User:Zwietrachtundanmutung/sandbox

Feminist Hackerspaces
Feminist Hackerspaces are feminist organisations that are committed to the general principles of the hacker community, yet emphasize a feminist perspective and the need for separist safer spaces. Among them are MzTek (UK), Seattle Attic (US), Hacker Moms (US), Double Union (US), Flux (US), Pechblenda (ES), XXLab (ID) and the feminist hackerspace in Mz Baltazar’s Laboratory (AT). These groups declare themselves as feminist hackerspaces and embrace the subversive practices implicated in hacker practices. They establish structures that foster aimlessness, open licences and flat hierarchies. This implicates creating a non-commercial safer-space, opening up space for free exploration and dwelling, for hanging out, tinkering and making, a space to experiment with things as gender, hardware or our selves (Judith Butler). Space here is seen as the basis of relations among agents involved in similar practices. Enacting these practices, repeating them and making them more popular among peers are all part of the rituals that constitute unity in a feminist hackerspace. By celebrating the recurring (social) practices of hacking together, with various and diverse outcomes and spending (social) time together in the space, generates subjectification/self-crafting/conscientisation. The social relations generated within the feminist hackerspaces follow a different dynamic to those in common hackerspaces. They focus on common open culture keywords such as autonomy, agency, anonymity, freedom, access, openness, expression, yet expand the terminology with words such as feminism, queerness, sexual rights, artistic articulation, childcare and reproduction work. The reason why keywords emerging from feminist hackerspaces are different to those found in average hackerspaces is that they are rooted not only in a counterculture movement but also in the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s and 70s, and the safe space movement. Therefore, terminologies and policies stem from different discourses and sets of norms – a community that does not necessarily identify with the stereotype of ‘nerd’ or ‘geek’, but rather ‘feminist agent’. Many spaces advocate open communication on sexuality, sexual identity, online representation, violence and harassment. By publishing their code of conduct and door policies prominently on their websites, they clearly react to the opaque discrimination of female agents in common hackerspaces. Emphasising the importance of freedom and safety in connection with sex, they give a clear signal towards opposite tendencies in hackerculture and the issue of ‘othering’ female performance within average hackerspaces.

BRIEF HISTORY OF HACKERSPACES

"Hackerspaces are volunteer-run spaces where one can tinker with hardware, software or any other types of technology and socialize. Some write computer code while others solder, play with Arduinos or hack clothing. Public hackerspaces have existed for a long time in Europe, but are a relatively recent phenomenon in North America. While private spaces such as the Boston-based L0pht have existed since the 1990s (Farr 2009), the more-public and open variety only began to mushroom after the year 2007. This was in part triggered by The Hacker Foundation’s project Hackers on a Plane (HoaP), which encouraged technologists from North America to visit hackerspaces in Europe in the lead-up to the 2007 Chaos Computer Camp (CCC) organized by the largest association of hackers in the world, the Chaos Computer Club (CCC). (…) That same year the Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) conference in New York featured a panel entitled “Building Hacker Spaces everywhere: Your Excuses are Invalid.” (…) In recent years, populist forms of hackerspaces have grown to overshadow older, more political hacklabs located throughout European social centers and squats (see Maxigas 2012). According to the inventory provided by hackerspaces.org, more than 500 hackerspaces are in operation at the time of writing. (…) Hackerspaces have generally found it difficult to attract and/or retain women, lesbian, gay, trans and queer (LGBTQ) persons, gender non-conformists and people of color, among others."