VNS Matrix, Cyberfeminist Manifesto for the 21st Century, 1991. Source: vnsmatrix.net

Cyberfeminism emerged in the early 1990s, right after the arrival of the internet. The concept isn’t easy to describe with a single definition. It represents an international group of female thinkers, coders and media artists who are all interested in theorizing, critiquing, exploring and re-making the Internet, cyberspace and new-media technologies, which are free from social constructs.

The approach grew from the roots of third-wave feminism, which itself built on the foundation of earlier feminist movements. These earlier movements focused on issues like fighting for women's suffrage and equal rights. Cyberfeminism takes this fight into the digital age. Before the term, feminist analyses of technology often highlighted its social and cultural construction, noting its categorization as a masculine field. Despite women's significant contributions to technology, such as in computing, their roles were frequently marginalized or overlooked. Cyberfeminism emerged to challenge these narratives, questioning if technology could be a tool to hack patriarchy.

Lynn Hershman Leeson, CyberRoberta, 1996, Source: altmansiegel.com

The inspiration behind the movement is an essay published in 1985 by Donna Haraway, a post-humanist scholar and feminist theorist, “A Cyborg Manifesto”. The work explores the concept of the cyborg—a hybrid of machine and organism—as a figure that transcends traditional boundaries of gender, race, and even the distinction between natural and artificial. Haraway suggests that cyborgs, by existing outside of these dichotomies, can challenge established norms and hierarchies, including gender. The essay envisions a future that offers possibilities for overcoming biological determinism and promoting androgyny as an ideal.

In the 90s the term, cyberfeminism was independently coined in two different places by British cultural theorist Sadie Plant and the Australian artist group VNS Matrix. VNS Matrix, a collective of four women from South Australia, began their work in 1991. Their projects combined art with French feminist theory to address the male-dominated early internet. Inspired by Haraway’s writing, they published their "Cyberfeminist Manifesto for the 21st Century" which was an aggressive statement against traditional norms, displayed as an 18-foot billboard with 3D images and provocative text. They also created "All New Gen", an arcade game that criticized sexism in pornography and video games by depicting a group of 'cybersluts' attacking patriarchal power in a virtual world.

Parallel to VNS Matrix, Sadie Plant from the UK was exploring how technology could influence feminist theory. She first used the term cyberfeminism in 1991 to describe a new approach to feminism that leverages the internet and digital technology. She elaborated on her vision of cyberfeminism as an approach to understanding the internet as a fundamentally feminine space. She argued that both women and the internet are non-linear, self-replicating systems naturally suited to making connections. Her influential book "Zeros and Ones" further explored these ideas and paid homage to historical figures like Ada Lovelace, highlighting the overlooked contributions of women in technology.

Building on the foundations laid by pioneers like VNS Matrix and Sadie Plant, cyberfeminism gained momentum throughout the 1990s. It attracted a diverse group of artists and theorists from around the globe, including regions such as North America, Australia, Germany, and the UK. Australian artist Linda Dement utilized computer games as a medium to construct alternative female identities, challenging conventional perceptions of gender roles. In the United States, Lynn Hershman Leeson was developing her alter ego, Roberta Breitmore, and by using hired actors and fabricated documents, she brought Breitmore's character to life. Another significant figure in the US was Faith Wilding, who initiated her "Recombinants" collage series which featured amalgamations of machine, plant, human, and animal imagery, exploring the interconnectedness of these various life forms with technology.

One of the most important moments in cyberfeminism’s history came in 1997 with the “First Cyberfeminist International”, organized by the Berlin-based collective Old Boys Network. The collective’s five women, including Susanne Ackers, Julianne Pierce, Valentina Djordjevic, Ellen Nonnenmacher and Cornelia Sollfrank, brought together 38 women from 12 different countries at Documenta X in Kassel, Germany. The gathering was notable not only for its global scale but also for the creation of a provocative anti-manifesto titled "100 Anti-Theses of Cyberfeminism". By the end of the decade, several critical issues within cyberfeminism began to surface. Despite its growing influence, the movement struggled with a lack of a clear definition, presenting various and sometimes conflicting ideas about its core principles and objectives. The early optimism that the internet would serve as a universally liberated space was viewed as overly idealistic. Additionally, there was growing criticism that cyberfeminist writings predominantly catered to an educated, white, upper-middle-class, English-speaking, culturally sophisticated audience, thereby excluding a significant portion of potential global contributors and beneficiaries.

Cornelia Sollfrank, Female Extension, 1997, Source: medienkunstnetz.de

This criticism highlights the perception that cyberfeminism might have lost momentum as a movement or indicated a need for a slightly different approach. In response, the 2000s saw the emergence of Technofeminism, which is often viewed as an extension or evolution of cyberfeminism, but with a broader scope. Technofeminism integrates insights from science and technology studies (STS) and feminist theory to critically examine the gendered aspects of technology, extending beyond the digital or cyber realms. It explores how gender and technology are mutually shaping each other and promotes feminist approaches to technology development, policy, and usage. The aim is to uncover and address gender biases in the design, development, and implementation of technology across various societal aspects. Judy Wajcman, a pivotal figure in this field, provides an analyses in her 2004 book “TechnoFeminism”, discussing how technology and society are interdependent, with examples from the history of feminist movements related to reproductive technologies and automation to illustrate her points.

In the 2010s, building upon Cyberfeminism and Technofeminism, Xenofeminism emerged as a distinctive strand within the feminist critique of technology. Established by the feminist collective Laboria Cuboniks, this movement views technology as a radical force for dismantling prevailing hierarchies and addressing deep-seated inequalities. Their manifesto, “Xenofeminism: A Politics for Alienation”, challenges the notion of nature as fixed and inherently desirable, proposing instead a future where traditional categories of gender are decoupled from societal power structures. This approach, embracing a global perspective and rationalist materialism, advocates using digital and biological technologies to challenge social norms. It is particularly attuned to the needs and perspectives of the queer and transgender communities, pushing beyond traditional cyberfeminist boundaries to include more comprehensive and transformative agendas.

These movements reflect the dynamic and evolving nature of feminist engagement with technology. Each strand contributes uniquely to the broader feminist discourse, advocating for more inclusive and equitable technological futures.

CYBERFEMINISM

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anonymous_warhol-flowers by Cornelia Sollfrank