cyberfeminism? by Mindy Seu (excerpt)
“Cyberfeminism cannot be reduced to women and technology. Nor is it about the diffusion of feminism through technology. Combining cyber and 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 (378), black cyberfeminism (475), xenofeminism (643), post-cyber feminism (573), glitch feminism (782), Afrofuturism (19), and hackfeministas [page “Manifiesto por Algoritmias HackFeministas” not found], transhackfeminism, 넷페미 (netfemi) [page “Korean Netfemis: Learned Woman, Yeoshi, Feminachi, Megal… Netfemi Sunansa (대한민국 넷페미사: 배운여자 여시 페미나치 메갈… 넷페미 수난사)” not found], 女权之声 (feminist voices) [page “Feminist Voices 女权之声” not found], among others.
The term is self-reflexive: technology is not only the subject of cyberfeminism, but its means of transmission. It’s all about feedback.
Mindy Seu, Cyberfeminism Index
When I began building this index, Judy Malloy (254) 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 [page “Legacies of craft and the centrality of failure in a mother-operated hackerspace” not found], digital rights activist groups [page “Colnodo: Uso estratégico de Internet para el desarrollo” not found], DIWO organizations (616), DIY teledildonics manuals [page “buttplug.io” not found], bio-hacktivists (452), data dominatrixes (577), and open source estrogen pioneers [page “Sex Hormones, Biopower and Biopolitics, Endocrine Disruption, Estrogens, Biohacking” not found].
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.”
Read more of Mindy’s words and learn more about the index here
Link to Cyberfeminism Index book tour here
Dorothy R. Santos 
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