manifesto

We Are FemTechNet

Note: You may download PDFs of the (Fem)Manifesto in three languages. Scroll down to see the links.

FemTechNet is committed to making the accessible, open, accountable, transformative and transforming educational institutions of our dreams. We are feminist academic hacktivism.

FemTechNet is an international movement of feminist thinkers, researchers, writers, teachers, artists, professors, librarians, mentors, organizers and activists sharing resources and engaging in activities that demonstrate connected feminist thinking about technology and innovation.

FemTechNet understands that technologies are complex systems with divergent values and cultural assumptions. We work to expand critical literacies about the social and political implications of these systems.

FemTechNet is cyberfeminist praxis: we recognize digital and other technologies can both subvert and reinscribe oppressive relations of power and we work to make these complex relations of power transparent.

FemTechNet is hard at work creating better tools.

FemTechNet has no observers, only participants.

Accountability is a feminist technology.

Collaboration is a feminist technology.

Collectivity is a feminist technology.

Care is a feminist technology.

Irony, comedy, making a mess, and gravitas are feminist technologies.

No one holds the trademark on feminist pedagogy—it is collective intellectual property.

FemTechNet is part of and bigger than the contemporary university.

FemTechNet is fueled by our civil rights, anti-racist, queer, decolonizing, trans- feminist pedagogies as we work within the belly of the beast of neoliberal austerity, normalized precarity, neo-colonial techno-missionary evangelism and MOOC fever towards the radical redistribution, reinvention, and repurposing of technological, material, emotional, academic, and monetary resources.

FemTechNet is a power tool.

FemTechNet is distributed expertise.

FemTechNet is an experiment in solidarity.

FemTechNet recognizes the often-prohibitive tuition fees and other costs associated with post-secondary education and so works both within and well beyond university and college classrooms to open learning opportunities for and from a wide range of participants.

FemTechNet knows that the majority of us are not paid a sustainable wage, and works for economic justice as a feminist principle.

FemTechNet knows that ultimately none of us is protected by our institutions, so we need to take care of each other.

FemTechNet works across rank, to record feminist genealogies and technological innovations of the past, present and future.

We are a work group.

We are a social network.

We are many genders.

We are an innovative learning technology.

We are FemTechNet.

FemTechNet.org

For further information (including press inquiries), contact the Communication

Committee, femtechnetinquiries@gmail.com

Download English, Spanish, French, and Italian PDF versions.