Submission to the Issue on  "Democratization of Hacking & Making"
Special Issue of New "Media & Society"
30. April 2014 , Vesna Manojlovic

Missing Female Voices

Review of the paper "Production and Governance in Hackerspaces" from 
a female perspective

I have read the [paper] with great interest, since both hackerspaces and 
peer-to-peer philosophy are my great passions, and I wrote about it 
extensively ([utopia], [ethics]).


As a member of several hacklabs and hackerspaces [max] for 20 years, as 
well as part of several women-in-technology groups (cyberfeminists, 
net-grrls, genderchangers...), what struck me the most was the lack of 
female perspectives. I have noticed this reflected in the choice of people 
to be interviewed, the choice of referenced literature, as well as missing 
to mention the gender dis-balance in the hackerspace practices.

I think that the next analysis of both the phenomenon of hackerspaces and 
peer-to-peer economy would benefit from the addition of female voices, as 
well as from the examples of not-typical hackerspaces.

It is my goal here to provide the links and quotes from  the abundant 
references, written by women about hackers ethics and hackerspace 
communities, as I collect them here [ladies].

References:

[paper] Production and Governance in Hackerspaces: A Manifestation of 
Commons-Based Peer Production in the Physical Realm? 
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/production-and-governance-in-hackerspaces-a-manifestation-of-commons-based-peer-production-in-the-physical-realm/2013/11/03
& http://p2plab.gr/el/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/IJCS.pdf

[utopia] 
http://becha.home.xs4all.nl/hackers-philosophers-utopian-network-dec-2012-becha.pdf

[ethics] December 2013, article I published at Nature Bats Last: 
"Hackers Ethics for the World After Collapse": 
http://guymcpherson.com/2013/12/hackers-ethic-for-the-world-after-collapse/

[max] 
http://peerproduction.net/issues/issue-2/peer-reviewed-papers/hacklabs-and-hackerspaces/

[ladies] https://wiki.techinc.nl/index.php/Ladies_Night

Links:

(page numbers refers to the [paper] )


page 3, the hackers subculture, and page 6, group phenomenon:

Ph. D. dissertation by Dorien Zandbergen, May 2011: "New Edge. Technology 
and Spirituality in the San Francisco Bay Area" 

master thesis by Dorien Zandbergen: "Computers In Actie" (2003, in Dutch) 
digital activism of the two hackergroups ASCII and the Genderchangers in 
Amsterdam squats.

http://dorienzandbergen.nl/links/


page 5, alternative political economy:

Binding Chaos, book by Heather Marsh, specially her critique of the 
"gift economy" compared to "giving economy"
http://georgiebc.wordpress.com/2013/05/24/binding-chaos/

page 8: "openness"

There has been a lot of criticism on the lack of diversity in the 
hackerspaces, and I am surprised by the lack of any reference to it by the 
authors.

http://becha.home.xs4all.nl/hiding-behind-openness.txt

page 6: choice of the representative percentage of the female hackerspace 
members

From the 23 interviews, in order to be representative, there should have 
been between 1.5 % and 10% of women participants 

(according to Kat Braybrooke in She-Hackers: Millennials and Gender in European F/LOSS 
Subcultures 

http://shehackers.kaibray.com/ & 

http://events.ccc.de/camp/2011/Fahrplan/events/4487.en.html )

http://makezine.com/2011/07/05/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-woman-hackerspace-member/

Where to find female members of hackerspaces to interview next time:

http://geekfeminism.org/

http://genderchangers.org/mailman/listinfo/gca

page 6: choice of hackerspaces

Not-typical hackerspaces to include in the next research:

http://mothership.hackermoms.org/

http://www.doubleunion.com/

http://seattleattic.com/

http://modelviewculture.com/pieces/the-rise-of-feminist-hackerspaces-and-how-to-make-your-own

http://dpi.studioxx.org/en/feminist-hackerspaces-safer-spaces

Other Female sources on hackers culture:

Quinn Norton
https://events.ccc.de/congress/2013/Fahrplan/events/5491.html
https://medium.com/@quinnnorton

Eleanor Saitta
http://dymaxion.org/talks/EaPitLW.html

Asher Wolf:
http://www.theguardian.com/profile/asher-wolf
https://medium.com/@Asher_Wolf


Author biography:

Vesna Manojlovic lives in Amsterdam, Netherlands for 15 years, and is 
originally from Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Vesna is a mother of three, a hacker 
and a Community Builder. By education Electrical Engineer, by choice 
lover, lecturer and gypsy, by name Goddess of Spring.

Projects: https://wiki.techinc.nl/index.php/User:Becha

Home page: http://becha.home.xs4all.nl/