SOURCE: Cherniavsky, Eva. “(En)gendering Cyberspace in Neuromancer: Postmodern Subjectivity and Virtual Motherhood.” Genders, no. 18 (winter 1993): 32-46.

In the following essay, Cherniavsky examines the representation of gender and reproductive technology in Neuromancer.

Besides, although the creation of life in vitro would certainly be a scientific feat worthy of note—and probably even a Nobel prize—it would not, in the long run, tell us much more about the space of possible life than we already know …

Computers should be thought of as an important laboratory tool for the study of life, substituting for the array of incubators, culture dishes, microscopes, electrophoretic gels, pipettes, centrifuges and other assorted wet-lab paraphernalia, one simple to master piece of experimental equipment devoted exclusively to the incubation of information structures.

—Chris Langton¹

Motherhood acts as a limit to the conceptualization of femininity as a scientific construction of mechanical and electrical parts. And yet...