typo(s), tendency and text

Last weekend I attended the SIGINT conference in Cologne, and moderated the panel "Women and geek culture. Whats the problem, guys?". The idea was to explain and show what situations and settings manifest parts of geek culture as excluding women. Although the four panelists and I did come from different feminisms, or at least draw different conclusions, we did not want to give a theoretical overview over feminisms, nor did we intend to discuss them scholarly. The women* on the panel wanted to contribute with what they encounter and wanted to give an idea of how spaces and groups can be inclusive. Of course, it would have been difficult to cover all areas of geekery, so we focused on gaming, education, workplace, conferences and hackerspaces. We thought 105 minutes would be a lot, but in the end we only had 15 minutes for discussion.

While the video that has been recorded will not be ready for next weeks as we heard, I would like to reply on some points of criticism, and react on some very stereotypical antifeminist "criticism".

The discussion during Q&A was very well on the topic, and positively interested. While we got questions, we were informed that the discussion on twitter that had been going on while we were talking, was mixed at best. In a recap of the twitter search for #SIGINT for the time of the panel, I got the impression, that some people have accidentally or because of bias not heard what we said. At least as I recall it, we gave lots of disclaimers, like saying that we come with different experiences, have different angles and are in different communities. That we would like to talk about sexists, which can be male and female, and that there are men who can be feminists. That we have different feminist theories and practices. We still wanted to talk about problems we meet when interacting in geek groups and spaces. While having in mind that woman* is not the only potentially excluding factor, and that there is a set of "others" aka non-white, non-male, non-ablebodied, not-young, non-rich people that can be excluded from groups such as in geek culture.

Something, that went very wrong, was someone sending this tweet, and it being retweeted several times. It says: "So. Now 10 breasts are talking about feminism... #Sigint" by fussl.

This was unneccessary at best. It objectified the people on the panel, reduced us to our body parts. The only explanation I got from the guy who retweeted this from his friend fussl, was that it was an accurate thing to say. I especially called him on his panel-related tweeting, because it was not only resentful and wrong, but also because he had been one of the people who initiated the process to get a talk or action on gender (in)equality and feminism on the SIGINT. After initiating he never got really verbose about what he wanted and how it would be achievable. All in all the mailing list conversation was uffering from all the people being undermotivated or having little time to put some effort into getting something handed in to the organizers of the conference. Close to the deadline of the CfP, Svenja and I handed something in, all the time informing the list and giving people time to react. Noone cared.

So, after the panel, I was wondering if I should confront the guy, or if I should just ignore him. I less decided, than acted on an impulse and asked him to tell me that stuff he twittered again, and face to face. Here is what he came up with (said in my words, from memory:

1. It was not wrong to tweet the breast-tweet. Because the panelists all have breasts, because women have them.

WRONG. In which universe is it okay to objectify people and reduce them, and what they say to their body parts. Even if the inital tweet was not meant like that, a slip, the multiple retweets of it made it impossible for us to feel like what we say is taken seriously. Also, breasts can't talk. Also, in which universe do most men not have breasts? And nipples? How so is having breasts significant when talking about feminism? I could go on, but I won't and I didn't.

2. He does not give square about gender or gender roles and we did too little explaining and acted as women so we didn't deconstruct our gender enough.

WRONG. Obviously he does not give up his gender role (how would one, this is difficult and you would at least need to make an attempt). And for making a statement like that, you would have to know people on the panel better. How the frakk could we who were sitting up there show our non-binary gender identity to people, who obviously can do nothing but define us into the binaries? Before we even start talking? Also, why in hell are we obliged to give a freakshow? And since when is "femme" not a valid play on gender roles? So, I beg you pardon, but we really don't have to strip our personalities and our innards or outwards to you just to prove you that we really are circus freaks. Period.

The main problem with gender binaries is, that you are constantly being thrown back to them, whether you want to or not. And if you come into spaces or groups, that are (mostly) by tradition, society or self-defined male spaces (because they deal with science, machines and computers). So, if we are treated as women there, and women are treated in specific ways, we have all rights in the world to talk about it. Actually, more than half of the people on stage are defining as queer, if we choose to participate in a panel like that, and we choose the topic and what we want to say, we have our reasons. And the right to do so. You can actually not think any part of queer theories or debates without the existence of feminism, antisexist and antiracist theories and practice.

3. Putting pictures of naked, beauty standard women in ASCII art on the wall of the hackcenter (or any other temporary or permanent hackerspace) was a display of art, and should not be critisized. Also, think about how huge the porn collections on the guys' computers are, this is nothing. This is an act of consent, and for some magic reason consent means majority vote as soon as there is no consent anymore.

WRONG. Even though it might be art, showing it in a place where a minority of women* come, is potentially excluding them. Saying this was an act of consent means there is a democratic poll every minute another person walks in. If someone disagrees, and is not listened to, they are being defined out of the group. So, if a woman disagrees, she is not part of the group anymore. This is excluding and sexist. Now, to me the ASCII naked woman was not particularly excluding, though I liked the "looong cat" better. But someone did not feel comfortable, and so the picture should be taken down. Because it is not a "boys room", but a room for everybody.

Also, calling me on naivety, really? Of course, you boys are all supposed to have huge pr0n collections, and I am supposed to be a "sex-positive" feminist, and if not, to shut up. I don't think, feminism has ever been "sex-negative". And being called for naive is certainly not a first for feminists. Any feminist, actually. This would actually be a rant in itself. However, watching pr0n does not make you a hacker. Hacking does. Critical thinking does. Listening to others and learning from them, and applying knowledge to form something new spectacular, does. Inspiring each other to reach new aims, does make you a hacker. So why don't you try to read up a little on feminist criticism on the topic (aka RTFM), and try not to make a hackerspace exclude less-privileged (by society and groups) "other-than-you's"? What you watch in private on your computer is your deal, while what you show in public or semi-public spaces concerns everyone who enters. Is that so hard to understand?

I feel like I could go on and on. I'll leave it at that, and maybe contribute in comments or write more posts if I feel like it.

Let me just once more thank the volunteer group organizing this community-driven event to give us the stage to talk about this topic. Special thanks to Nika, who really supported us contentwise and with practicalities. I hear there have been lots of thinking about and discussions on the panel afterwards, and that makes me really happy we did this. Also thanks to Heather, Ella, Leena and Svenja to get up there together with me and talk about the F-word. More blogging about this at I heart digital life.

I recently have become the owner of an e-book-reader. The "nook", which is developed and sold by Barnes & Nobles. I have been hesitating for a very long time if I should buy such a device, and which one. What has been putting me in this position is not that I don't have use for it. Nor that I can't pay for it. Seen from a capitalist market POV, this makes me a customer.

What has been putting me in this position, and what continues to be a great problem for me in acquiring ebooks in a "white" market way, is: DRM on ebooks. The decision-makers in the publishing industry who are dinosaurs. Who think they can decide for me what I can read on which screen, in which manner and on which medium.

I like paper. I really do. I am a big fan of paper hacks, book binding and paper as a note taking tool. But my fandom only bears so far. I do not wish to carry a big stack of heavy paper books with me when I am traveling, which I do. Or when moving. I do not wish to break my back, or the backs of my helpers. Not every book is worth reading twice, and when it comes to design and typesetting only very few books are that beautiful that you want to collect them because typesetter, printers and book binders have done such a good work. So the ever so often sigh of librarians ("but, what happens to the books!"), well... Let's just say, I am not very worried.

So, why the nook. Right now there are only two devices to my knowledge that feature what is important for me in an ebook reader on the market. (Like, really on the market, not long waiting lists for especially interested people.) Both the Amazon Kindle, and the Barnes & Noble nook have wifi and 3G capability. Both of them have a long battery life when reading, and both seems to be somewhat longlasting. Also, both of them have e-ink screens. (I consider the iPad to be crippleware and not an ebook due to little battery capacity and backlighting. I like shiny devices. But not this one so far.)

I like the nook better, simply because he has a touch screen instead of a keyboard. And because he runs with Android as OS, which also runs on my phone. Although I do not wholeheartedly agree with Google on development decisions and privacy issues, Android is pretty great when it comes to smart phones. Its somewhat open character makes problems set by Google and carriers circumventable.

What made me hesitate to buy either of the two devices, was the decision of the two book stores (and others along with them) and the book publishers to lock down the reading material as much as possible. Every ebook you can buy on Amazon are only readable on the Kindle reader. And you can only buy ebooks from Barnes & Noble if you have a US IP adress and a US billing adress.

Of course, there are other book stores. But a lot of pubishers have said no to selling their material outside the US. I fail to find the appropriate words for this stupidity. I am still looking for ways to buy books. Not to talk about checking out ebooks in a library. Apparently inhabitants of Denmark and Sweden can already do that. But in Norway, librarians and politicians are still busy with letting themselves get scared off by the lobbyists of publishing houses.

I don't want to be locked to Amazon. I buy the occasional book there,
because they have almost everything. I knew before about how tightly the Kindle is linked to Amazon. But experiencing how you really can't use any book that they offer in their store on your *reader, whatever reader that might be, made me really angry. And sure, there are ways of circumventing the lockdown of the Barnes & Noble store. But I ask: why should they be able to do that? Why should publishers and book stores be allowed to be so strict? Why would anyone want to prevent someone from reading a book. Let alone a book he or she wants to purchase?

Ebooks can be a great device for students, people with problems in reading can increase the font size to their liking. If people have their books with them, they will have so many good reading experiences, it could actually make reading popular. Or at least better apprehensible for those with attention deficits. You have a full-fledged full text search at your finger tip with every book that you read. What kind of information society locks down reading of books?

People, some of them librarians or teachers, are worried that people read less books now that there is the internet. Well, do you have to kill trees and emit lots of chlorine in the water, not to speak about the resources used for Transportation of physical books? Only to read a texts longer then 20 pages in a proper more or less linear manner?

Even if you are not against DRM in general. Trust me: You don't want DRM on ebooks.

Subversion, Git. Ja. Versionskontrolle ist gut für größere Projekte, die sich über längere Zeit entwickeln. Für Subversion auch für Texter und Autoren spricht sich Rachel Greenham aus, für git Tycho Garen. Auf diese beiden Möglichkeiten, die Versionen bestimmter Dateiformen nachhalten zu können, und im Nachgang auch miteinander zu vergleichen, können nur ganz bestimmte Menschen zurückgreifen. Und die Notizen, die zu den Änderungen gespeichert werden können, sind eben - zumindest in keiner Lösung, die ich kenne - nicht gerade für visuelle Menschen gemacht. Darüber hinaus fällt das projektbezogene Arbeiten mit Medien schwer, da eben nur bestimmte Dateitypen, versions-kontrolliert werden können. Und arbeiten mit hierarchischen Ordner-Systemen ist für jeden nervig, der häufig bestimmte Dinge projektübergreifend wiederverwenden kann.

Aber es braucht für visuell und textlich denkende Menschen auch eine informationelle Klammer, die Dokumente und Dateien zu bestimmten Themen und in bestimmten Kontexten sammeln, umorganisieren und wiederfinden lassen. Anscheinend tut sich da was, zumindest in der Open Source-Entwicklung. So schreibt Keywan Najafi-Tonekaboni bei open heise:

Für Mac OS X gibt es übrigens noch Journler. Das aber eben als reiner Informationsmanager es noch nicht trifft, und auch keine Dateien verwaltet. Taggen, visuelles Aufbereiten, smarte Ordner, Versionskontrolle und Wiki-Funktionalität - das hätte ich gerne. Also weiter nach dem Produktivitäts-Ei des Kolumbus Ausschau halten.