Rethinking the F Word: A Review of Activist Art on the Internet

In an era when new technology and media increasingly infiltrate all facets of our lives, and progress on gender, racial, and other forms of equity appears excruciatingly slow, now seems a critical time to examine new technologies and their potential value for feminist activism. Since its public emergence in the late 1980s, the internet has been simultaneously criticized as oppressive and heralded as empowering for different communities. In this review, we will examine some of the emerging forms that feminist activist art is taking in relation to the internet and consider how technology has contributed to the goals of feminist artists and activists. It is important to contextualize this review by considering the conflicted term "cyberfeminism" (Braidotti 1996; Gajjala 1999; Sollfrank 2002). Since the mid-1990s, the term cyberfeminism has been used to investigate the ways in which technology, especially new media and internet technology, and gender interact. Cyberfeminists investigate the celebratory yet contradictory nature of new technologies and work to determine methods of appropriation, intervention, or parallel practice to insert women's issues into the dominant technology discourse. While many women working with technology have regarded this term suspiciously, feminist activist artist Faith Wilding pointed to the possibilities and optimism inherent within it. In her influential article, "Where is Feminism in Cyberfeminism?" Wilding asserts that "cyberfeminists have the chance to create new formations of feminist theory and practice which address the complex new social conditions created by global technologies" (1 998). Prominent feminist theorist Rosi Braidotti noted that a central aim of cyberfeminism was the breakdown and disintegration of contemporary gender boundaries (1996). Cyberfeminism as a liberatory ideal has not yet achieved its potential, in part because of larger societal pressures surrounding the information technology fields. If a fundamental aim of cyberfeminism is to change and reorganize social and political realities by engaging technology to address gender issues, little progress has been achieved for women. In the United States, for instance, the dearth of women, especially women of color, in computer science and technology studies and professions has been described by researchers as a social justice issue (Wardle, Martin, and Clarke 2004). Female enrollment in information technology academic areas continues to decline, and the current gender imbalance in computing and new technology areas such as game and software development, hinders progress for women in social equity, equal access, and empowerment