Do Androids Dream of Care Labor? Rosa Montero's Bruna Husky Trilogy and its Lessons for Cyborg Feminism

Abstract

Abstract:Bruna Husky, the android protagonist of Spanish author Rosa Montero's Science Fiction trilogy, is often celebrated for her seeming alignment with Donna Haraway's cyborg feminism. While Montero's trilogy and Haraway's Manifesto are both deserving of celebration, in this essay, I explore Bruna's 'failures' rather than her 'successes' as a cyborg subject, as these offer valuable insight to feminist thought. Specifically, Bruna refuses to perform the sort of coalition-building political care labor that Haraway emphasizes as the key for resisting domination, and in doing so, invites us to reconsider models of feminist thought that place the burden of creating a better world on the shoulders of marginalized individuals.