With all the different approaches and strands of feminism, should men be cyberfeminists?
Cyberfeminism, coined in the 1990's is a feminism approach that seeks to describe the work of feminists interested in theorizing, critiquing, and exploiting the Internet, cyberspace, and new-media technologies. In general Early cyberfeminists such as Dona Haraway built the grounds for cyberfeminism and its study. There have been other pioneers such as Judy Wacjman in technofeminism and Cynthia Cockburn an independent scholar and activist among others who have re-conceptualized the need and role of women in technology.
Australian feminist scholars, such as Susan Luckman of the University of Queensland and Anna Munster of the University of New South Wales, believe that this approach reduces complex technological systems into mere tools and ignores their historical contexts of production and use. However, it's quite imperative to note that there some women who are keen on bringing women to the tech space but would rather not be referred to as feminists or cyberfeminists.
Feminism on the other hand is an ideology that advocates for women rights and development empowering them on the basis of equality of sexes.
Back to our question...should men be cyberfeminists? I posit that men should just be feminists...Not cyberfeminists or marxist feminists or liberal feminists or black feminists...you name them. Just as a disclaimer, there are so many stereotypes surrounding feminism which I do not advance and I am not advancing in this article. I simply mean men too should be on the fore front in empowering women in their careers, development, education and all other facets of life.
Take a look at this analogy. Ben is a senior software engineer and has for years advocated for and championed bringing in more women into tech. Ben is a cyberfeminist, right? But then, Ben is a black feminist and not an African feminist....Then there's John a cyberfeminist and also a radical feminist. Then, there' s Mark keen on supporting and empowering women but he chooses not confine himself in any of the different strands of feminism since true as it is, it is simply overwhelming for him.*
Positing the debate that men should simply be feminists means supporting women while speaking a common language and showcasing a united front. Without watering down the efforts and work put in the work of all this approaches, having all the different strands means building this tower while speaking different languages...will the tower be built? I mean, different languages means we cannot understand one another, can we?
Dr. Ezekiel Mwenzwa and Albert Mugambi Rutere, in their work 'Taming patriachy, the Tower of Babel in Feminist Discourse' 2015 pose that the different strands of feminism in advancing the feminism ideology is equated to the Babylonians building the biblical Tower of Babel. If then we are championing feminism, if we are building the same tower, why then would we be speaking different languages? We make it even harder for men to support our cause because we clearly do not show a united front and a common language in our ideology.
Simply put, men should be feminists and we should all be feminists. Not 'this type of feminism' or 'that type of feminism'. Feminism should just be feminism.
Thank you for reading. Let me know what you think in the comment section and I will see you I the next article. Bye.