Maps, chromosome tests, and even phrenology have long not only been ways of making sense of bodies and getting things done, but also sorting creatures into categories — gendered, racial, un/civilized, non/human are only a few.
While the web has many blogs that deal with feminist issues, we found few places that stoked discussion and built a community around thinking about technologies critically from a feminist perspective. And we know that the community is out there and wanting that discussion.
Camellia and I first thought to make this in a Rite Aid in Portland where we discovered that I had loved Wired as a high school student but had grown totally disillusioned with its technolibertarian cheerleading and its use of women as window dressing. Camellia had similarly enjoyed Wired but had dreamed of making a feminist alternative and she even had a pun for the name — Ellectron. (We cracked us up. :P)
So we scratched an itch and here we are. This is really meant to be a platform for a community, so please contact Lilly and Camellia to contribute.
Here’s a nice guide to blogging by Chris Kelty (for “anthropology,” substitute any field – in fact the interdisciplinarity of this space makes it even more suitable for collective blogging as well as for the shaping of ongoing and emerging publics)
http://savageminds.org/2010/11/17/ckeltys-10-thoughts-on-blogging-in-anthropology/#comment-692071
The 2nd anniversary of Difference Engines came, and went, without our noticing. Lilly, kudos to you for keeping this going, it’s quite a feat in the middle of everything else you’ve achieved in these last 2 years !