to the shores of transhumanism. The intersections of technology and feminism act as an invitation to adopt a new doctrine predicated on the reincarnated spirit of human liberation. Feminists and post-feminists alike are part of a collective movement that embody the hopes and desires for an improved human species. In this regard, transhumanism not only encompasses the spirit of feminism, but surpasses it.

Blaire Ostler

Thank you. We have two minutes yet.

Blaire Ostler

So I agree that transhumanism is not inherently sexist. Where are women? How come we can’t Yeah, okay, so I know. What are you talking about? We’re in here. Yeah, so there’s definitely some hindrances and things we need to overcome in order to change the demographics of that.

Blaire Ostler

In a lot of ways, it’s hard because a lot of the things that are surrounded by the idea of transhumanism, such as STEM fields, are still neglectful of women. I think sometimes we forget. you know, women couldn’t attain a master’s degree at Harvard less than 50 years ago. So we’re still overcoming these barriers that were put in place. It’s not all of a sudden, you know, women can attend Harvard now. Hey, where are all the women? Well, for the last hundred years, you just told them women didn’t know how to do math. So we’re still coming over the overcoming this, and we can do better as transhumanists to create environments which are more gender-diverse friendly. Yes?

Blaire Ostler

We need everybody. We need mark marketing people, we need actors, we need philosophers and scientists. And so as we open that up beyond just the STEM application for the whole public diverse Of people and intersectionality within study fields as well. I really like that too.

Blaire Ostler

I think it’s really important to understand that it invokes action. And that’s something that feminists and transhumanists have a lot in common: this idea of actually doing something about that. I think sometimes. People will say, oh, I’m a humanist, right? It’s usually like the liberal white male who’s woke, he had a safe crisis, and he’s like, I’m a humanist, I love everyone, right? But where was the humanist during the marches? Where was the humanist when women were getting the right to vote? Where was the humanist doing? Anything, go do something about it. And a human that does something, well, that’s a transhumanist. So you’re not a humanist. A humanist is just like, the concept of humanists is just, okay, I’ll just stop. The point is, if you’re a humanist and you actually do something, you are a transhumanist, and that’s all there is to it.

Blaire Ostler

Thanks, Claire. Thanks.