FemTechNet (FTN) is a
feminist network of scholars, artists, and activists known for its feminist, decentralized pedagogy experiments. FemTechNet became the focus of various media outlets when it broadcast its efforts to "storm" Wikipedia under its "wikistorming" initiative.
Beyond its 2013 Wikipedia project, FemTechNet has been described as "a new approach to collaborative learning", and a "feminist anti-MOOC."
Background
The network began in Southern California in 2012 with
Anne Balsamo
Anne Marie Balsamo (born January 7, 1959) is a writer who focuses on the connections between art, culture, gender, and technology.FacultylistNewSchoolFaculty./ref>
Education
Balsamo attended graduate school at the University of Illinois at Urban ...
and
Alexandra Juhasz
Alexandra Jeanne "Alex" Juhasz (born March 12, 1964) is a feminist writer and theorist of media production.
Education
Juhasz received her B.A. in American Studies and English at Amherst College in 1986. Shortly after graduating she participated ...
as co-founders and co-facilitators.
FemTechNet describes itself as “an activated network of scholars, artists and students who work on, with, and at the borders of technology, science and feminism in a variety of fields including STS, Media and Visual Studies, Art, Women's, Queer and Ethnic Studies.” In a peer-reviewed concept paper, the founders more concretely described the project as one of interdisciplinary community building.
Distributed open collaborative courses (DOCC), FemTechNets primary initiative, uses networked technologies in many innovative ways, including developing “nodal” classes around shared themes that are augmented by video discussions available on FemTechNet's website by participating university instructors. The first DOCC, "Dialogues in Feminism and Technology," was initiated in 2013 as for-credit courses at the following institutions:
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Rutgers University
Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and wa ...
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The New School
The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...
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CUNY
The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven Upper divis ...
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University of California at San Diego
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is th ...
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University of Illinois
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Unive ...
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Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best pu ...
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Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green State University (BGSU) is a Public university, public research university in Bowling Green, Ohio. The main academic and residential campus is south of Toledo, Ohio. The university has nationally recognized programs and research ...
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Pitzer College
Pitzer College is a private liberal arts college in Claremont, California. One of the Claremont Colleges, the college has a curricular emphasis on the social sciences, behavioral sciences, international programs, and media studies. Pitzer is ...
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Colby-Sawyer College
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Penn State University
The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a public state-related land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvania. Founded in 1855 as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania, Penn State becam ...
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California Polytechnic University
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Ontario College of Art and Design
Ontario College of Art & Design University, commonly known as OCAD University or OCAD, is a public art university located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The university's main campus is spread throughout several buildings and facilities within d ...
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Brown University
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Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...
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California State University, Fullerton
California State University, Fullerton (CSUF or Cal State Fullerton) is a public university in Fullerton, California. With a total enrollment of more than 41,000, it has the largest student body of the 23-campus California State University (CSU) ...
Non-traditional students take the course via the FTN website's free, self-directed learner component.
In 2014 - 2015 the second Distributed Open Collaborative Course (DOCC) series was offered at the following nodes.
In 2013 FemTechNet launched "Storming Wikipedia", which aimed to encourage students to engage in
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read ref ...
editing. Described as a response to
Wikipedia's gender imbalance, the assignment is also used to highlight "the significant contributions of feminists to technology". "Wikistorming" got the attention of mainstream media networks, including a story by
Fox News
The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is ...
and CampusReform.org, which derisively framed the effort as counter-factual.
See also
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Cyberfeminism
Cyberfeminism is a feminist approach which foregrounds the relationship between cyberspace, the Internet, and technology. It can be used to refer to a philosophy, methodology or community. The term was coined in the early 1990s to describe the wo ...
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Feminist technoscience
Feminist technoscience is a transdisciplinary branch of science studies which emerged from decades of feminist critique on the way gender and other identity markers are entangled in the combined fields of science and technology. The term technosc ...
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Networked feminism
Networked feminism is a phenomenon that can be described as the online mobilization and coordination of feminists in response to sexist, misogynistic, racist, and other discriminatory acts against minority groups. This phenomenon covers all pos ...
References
External links
FemTechNet(Old Site)
FemTechNet(New site)
"We Are FemTechNet"(Group Manifesto)
Technical Report on the DOCCFAQ for FemTechNet
Connected Courses, Unit 4, Class 3: Teaching Wikipedia Editing
{{Spoken Wikipedia, En-FemTechNet-article.ogg, date=2014-04-21
Feminist websites
American educational websites
Wikipedia