The Utopian Dimension of New Technologies: A Feminist Technophilosophical Approach to Sex and Gender

The chapter reviews the ways in which feminism has engaged and continues to discuss different perspectives on sex and gender to highlight the political and theoretical importance of theories that look at technologies as fundamental for constructing and defining these concepts. While polarised positions have dominated the debate hitherto, feminist interdisciplinary discussions on gendered traits and sexual features have delineated new conceptual tools to embrace a more nuanced and polymorphic account of sex and its embodiment. A feminist philosophy of technology or-as the author will dub it-a feminist technophilosophical approach can substantiate a view of the body as affected by the ceaseless interplay of different biological structures, social forces, political powers, material artefacts, and individual agencies. This fresh understanding facilitates a move away from sterile dichotomies that regard bodies as either male or female and sex and gender as either naturally ascribed or culturally constructed.