Cyberfeminism Index

Origi­nal post here

Cyber­fe­mi­nism Index is INCOM­PLETE and ALWAYS IN PROGRESS. Commis­si­o­ned by Rhizome, it premi­e­red with New Museum’s First Look. The prin­ted publi­ca­tion Cyber­fe­mi­nism Cata­log will be publis­hed by Inven­tory Press in 2022. Please feel welcome to contri­bute using the “submit” button at the bottom of all pages.

cyber­fe­mi­nism?

Cyber­fe­mi­nism cannot be redu­ced to women and tech­no­logy. Nor is it about the diffu­sion of femi­nism through tech­no­logy. Combi­ning cyberand femi­nism was meant as an oxymo­ron or provo­ca­tion, a criti­que of the cyber­ba­bes and fembots that stoc­ked the sci-fi lands­ca­pes of the 1980s. The term is self-refle­xive: tech­no­logy is not only the subject of cyber­fe­mi­nism, but its means of trans­mis­sion. It’s all about feed­back.

Rooted as it is by femi­nism, cyber­fe­mi­nism is an imper­fect umbre­lla term. The history of femi­nism is domi­na­ted by Western atti­tu­des, which makes it compli­ca­ted and exclu­si­o­nary. The reason I have chosen to use the term is because the combi­na­tion of ‘cyber’ and ‘femi­nism’ allows novi­ces to quickly connote its meaning and speaks to its line­age and evolu­tion. This inclu­des bran­ches like Cyber­fe­mi­nism 2.0 (316), black cyber­fe­mi­nism (404), xeno­fe­mi­nism (536), post-cyber femi­nism (486), glitch femi­nism (343), Afro­fu­tu­rism (16), and hack­fe­mi­nis­tas (555), trans­hack­fe­mi­nism [page «Beco­ming machine-witch-plant Gyna­e­co­lo­gi­cal Trans­Hack­Fe­mi­nism and joyful dysto­pia» not found], 넷페미 (netfemi) (464), 女权之声 (femi­nist voices) (560), among others.

When I began buil­ding this index, Judy Malloy (210) recom­men­ded that I distin­guish between YACK or HACK, theory versus prac­tice respec­ti­vely. YACK was collec­ted by reading. HACK was collec­ted through conver­sa­ti­ons with gene­rous people who told me their stories and refer­red me to others (see below for these contri­bu­tors). I lear­ned of hackers­pa­ces (456), digi­tal rights acti­vist groups (15), DIWO orga­ni­za­ti­ons (527), DIY tele­dil­do­nics manu­als (498), bio-hack­ti­vists (384), data domi­na­tri­xes (491), and open source estro­gen pione­ers (481).

The majo­rity of refe­ren­ces I recei­ved and read drew from a Western context. This may have been due to the limits of English, but it may also have been the rela­ti­vely late adop­tion of the inter­net and varying forms of femi­nism outside the West. It may have also been the diffe­rence in termi­no­logy and search queries, as many inclu­ded here do not self-iden­tify as cyber­fe­mi­nist. The voids in this index should not suggest that non-Western cyber­fe­mi­nism does not exist. They merely reveal the inhe­rent cons­traints of my Western vantage.

design

Ange­line and I acti­vely thought about how websi­tes age… Many of the design elements use default form fields and system fonts, like Arial by Robin Nicho­las and Patri­cia Saun­ders, one of few system fonts desig­ned by a woman. The website was inspi­red by the First Cyber­fe­mi­nist Inter­na­ti­o­nal website (91) by Old Boys Network (88). In order to future proof this website, Ange­line used the least amount of extra tech as possi­ble, such as vani­lla JavaS­cript for client-side and only Python for server-side. There is one addi­ti­o­nal library used for mark­down, but other than this, we do not rely on third parties or addi­ti­o­nal libra­ries and plugins. One day, it will be incor­po­ra­ted into Rhizo­me’s linked open data project Artbase.

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I’m acti­vely reaching out to diffe­rent people for refe­ren­ces (cited at the bottom of each entry, respec­ti­vely) and I hope that one day this index can truly reflect the global nature of the cyber­fe­mi­nist move­ment. While I have initi­a­ted this collec­tion, its use and longe­vity will depend on its colla­bo­ra­tive editing and compi­la­tion. Please feel welcome to contri­bute using the “submit” button at the bottom of all pages.

credits

Cyber­fe­mi­nism Index is faci­li­ta­ted and gathe­red by Mindy Seu. The website was desig­ned in colla­bo­ra­tion with and deve­lo­ped by Ange­line Meitz­ler, with fron­tend support from Janine Rosen and PDF support from Charles Bros­koski. The type­face is Arial by Patri­cia Saun­ders and Robin Nicho­las. Using their metrics, Laura Coombs desig­ned the encir­cled cross-refe­rence numbers to make a comple­men­tary pairing.

All entry descrip­ti­ons are excerpts from exis­ting texts (abstracts, website about pages, essay excerpts, mani­festo trans­crip­ti­ons); please refer to the credit at the bottom of each quote. Feed­back and entries were collec­ted through on-site and online meetings with gene­rous people, inclu­ding (in alpha­be­ti­cal order by last name): Melissa Agui­lar, Chin­mayi Arun, Cyborgrrrls, Salome Asega, Matt­hew Batt­les, Inés Beni­tez, Berk­man Klein Center for the Inter­net & Soci­ety, Kelsey Brod, Agnes Came­ron, Ruth Catlow, Soyoung Chong, Michael Connor, Sasha Costanza-Chock, Jessica Dheere, Brenda Dvos­kin, Dragan Espens­chi­eld, Laura Forlano, Sarah Fox, Loraine Furter, Mariel García-Montes, Sal Hamer­man, Geoff Han, Sam Hart, Mela­nie Hoff, Dragana Kaurin, Hanna Kim, Levin Kim, Malin Kuht, Fei Liu, Mary Maggic, Judy Malloy, Shan­non Mattern, Amye McCar­ther, Jasmine McNe­aly, Chris­tine Mein­ders, Ange­line Marie Michael Meitz­ler, Meta­Lab Harvard, Eric Moed, Sarah Newman, Chiara Fauda Pichet, Cons­tanza Piña, David Rein­furt, Kalli Retzepi, Refresh Tech, Rhizome, Paola Ricaurte, Lozana Rosse­nova, Dorothy Santos, Andrew Schein­man, Jeffrey Schnapp, Laurel Schwulst, Boaz Sender, Malkit Shos­han, Caro­line Sinders, Hee-jeong Sohn, Corne­lia Soll­frank, Abby Spinak, Salome Viljoen, Char­lotte Webb, Faith Wilding, Xin Xin, Gary Zhexi Zhang. I’ve tried to note the respec­tive contri­bu­ti­ons by adding names to each entry. If any of these were incor­rectly cited, please feel welcome to contact me.

(cc) Everyt­hing writ­ten by me, Mindy Seu, on this page is licen­sed under the Crea­tive Commons Attri­bu­tion-Noncom­mer­cial 3.0 United States License. You don’t need to ask to use it, but please give credit! To cite entries in the index, please refer to their permis­si­ons.

More credits! Laura Coombs also noti­ced adri­enne maree brown’s use of “gathe­red” to describe her role in Plea­sure Acti­vism. The descrip­tion above was excerp­ted and edited from the May 2019 draft version of Cyber­fe­mi­nism Cata­log writ­ten by myself and edited by Andrew Schein­man.

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