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Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production

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Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd

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Speaker 1: and this is there are No Girls on the Internet. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So here's the story we get told about technology. Men

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Speaker 1: build computers and then they built the Internet, and women

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Speaker 1: we've been trying to break into this tech boys club

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Speaker 1: ever since. We pretty much always assume the default experience

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Speaker 1: online is male and white. But women are using technology

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Speaker 1: to build movements, create art, and connect with each other

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Speaker 1: despite dealing with some pretty vile ship just for daring

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Speaker 1: to be women online. And even before that, women and

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Speaker 1: other marginalized voices have always been at the ground floor

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Speaker 1: technology and the way it impacts culture. So that story

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Speaker 1: we get told it's bullshit. Tech has always been our domain.

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Speaker 1: So why is it always easy to see it that way? Okay,

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Speaker 1: let's take it back way back in the beginning, computers

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Speaker 1: were human. They were also women. In the early days

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Speaker 1: of computing, computer science was solidly women's work. Computing was

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Speaker 1: seen as administrative or secretarial type position. It was such

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Speaker 1: a women's job that after World War Two, computing power

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Speaker 1: was even measured in quote killer girls, which was understood

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Speaker 1: to be roughly the calculating ability of a thousand women.

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Speaker 1: If you've seen the film Hidden Figures that chronicles mathematicitions

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Speaker 1: Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and engineer Mary Jackson, then you

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Speaker 1: probably know what I'm talking about. Calculating and even before that.

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Speaker 1: Born in the eight hundreds, Ada Lovelace is widely considered

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Speaker 1: to be one of the world's first computer programmers. But

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Speaker 1: we're more than just literal computers. Women were involved in

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Speaker 1: every single step on our journey to our computers integration

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Speaker 1: into our everyday lives. And while the names like tech

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Speaker 1: icons like Katherine Johnson and Aida Lovelace might be familiar

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Speaker 1: to you, we still need monuments to the marginalized artists, organizers,

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Speaker 1: community builders, writers and thinkers who shaped what it means

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Speaker 1: to be online. So let's of them. So if you're

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Speaker 1: looking for women in the history of technology, it really

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Speaker 1: helps to look first where people are cared for. Claire

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Speaker 1: Evans is an artist, tech historian, and writer. Along with

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Speaker 1: her partner Jonah Bechtold, she's half of the Impeccable Cool

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Speaker 1: Grammy nominated electro band Yeats to Live in a Psychic City.

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Speaker 1: I never knew what would happen in a day. Claire

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Speaker 1: wrote the book on how women were raised from technology,

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Speaker 1: computers and the Internet. Literally, her book, Broadband Get It

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Speaker 1: shines a spotlight on the history of tech, spotlighting the

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Speaker 1: women who often go overlooked. Think of it as a

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Speaker 1: radical act of archival, so that no one will ever

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Speaker 1: be able to say that women weren't always on the

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Speaker 1: ground floor of technology. While the women led efforts of

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Speaker 1: World War two met the computing workforce was mostly female,

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Speaker 1: eventually things changed. The shift that you're describing between tech

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Speaker 1: as feminized labor and tech as you know, a site

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Speaker 1: of masculine entrepreneurship and innovation. You know, it happened in

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Speaker 1: like the slates sixties, early seventies through the eighties, the

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Speaker 1: sort of generational changing of the guard that happened where

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Speaker 1: the first wave of of early women programmers who came

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Speaker 1: out of you know, the programming efforts around World War

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Speaker 1: two and entered the early computing industry and essentially defined

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Speaker 1: it because that's where the computer industry began, and they

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Speaker 1: were the only people who knew how to do programming,

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Speaker 1: so of course they ran it at air bases here

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Speaker 1: and overseas. Women soldiers performed over twenty five technical jobs

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Speaker 1: war jobs now, but civilian Koreas later on as they

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Speaker 1: kind of aged out and were replaced by the next generation,

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Speaker 1: and the and the industry itself exploded and became you know,

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Speaker 1: massively financially valuable. Um, there was this sort of the

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Speaker 1: baton didn't quite get past. There wasn't uh, there weren't

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Speaker 1: opportunities for young women to come up and replace and

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Speaker 1: fill the shoes of the women that came before them,

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Speaker 1: for all the sort of systemic reasons that you would imagine,

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Speaker 1: you know, um, And I think part of that comes

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Speaker 1: down to just the fact that computing went from being

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Speaker 1: something that was wild and new and you know, more

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Speaker 1: associated with the war effort to something which was relatively

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Speaker 1: beginning to be established and which was a significant commercial enterprise. Money,

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Speaker 1: of course, is what changes things. And I think you know,

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Speaker 1: oftentimes people read my book and then they come and

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Speaker 1: talk to me, and you know, they say, wow, men

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Speaker 1: really ruined everything. But it's it's money. I mean, it's

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Speaker 1: money that ruined everything. It's it's all of a sudden,

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Speaker 1: the stakes were different and the players were different, and

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Speaker 1: you know, it was more cut throat and there were

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Speaker 1: less opportunities for people, and you know, mistakes were made

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Speaker 1: cumulatively and systemically that made it set up. There began

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Speaker 1: to be this un you know, unreasonable assumption that a

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Speaker 1: tech was for men, which was then you know, re

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Speaker 1: emphasized and reiterated through marketing and popular culture. And I

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Speaker 1: think the work that like advertisements for computers in the

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Speaker 1: seventies and film and TV in the eighties, it for

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Speaker 1: making text seemed like a boys club was you know,

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Speaker 1: that was it was really significant. I mean I grew

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Speaker 1: up in a time when you know, movies like Weird

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Speaker 1: Science were really popular, which is a movie about you know,

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Speaker 1: two nerds making a babe using a computer. Uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: that's the sort of sets of you know, it's it's

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Speaker 1: it's that's a pretty clear standard for what the culture

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Speaker 1: assumes is the point of interest for this technology. And

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Speaker 1: if you look at basically any computer ad from the

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Speaker 1: seventies and eighties, you know, print paper ads for anything

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Speaker 1: from hardware to suffware services, it's either you know a model,

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Speaker 1: you know, a woman's you know, sexy woman sitting on

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Speaker 1: top of the mainframe, or it's something explicitly condescending about

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Speaker 1: how this machine is going to replace all the nagging

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Speaker 1: you know, lady data programmers in the office. You know,

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of like really kind of dark, dark

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Speaker 1: marketing that is a part of this, and that's consider

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Speaker 1: created a generation that feels it, you know, as though

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Speaker 1: it's always been for them, um and that sense of

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Speaker 1: entitlement is really difficult to undo. But I think part

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Speaker 1: of the work of kind of digging up this history

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Speaker 1: is showing that, you know, if there is a boys

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Speaker 1: club that exists in tech, it's it's it's an anachronism,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's a historical anachronism wrong that needs to

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Speaker 1: and can be righted, hopefully in less than a generation.

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Speaker 1: Speaking of generations, Claire is a second generation computer nerd.

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Speaker 1: Her dad was a quota at IBM. She grew up online,

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Speaker 1: and that means she grew up feeling like the Internet

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Speaker 1: was her hometown. I came of age during an era

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Speaker 1: where there was kind of enough florescence of girls centric

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Speaker 1: early web content and girls centric computer games, but I

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Speaker 1: never really was interested in that. I I never thought

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Speaker 1: of the computer as being explicitly for boys or for girls,

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Speaker 1: you know, any more than like the TV or the

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Speaker 1: microwave was for boys or for girls. This is a thing,

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Speaker 1: you know, and what you did with it was more

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Speaker 1: about expressing your individual interests and your individual personality down

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Speaker 1: to really esoteric subjects. Um that it was about expressing

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Speaker 1: your gender in any way. But I do know that.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I certainly remember the computer or lab at

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Speaker 1: school when I was a kid being pretty dominated by

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Speaker 1: boys and you know, having to kind of elbow my

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Speaker 1: way into play my games during lunch break or whatever. Um.

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Speaker 1: There certainly was this idea when I was a kid

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Speaker 1: that that boys liked computer games and girls didn't. But

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Speaker 1: I think I was always more interested in, you know,

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Speaker 1: finding ways to empower myself and learn new things using

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Speaker 1: this amazing tool that happened to be in my bedroom.

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Speaker 1: So what kind of games with little baby Claire playing?

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Speaker 1: My favorite kinds of games were trivia games like I

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Speaker 1: love to play. There was this game that came with

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Speaker 1: Microsoft in Carter, which is a you know, Encyclopedia CD

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Speaker 1: ROM that was like a trivia through the Ages game.

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Speaker 1: I loved it. Couldn't get enough of that kind of thing.

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Speaker 1: Or there was a game a little bit later called

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Speaker 1: you Don't Know Jack that was again like a trivia

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Speaker 1: more of a game show style trivia game. But I

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Speaker 1: loved Yeah, I mean I honestly, I really loved learning.

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Speaker 1: And I know that sounds kind of you know, it

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Speaker 1: sounds like what it sounds like, but I love trivia games.

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Speaker 1: I loved like semi educational CD ROMs, like you know,

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Speaker 1: learning about Anatomy. There was a Gray's Anatomy c raum

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Speaker 1: I was really obsessed with when I was a kid.

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Speaker 1: By the way, we bonded a little bit here because

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Speaker 1: nerdy educational games is something that young Claire and young

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Speaker 1: me had in common growing up. If I had did

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Speaker 1: an hour of Mayvin's Beacon Typing Tutor, my parents rewarded

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Speaker 1: me with thirty minutes of math Blaster. Remember math Blaster.

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Speaker 1: Math Blaster was legitimately really fun. And it's funny that

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Speaker 1: you bring up Maybe Speaking because I started a chapter

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Speaker 1: of He Was Speaking that I ended up scrapping because

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Speaker 1: it wasn't it was kind of like too tangential to

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Speaker 1: the history of the Internet. But the story Maybe Speaking

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Speaker 1: is really interesting. I mean, she was the woman on

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Speaker 1: the box, you know, like a lot of people believed

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Speaker 1: that she was like a real typing expert, that Nave

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Speaker 1: Maybe Speaking was a real person and that she was

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Speaker 1: a champion typer, and there's all this kind of interesting

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Speaker 1: lore around her, Like there was a survey that was

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Speaker 1: done in the nineties where people were asked whether or

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Speaker 1: not maybe speaking was a real person, and people like

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Speaker 1: remembered seeing her on TV, Like everyone thought she was real,

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Speaker 1: but she was just this model that had been cast,

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Speaker 1: like I want to say, like she was at working

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Speaker 1: at the perfume counter at Sacks or something, and the

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Speaker 1: guy who made the game was like, this woman is amazing,

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Speaker 1: I need her. She has a beautiful lands. And so

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Speaker 1: she was on the box cover. Um, she was this

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Speaker 1: Trinidadian model and she kind of shed was Renee Less

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Speaker 1: barons Ow. I believe I pulled that out of my memory. Um.

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Speaker 1: But she didn't get a dime, of course, I mean,

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Speaker 1: because of the world is garbage. But she ended up

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Speaker 1: she left the States and there's like no one, no

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Speaker 1: one's really been able to find her, and she didn't

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Speaker 1: get any royalties, even though her face her likeness was

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Speaker 1: really like a huge part of what sold that game

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Speaker 1: or whatever that that piece of software. It was like, really,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, there's something really relatable about her. This

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Speaker 1: idea that this woman was this typing genius that could

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Speaker 1: teach you how to type. So Claire was pretty much

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Speaker 1: always fascinated by computers and being online. But after a

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Speaker 1: while she started to feel like the internet was no

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Speaker 1: longer her hometown, and where being online it once felt

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Speaker 1: like freedom and escape, it started to feel different. It's

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Speaker 1: this realization after many years of spending you know, the

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Speaker 1: lion's share of my waking life on the computer, that

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Speaker 1: I didn't feel good anymore on the computer. And when

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Speaker 1: I was a kid, I remember nothing but joy and

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Speaker 1: discovery and excitement and you know, self identification and all

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Speaker 1: kinds of positive things, and all of that had kind

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Speaker 1: of fallen by the wayside. Some of that is just

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Speaker 1: growing up, you know, and becoming aware that the world

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Speaker 1: doesn't revolve around you, and um, you know, taking things

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Speaker 1: for granted, and getting blase about things, and maybe even

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Speaker 1: getting out of step with what's going on in technology,

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Speaker 1: because of course, you know, tech culture evolves so quickly

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Speaker 1: that I'm sure teenagers on TikTok are having the same

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Speaker 1: feelings of self actualization that maybe I did playing City

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Speaker 1: Run games in the nineties. I hope so. Um, but yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I think as an adult all that

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Speaker 1: all of that joy kind of went away, and the

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Speaker 1: life online began to feel more like a burden or

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Speaker 1: you know, something that had to be accomplished in order

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Speaker 1: to become to remain part of culture and remain engaged

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Speaker 1: in the larger conversation around me, and not something I

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Speaker 1: did for fun or for joy. There's a lot of yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot of reasons for that too.

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Speaker 1: I think, you know, the overlap between digital life and

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Speaker 1: real life, however you wanted to find that has certainly

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Speaker 1: changed a great deal in the last fifteen years. When

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Speaker 1: I was a kid, the Internet was something other. It

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Speaker 1: was something separate from the world as I understood it. It

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Speaker 1: It was an escape. It's not an escape anymore, you know.

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Speaker 1: I think, if anything, real life is an escape from

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Speaker 1: the Internet. Okay, so if you're under twenty five, this

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Speaker 1: probably means nothing to you because you've always grown up

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Speaker 1: carrying the Internet and a little square in your pocket.

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Speaker 1: But humor me, I still remember my early experiences online.

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Speaker 1: I was still a few years away from being lucky

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Speaker 1: enough to have a computer in my bedroom, so going

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Speaker 1: online meant logging on from the clunky family computer and

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Speaker 1: what we called the computer room, and if my dad

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Speaker 1: called you with a soda down there, watch out. Once

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Speaker 1: everyone was asleep, you could sneak downstairs and get online

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Speaker 1: and do whatever you wanted. I mean, forget just having

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Speaker 1: a coke in the computer room. You could be anyone.

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Speaker 1: Those days of being anonymous online we're kind of intoxicating

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Speaker 1: freedom for me and clear both. But while being anonymous

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Speaker 1: online back then meant freedom, today it's totally flipped. The

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Speaker 1: real world is where go to feel anonymous, not the Internet.

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Speaker 1: Something I think about a lot like the position of anonymity,

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Speaker 1: because I know that when I was a kid and

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Speaker 1: I was, you know, hanging out in chat rooms and

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Speaker 1: posting on message boards and surfing around the early Worldwide Web,

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Speaker 1: I was free because nobody knew who I was, and

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Speaker 1: I could be anybody I wanted to be. I could,

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Speaker 1: you know, create an avatar for myself, or create a

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Speaker 1: new identity for myself. I could pretend that was older

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Speaker 1: than I was. I could it was a different gender

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Speaker 1: than I was. I could pretend all kinds of things,

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Speaker 1: and everyone else was probably also pretending a little bit too.

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Speaker 1: And the excitement of being able to kind of redefine

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Speaker 1: who I was and and try on new things was

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Speaker 1: a really big part of the attraction of the early Internet.

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Speaker 1: I think for a lot of people. Uh, now, of

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Speaker 1: course it's the opposite. I mean, we have to be

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Speaker 1: who we are, you know, we have to have our

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Speaker 1: legal names on our Facebook profiles, and this kind of

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Speaker 1: the joy, of the creative joy of anonymity has been

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Speaker 1: replaced by a form of anonymity that is kind of differ,

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Speaker 1: that is really different in you and and on Amynty

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Speaker 1: is now something that's othanized to you know, persecute vulnerable

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Speaker 1: people on the Internet. It's it's not something that comes

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Speaker 1: from a place of delight. I mean there's very few

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Speaker 1: instances I think of people who have anonymous profiles who

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Speaker 1: are doing you know, because they just for the fun

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Speaker 1: of it. Um it's a different it's a different thing.

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Speaker 1: You either are forced to hide who you are because

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Speaker 1: you're because you want to bother other people, or because

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Speaker 1: you are being bothered by other people. Um so yeah,

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Speaker 1: So we're only anonymous now in the real world. We're

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Speaker 1: only anonymous when we're you know, walking down the street

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Speaker 1: or at home doing the things that you know, we

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Speaker 1: do during our time off from the internet. She's right.

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Speaker 1: The internet can be in that fun place, especially if

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Speaker 1: you're marginalized. And because we've allowed those once foundational marginalized

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Speaker 1: voices to be pushed so far outside of the tent

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Speaker 1: of tech, it only reinforces that it's not our domain,

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Speaker 1: that it's not where we'll go to have experiences that

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Speaker 1: involve protection, care, or freedom. It's a problem that as

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Speaker 1: far reaching consequences, not just for women but for everybody.

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Speaker 1: I think as we sort of as a culture begin

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Speaker 1: to digest the consequences of creating this kind of boys

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Speaker 1: club culture around technology, we will hopefully, um see that

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Speaker 1: the clearest antidote is too diversify these companies and platforms

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Speaker 1: as quickly as possible. Again, I don't know. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I am kind of a I don't Capitalism is a

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Speaker 1: is a mighty beast, and it's it'll take a lot

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Speaker 1: of work to kind of get at the heart of

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Speaker 1: this problem in some of these massive, massive tech companies,

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Speaker 1: especially as they you know, resist union efforts and resist

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Speaker 1: the regulation and resist all kinds of positive benefits. Um. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's a long fight. Yeah, it is a long fight.

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Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this quick rate. I was

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Speaker 1: watching this video of me speaking to prepare for this interview,

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Speaker 1: and something that you said was, if you're looking for

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Speaker 1: the history of women in tech, it helps to look

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Speaker 1: for places where people are cared for her. And I

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Speaker 1: guess to that end, what would it look like if

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Speaker 1: care was built into some of these tech platforms from

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Speaker 1: the very beginning, Well, we certainly wouldn't have social media

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Speaker 1: as it exists today, right, I mean, Um, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: it's funny. I I think that there's this kind of

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Speaker 1: actual um, what's the word. It's maybe it's not possible

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Speaker 1: to build things at the scale that the tech industry

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Speaker 1: seems to demand while still emphasizing and prioritizing care. I think,

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Speaker 1: you know, you look at the history of social media,

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Speaker 1: and you know, I profiled this community in my book

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Speaker 1: called Echo, which um, you know, was run by a

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Speaker 1: single person in an apartment in New York. Um, which

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Speaker 1: you know, a person who really deeply cared about her

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Speaker 1: community and who was really invested in the well being

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Speaker 1: of her community, and who kind of had the authority

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Speaker 1: to kick people out who were being hurtful, and who

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Speaker 1: could mediate conversations and you know, who was really part

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Speaker 1: of the community. And I think that that kind of

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Speaker 1: care is beautiful, and it's possible when your community is

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Speaker 1: two thousand people to ten tho people, maybe at most,

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Speaker 1: it's not really as possible when your community is in

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Speaker 1: the billions, when your community is essentially the you know,

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Speaker 1: the size of planet Earth. It's just so difficult to

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Speaker 1: have enough and the right kind of emotional investment to

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Speaker 1: take care of all those people. Um, it's impossible to

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Speaker 1: enforce you know, standards or rules across cultures, across subcultures,

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Speaker 1: across languages. It becomes kind of this, Yeah, it becomes

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Speaker 1: a folly, which is why we've kind which is why

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Speaker 1: social media platforms have outsourced the job of caring to

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Speaker 1: these kind of traumatized content moderators who are not part

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Speaker 1: of the community, who are not you know, deputized members

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Speaker 1: of of this of a dynamic community, who are helping

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Speaker 1: take care of their own but who are instead being

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Speaker 1: shown the worst of humanity, and who are who are

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Speaker 1: suffering greatly as a consequence of seeing and working through

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Speaker 1: all that material. Um, you know, they're being paid to care,

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Speaker 1: but we don't care about them. You know. It's I

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Speaker 1: think scale. I think scale and care might be mutually exclusive,

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Speaker 1: which means that the future of care in tech platforms

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Speaker 1: might look really different than what we're accustomed to. I

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Speaker 1: think we need to move beyond this idea of constantly growth,

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Speaker 1: hacking and trying to build you know, the biggest, biggest,

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Speaker 1: biggest communities, platforms, cultures, you know, programs, systems in the world,

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Speaker 1: and instead focus on empowering people to create platforms and

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Speaker 1: communities and uh and services which affect them and their

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Speaker 1: peers in maybe like an interconnected network of smaller communities,

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Speaker 1: which you know, maybe a world of neighborhoods rather than

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Speaker 1: one giant mega city I think would be a lot

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Speaker 1: more seen. There are different forms of connecting with others.

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Speaker 1: I mean, there's a time and place for you know,

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Speaker 1: kind of the speaker's corner where you can go out

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Speaker 1: in the street and like yell your peace and everyone

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Speaker 1: can hear you maybe or you know, you have the

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Speaker 1: capacity to go viral or whatever it is that you want.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the one too many audience thing is valuable

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Speaker 1: in certain instances, but most of the time, when we're

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Speaker 1: looking for meaningful engagement community interaction in real life and online,

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Speaker 1: it does happen in smaller groups. That happens, um. You know,

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Speaker 1: with people that you either know or you shared interest with,

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Speaker 1: or you share a geographical location with, or you share

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Speaker 1: something with something real, And I think, you know, part

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Speaker 1: of the joy of the early Internet was that because

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Speaker 1: users were kind of spread all over the world, people

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Speaker 1: came together on not based on geographic location necessarily, but

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Speaker 1: based on interest. And you know, most of those early

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Speaker 1: Internet communities were interest based communities. You know, people who

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Speaker 1: are really into star Trek, people who are really into gardening. Um.

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Speaker 1: And that's something really beautiful about that because it reminds

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Speaker 1: us what we have in common even when we're really different,

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Speaker 1: Whereas now we're supposed to kind of relate to the

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Speaker 1: billions with absolutely nothing to hold onto as as a

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Speaker 1: shared experience other than like basic civility and being human, which,

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Speaker 1: as we can see, has eroded completely um in the

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Speaker 1: in the wild wilderness of the feed basic civility. So far,

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Speaker 1: we've sort of danced around the elephant in the room

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Speaker 1: that Claire is hinting at here, which is that being

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Speaker 1: a woman online sometimes means dealing with harassment. So if

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Speaker 1: we're trying to write the history of women's experiences and

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Speaker 1: contributions to the Internet. Do we include the reality that

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Speaker 1: a lot of that history is involved having to deal

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Speaker 1: with harassment, And if I'm being honest, I struggled with

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Speaker 1: that when trying to put together this very podcast. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I can totally relate to that. I mean, I kind

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Speaker 1: of made a choice that I didn't want my book

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Speaker 1: to be about about fighting back against the trolls. I

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Speaker 1: wanted my book to be, you know, a showcase for

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Speaker 1: all the amazing things that people accomplished despite the fact,

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Speaker 1: uh you know that they had to fight against the

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Speaker 1: trolls or whatever their their circumstances were. Um, you know,

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Speaker 1: I think I'm kind of was able to cop out

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Speaker 1: from that a little bit because my book ends basically

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Speaker 1: the collapse of the dot com bubble. And I'm not

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Speaker 1: saying that harassment didn't exist before then, certainly did. But

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Speaker 1: you know, things like game Regate and me to movement,

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Speaker 1: this sort of larger conversations that are happening as like

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Speaker 1: a consequence of systemic sexism in the text industry and

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Speaker 1: in the world, um, you know, sort of became much

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Speaker 1: much uglier more recently. And um, yeah, but I don't know,

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Speaker 1: I have this mantra that is like don't don't fight

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Speaker 1: the darkness, Bring the light, and the darkness will disappear.

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Speaker 1: And I think that I don't know. I think people

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Speaker 1: need to see how much light there really has been

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Speaker 1: and how much, how many fascinating, beautiful, interesting, you know,

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Speaker 1: dynamic contributions had been made um and by women, and

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Speaker 1: you know throughout history, and that it's it's not always

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Speaker 1: about having to it's not always about being a victim.

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Speaker 1: I don't want to always have that. I don't want

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Speaker 1: that to be like a core part of the identity

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Speaker 1: of the characters and that I profile in the book

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Speaker 1: because they're all they're not, you know, like they all

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Speaker 1: they're all tough as nails and super interesting and hard

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Speaker 1: working and have done great things in this world. And

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Speaker 1: maybe people didn't believe in them at the right time,

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Speaker 1: and maybe people have forgotten some of their contributions, but

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Speaker 1: that doesn't make them any less incredible. Definitely, you know,

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Speaker 1: that's one of the things I love about your book.

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Speaker 1: You know, as we speak, I have an Aida lovely

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Speaker 1: sticker on my computer at this very moment, But I

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Speaker 1: feel like your book really allows for these figures to

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Speaker 1: be full complex, three sixty degrees of who they were

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Speaker 1: not just boiled down to some sticker or poster or platitude. Yes,

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Speaker 1: I love that you clock that, because that's that's a

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Speaker 1: really big thing for me. I think, you know, and

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Speaker 1: I've been I've been interacting with us a lot since

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Speaker 1: the book came out, this kind of uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: inspirational poster version of you know, the history of women

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Speaker 1: in tech or like the sticker let's sticker on the

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Speaker 1: laptop version of women in tech. And I totally get it.

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Speaker 1: I mean, we have such a hunger representation in this

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Speaker 1: history that we want to trot out these women as perfect,

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Speaker 1: you know, idolizable heroes. And they are heroes, but their

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Speaker 1: heroes because of the complexity of their lives, not just

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Speaker 1: because you know, Ada Lovelace wrote the quote unquote first

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Speaker 1: computer program. I think she's interesting for so many more

430
00:21:29,600 --> 00:21:32,000
Speaker 1: reasons than that. And I don't think that, you know,

431
00:21:32,040 --> 00:21:35,199
Speaker 1: the opposite of a great man history is necessarily a

432
00:21:35,240 --> 00:21:39,040
Speaker 1: great woman history, because that's just reiterating the same thing.

433
00:21:39,160 --> 00:21:42,000
Speaker 1: That's just you know, laying all of the power and

434
00:21:42,080 --> 00:21:45,480
Speaker 1: clout and influence at the feet of exceptional individuals rather

435
00:21:45,520 --> 00:21:49,520
Speaker 1: than acknowledging a the collective nature of innovation and the

436
00:21:49,640 --> 00:21:53,119
Speaker 1: and the complicated collective nature of history in general, and

437
00:21:53,200 --> 00:21:56,720
Speaker 1: without acknowledging the complexity of individual people and and all

438
00:21:56,800 --> 00:21:58,800
Speaker 1: the things that they do. I mean, I don't want

439
00:21:58,800 --> 00:22:03,280
Speaker 1: to develop a super shold relationship with a character from history.

440
00:22:03,320 --> 00:22:05,120
Speaker 1: I want to know them. I want to really know them.

441
00:22:05,119 --> 00:22:09,520
Speaker 1: And I and I'm not necessarily um super inspired and

442
00:22:09,560 --> 00:22:12,639
Speaker 1: empowered by knowing that someone who came before me was

443
00:22:12,720 --> 00:22:14,920
Speaker 1: really really good at what they did and they are perfect.

444
00:22:14,960 --> 00:22:17,560
Speaker 1: That doesn't help me, That doesn't make me feel like

445
00:22:17,640 --> 00:22:20,159
Speaker 1: I can do things. I mean, I come from a

446
00:22:20,240 --> 00:22:23,080
Speaker 1: world of music and punk rock, and there's nothing more

447
00:22:23,080 --> 00:22:26,720
Speaker 1: empowering than seeing someone just like you do something kind

448
00:22:26,720 --> 00:22:28,840
Speaker 1: of badly and you think to yourself, hey, I could

449
00:22:28,840 --> 00:22:31,639
Speaker 1: do that too, you know, like that's punk. So I

450
00:22:31,720 --> 00:22:33,840
Speaker 1: kind of wanted to do that. I wanted to show that,

451
00:22:34,119 --> 00:22:36,399
Speaker 1: Yeah it a Lovelace was a genius, no doubt about it.

452
00:22:36,440 --> 00:22:38,280
Speaker 1: But she was also a drug addict, and she was

453
00:22:38,320 --> 00:22:42,920
Speaker 1: also you know, like prone to illness and really conflicted

454
00:22:42,920 --> 00:22:45,720
Speaker 1: about being a mother, and you know, had a really

455
00:22:45,760 --> 00:22:48,080
Speaker 1: weird relationship with her own mother and never knew her

456
00:22:48,119 --> 00:22:51,320
Speaker 1: father and all this stuff that really humanizes her and

457
00:22:51,359 --> 00:22:56,040
Speaker 1: makes her accomplishments, you know, more relatable in a weird

458
00:22:56,080 --> 00:22:59,240
Speaker 1: way because greatness emerge us out of out of conflict

459
00:22:59,240 --> 00:23:02,280
Speaker 1: and out of out of people's individual you know, the

460
00:23:02,680 --> 00:23:06,960
Speaker 1: complex combination of of strife and an inspiration that makes

461
00:23:06,960 --> 00:23:10,160
Speaker 1: people who they are. Um, yeah, they're sorrows and their

462
00:23:10,200 --> 00:23:13,400
Speaker 1: bad habits are just as important as their aptitude and

463
00:23:13,520 --> 00:23:20,080
Speaker 1: you know, their inspirational brilliance. It is punk rock like yeah,

464
00:23:20,080 --> 00:23:21,879
Speaker 1: I'm like, it's also really interesting, I mean for me

465
00:23:22,080 --> 00:23:24,840
Speaker 1: doing this, this survey of women throughout history, because my

466
00:23:24,840 --> 00:23:27,760
Speaker 1: books fans about two hundred ish years, and you know,

467
00:23:27,800 --> 00:23:29,600
Speaker 1: what it means to be a feminist or to be

468
00:23:29,640 --> 00:23:32,960
Speaker 1: a sort of a feminist icon changes a lot from

469
00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:35,520
Speaker 1: generation and generation. And you know, look at Grace Hopper

470
00:23:35,560 --> 00:23:39,120
Speaker 1: for example. I mean, she's sort of this classic feminist icon,

471
00:23:39,240 --> 00:23:41,679
Speaker 1: but she didn't think of resolved as a feminist. She

472
00:23:41,680 --> 00:23:44,600
Speaker 1: was actually kind of contemptuous of the idea of of

473
00:23:44,600 --> 00:23:46,760
Speaker 1: women's lid, Like, didn't you know I thought it was

474
00:23:46,840 --> 00:23:49,200
Speaker 1: kind of you know, I don't know what she thought.

475
00:23:49,200 --> 00:23:52,000
Speaker 1: It was like whiny, and she really like actively resisted

476
00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:54,680
Speaker 1: the characterization that she might have faced any challenges whatsoever

477
00:23:54,720 --> 00:23:57,280
Speaker 1: in an all male environment. Like she just wouldn't acknowledge

478
00:23:57,280 --> 00:23:59,720
Speaker 1: that that was a possibility. Um, and I think, you know,

479
00:23:59,840 --> 00:24:02,040
Speaker 1: the that make her less of a feminist icon. I

480
00:24:02,040 --> 00:24:03,200
Speaker 1: don't think so. I mean, I think we have to

481
00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:06,440
Speaker 1: we have to reach people within their time and understand,

482
00:24:07,040 --> 00:24:08,800
Speaker 1: you know, why they might be seeing the world that

483
00:24:08,840 --> 00:24:11,320
Speaker 1: they in the way that they see the world, and

484
00:24:11,040 --> 00:24:14,159
Speaker 1: m and why and and and understand like what I

485
00:24:14,200 --> 00:24:16,800
Speaker 1: understand that within their own context. And that's hard sometimes,

486
00:24:16,800 --> 00:24:20,760
Speaker 1: you know, history is messy, and sometimes doing it means

487
00:24:20,800 --> 00:24:24,879
Speaker 1: like holding multiple contradictory positions in your mind at the

488
00:24:24,880 --> 00:24:27,240
Speaker 1: same time. That's that's the joy of it. Anyway more,

489
00:24:27,320 --> 00:24:29,520
Speaker 1: there are no girls on the internet after this quick break.

490
00:24:37,800 --> 00:24:41,960
Speaker 1: History is important. It's also tenuous. The fact that there

491
00:24:41,960 --> 00:24:44,520
Speaker 1: could be entire movements spearheaded by women online that go

492
00:24:44,600 --> 00:24:47,359
Speaker 1: forgotten today. It's just an example of why we need

493
00:24:47,400 --> 00:24:49,720
Speaker 1: to fight to make sure that we're including nuanced depictions

494
00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:52,520
Speaker 1: of women and their contributions to history and our archives,

495
00:24:52,960 --> 00:24:55,560
Speaker 1: because they could disappear a lot quicker than you might think.

496
00:24:56,359 --> 00:24:59,879
Speaker 1: Even Claire's favorite woman field online movement that hyper feminist,

497
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:02,119
Speaker 1: It's movement of the nineties. It was almost a thing

498
00:25:02,160 --> 00:25:06,800
Speaker 1: that went totally forgotten. I'm really into the sort of

499
00:25:07,119 --> 00:25:11,080
Speaker 1: mid nineties cyber feminist art movement because it sort of feels,

500
00:25:11,240 --> 00:25:12,840
Speaker 1: you know, I'm just to give a broad strokes for

501
00:25:12,880 --> 00:25:14,520
Speaker 1: your listenership. I mean, it was this. It was a

502
00:25:14,560 --> 00:25:18,320
Speaker 1: sort of arts culture literary movement in you know, pretty

503
00:25:18,400 --> 00:25:20,760
Speaker 1: much coinciding with the development of the World Wide Web,

504
00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:22,879
Speaker 1: and um, you know, the world with the arrival of

505
00:25:22,880 --> 00:25:25,240
Speaker 1: the World Wide Web is what brought women online really

506
00:25:25,240 --> 00:25:27,000
Speaker 1: in a major way. For the first time. The Internet

507
00:25:27,080 --> 00:25:30,679
Speaker 1: as a as a military and scientific strim structure was

508
00:25:30,680 --> 00:25:32,440
Speaker 1: was pretty male dominated. But as soon as the web

509
00:25:32,840 --> 00:25:36,560
Speaker 1: and the personal computer combined, um, women took over men

510
00:25:36,600 --> 00:25:40,159
Speaker 1: in terms of the population of of of online of

511
00:25:40,520 --> 00:25:44,760
Speaker 1: the Internet. And so there was this beautiful efflorescence of

512
00:25:44,760 --> 00:25:48,439
Speaker 1: of feminist, radical feminist thinking and art that coincided with that,

513
00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:51,040
Speaker 1: because I think a lot of these especially second wave feminists,

514
00:25:51,040 --> 00:25:53,560
Speaker 1: who were coming out of the late nineteen seventies world

515
00:25:53,560 --> 00:25:56,960
Speaker 1: of consciousness raising and quote unquote brow burning, were really

516
00:25:57,000 --> 00:25:59,280
Speaker 1: excited by the possibility of this new medium that would

517
00:25:59,320 --> 00:26:02,240
Speaker 1: allow them to kind of do consciousness raising on a

518
00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:05,440
Speaker 1: global scale and and reach women and feminists all around

519
00:26:05,440 --> 00:26:08,679
Speaker 1: the world and kind of create new spaces, define their

520
00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:11,199
Speaker 1: own spaces, and and do all kinds of you know,

521
00:26:11,359 --> 00:26:15,119
Speaker 1: fluid and exciting experimentation about identity and gender and and

522
00:26:15,200 --> 00:26:17,480
Speaker 1: all the things that are really fun and interesting. So

523
00:26:17,520 --> 00:26:21,080
Speaker 1: they made a lot of radical art. There's some wild

524
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:26,399
Speaker 1: CD rom games and wild early websites, great manifestos. The

525
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:29,199
Speaker 1: Cyber Feminist Manifesto was one of my favorite texts of

526
00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:32,880
Speaker 1: all time. It's truly wonderful, and it definitely comes from

527
00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:35,800
Speaker 1: a time before comments sections, because the language is just

528
00:26:35,840 --> 00:26:40,359
Speaker 1: so bold and and raw and and and like radical

529
00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:43,760
Speaker 1: and kind of gross and and just wild, and that

530
00:26:43,840 --> 00:26:48,159
Speaker 1: kind of free, free, exciting experimentation in a new medium

531
00:26:48,280 --> 00:26:50,680
Speaker 1: is just really beautiful to look at in the rear view.

532
00:26:50,720 --> 00:26:52,800
Speaker 1: It had its own problems, of course, like everything, and

533
00:26:52,840 --> 00:26:56,280
Speaker 1: it kind of disappeared pretty quickly after the World Wide

534
00:26:56,280 --> 00:26:59,800
Speaker 1: Web became kind of normalized in culture, and the artist

535
00:26:59,840 --> 00:27:01,679
Speaker 1: who contributed to that movement all went off and did

536
00:27:01,680 --> 00:27:03,760
Speaker 1: their own things. But it's an interesting moment I think,

537
00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:06,840
Speaker 1: when when feminists sort of saw the World Wide Web

538
00:27:06,880 --> 00:27:10,760
Speaker 1: as an opportunity and not necessarily as you know, I

539
00:27:10,760 --> 00:27:12,600
Speaker 1: don't know a place that I've sort of a social

540
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:15,679
Speaker 1: system which would replicate um the social dynamics of the

541
00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:18,200
Speaker 1: culture that they existed and already. Okay, So I learned

542
00:27:18,200 --> 00:27:21,000
Speaker 1: about the cyber feminist movement from reading your book. I

543
00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:23,480
Speaker 1: had never heard of it before. And I'm someone who's

544
00:27:23,520 --> 00:27:25,280
Speaker 1: looking for these kinds of things, you know, I'm actively

545
00:27:25,320 --> 00:27:27,800
Speaker 1: on the lookout for women doing cool shit online, and

546
00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:30,240
Speaker 1: yet it went totally overlooked by me. So it's a

547
00:27:30,240 --> 00:27:32,400
Speaker 1: will to me that this huge movement began and ended

548
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:34,520
Speaker 1: and had all of these cool women making this radical

549
00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:37,000
Speaker 1: art in the nineties online and I had never even

550
00:27:37,040 --> 00:27:39,480
Speaker 1: heard of it. It's awfuly what motivated me to write

551
00:27:39,480 --> 00:27:41,320
Speaker 1: the book, because I had the same exact experience. I

552
00:27:41,359 --> 00:27:44,000
Speaker 1: was looking for something. This is a classic like Wikipedia

553
00:27:44,080 --> 00:27:46,280
Speaker 1: moment that I had. I was looking for something else.

554
00:27:46,359 --> 00:27:48,240
Speaker 1: I found myself, I don't know how all on the

555
00:27:48,280 --> 00:27:51,280
Speaker 1: Wikipedia page for this art collective, the VN S Matrix,

556
00:27:51,320 --> 00:27:53,800
Speaker 1: who wrote the cyber Feminist Manifesto that I mentioned earlier,

557
00:27:54,200 --> 00:27:56,199
Speaker 1: And I was like, what, how do I not know

558
00:27:56,240 --> 00:27:57,760
Speaker 1: about this? You know, It's one of those like late

559
00:27:57,840 --> 00:28:00,520
Speaker 1: night Wikipedia deep dives where I looked like I'd followed

560
00:28:00,520 --> 00:28:01,959
Speaker 1: some long chain and I was there and I was like,

561
00:28:02,040 --> 00:28:06,160
Speaker 1: what is this How is there this crazy like cyberpunk

562
00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:08,640
Speaker 1: feminist art movement that I didn't know because I felt

563
00:28:08,640 --> 00:28:10,919
Speaker 1: the same way I had always felt really invested in

564
00:28:10,920 --> 00:28:12,800
Speaker 1: these histories. I've been writing about these histories for a

565
00:28:12,840 --> 00:28:15,480
Speaker 1: long time. I thought I knew kind of everything about

566
00:28:15,560 --> 00:28:17,760
Speaker 1: this about the early Internet, or not everything, but I

567
00:28:17,760 --> 00:28:19,800
Speaker 1: thought I knew like the broad strokes and lots of

568
00:28:19,840 --> 00:28:22,280
Speaker 1: the thing stuff that had happened, and I completely missed it.

569
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:24,320
Speaker 1: And I think it's a combination of the fact that

570
00:28:24,440 --> 00:28:27,320
Speaker 1: as a movement it was, you know, relatively short lived.

571
00:28:27,359 --> 00:28:29,480
Speaker 1: It happened at the very beginning of the worldwide Web,

572
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:31,800
Speaker 1: the world wide it up has a remarkable tendency to

573
00:28:32,040 --> 00:28:35,840
Speaker 1: erase and rewrite itself by definition, that's what's what it does.

574
00:28:36,440 --> 00:28:39,400
Speaker 1: And it just like blipped, you know, right under my radar,

575
00:28:39,520 --> 00:28:41,600
Speaker 1: And I was like, how many more of these stories

576
00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:44,760
Speaker 1: are there? How many more of these moments in history

577
00:28:44,760 --> 00:28:46,880
Speaker 1: have I completely missed by virtue of just being in

578
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:48,600
Speaker 1: the wrong looking at the wrong part of the Internet,

579
00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:51,280
Speaker 1: or looking at the wrong time period. And I think

580
00:28:51,680 --> 00:28:56,000
Speaker 1: there's something really kind of fascinating and maddening about writing

581
00:28:56,040 --> 00:29:01,200
Speaker 1: histories of technology, and specifically histories that involved cultural movements

582
00:29:01,960 --> 00:29:04,800
Speaker 1: and human beings doing stuff on the web. Because the

583
00:29:04,800 --> 00:29:09,160
Speaker 1: web is so fluid and so amorphous and so impermanent.

584
00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:12,480
Speaker 1: Uh like there's you know, like outside of the way

585
00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:15,240
Speaker 1: Back machine, there aren't that many tools for seeking out

586
00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:17,520
Speaker 1: what was on the web ten years ago. And it's

587
00:29:17,560 --> 00:29:19,680
Speaker 1: not that long ago, you know, It's it's really not

588
00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:23,480
Speaker 1: that long ago, but yet it's it's slipping out from

589
00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:25,520
Speaker 1: between our fingers, and it's it's wild to me that

590
00:29:25,560 --> 00:29:30,120
Speaker 1: we have you know, Babylonian cuneiform clay tablets that we

591
00:29:30,160 --> 00:29:32,080
Speaker 1: can still read, but I can't tell you what was

592
00:29:32,120 --> 00:29:36,800
Speaker 1: on you know, women dot com in That seems wild

593
00:29:36,960 --> 00:29:39,280
Speaker 1: to me. So I think this idea that I wanted

594
00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:41,440
Speaker 1: to capture as much of this history as I could

595
00:29:41,880 --> 00:29:45,080
Speaker 1: before it all disappeared, and try to identify as many

596
00:29:45,120 --> 00:29:49,680
Speaker 1: of these moments, movements, you know, people contributions before they

597
00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:53,280
Speaker 1: lived out from under all our radars. It gave this

598
00:29:53,760 --> 00:29:55,840
Speaker 1: entire project a sense of urgency for me. It made

599
00:29:55,880 --> 00:29:58,480
Speaker 1: me feel like I had to move quickly before the

600
00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:02,320
Speaker 1: Internet exploded. Basically, Yeah, And I think a big part

601
00:30:02,320 --> 00:30:04,160
Speaker 1: of why your work is so important is that aspect

602
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:06,640
Speaker 1: of archival, so that no one will ever be able

603
00:30:06,640 --> 00:30:08,600
Speaker 1: to say that women weren't there because they weren't included

604
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:10,959
Speaker 1: in the archive. You know, we can say, oh, no, no, no,

605
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:13,400
Speaker 1: women were always here since the very beginning. Here's the

606
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:15,840
Speaker 1: record of it. You know, I'm I'm almost hesitant to

607
00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:18,160
Speaker 1: draw this line between like men and hardware and women

608
00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:21,800
Speaker 1: and software. But I do think that hardware is much

609
00:30:21,840 --> 00:30:24,760
Speaker 1: easier to historicize. You know, it's way easier to put

610
00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:26,760
Speaker 1: an old computer in a glass case in a museum

611
00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:29,360
Speaker 1: and say, like, you know, this computer is really important

612
00:30:29,400 --> 00:30:31,440
Speaker 1: and these guys made it, and here it is. It

613
00:30:31,480 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 1: has a material presence you know, that is permanent, that

614
00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:36,360
Speaker 1: is going to you know, continue to pollute the world

615
00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:40,240
Speaker 1: until the end of time. Um. But software and culture,

616
00:30:40,280 --> 00:30:43,120
Speaker 1: work and games and communities and all these things which

617
00:30:43,440 --> 00:30:47,320
Speaker 1: are so much more difficult to hold onto. Oftentimes they're

618
00:30:47,320 --> 00:30:50,880
Speaker 1: associated with women's work, and oftentimes they're forgotten because they're

619
00:30:50,920 --> 00:30:53,960
Speaker 1: just they're just they're not you know, they're hard to

620
00:30:53,960 --> 00:30:56,960
Speaker 1: hold on through. They're not things. Um. And we fetishize things,

621
00:30:57,000 --> 00:30:59,720
Speaker 1: and tech culture really revolves around this kind of object

622
00:30:59,800 --> 00:31:02,560
Speaker 1: that shism. You know, we we get the new device

623
00:31:02,640 --> 00:31:05,040
Speaker 1: every six months or you know, we and we imagine

624
00:31:05,040 --> 00:31:06,960
Speaker 1: that by getting the new device, everything that ever came

625
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:10,120
Speaker 1: before it disappears, but it doesn't, you know, it keeps existing.

626
00:31:10,240 --> 00:31:14,160
Speaker 1: And it's really important to remember that that tech is

627
00:31:14,160 --> 00:31:16,520
Speaker 1: not just about objects, and it's not just about platforms.

628
00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:18,680
Speaker 1: It's about what we do with those objects and platforms.

629
00:31:18,680 --> 00:31:21,000
Speaker 1: It's about the ways that we bring those things to life.

630
00:31:21,360 --> 00:31:23,080
Speaker 1: It's about the ways that we make meaning out of

631
00:31:23,120 --> 00:31:26,360
Speaker 1: those things and build community using those things. That's what

632
00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:28,760
Speaker 1: actually matters, you know, that's what actually has an impact

633
00:31:29,040 --> 00:31:33,160
Speaker 1: on human culture, not just human you know, market economics.

634
00:31:33,200 --> 00:31:35,280
Speaker 1: So and I think that you know, at oftentimes that's

635
00:31:35,280 --> 00:31:38,040
Speaker 1: forgotten and at the same time, you know that's also

636
00:31:38,080 --> 00:31:40,200
Speaker 1: the site where a lot of women's contributions are made,

637
00:31:40,200 --> 00:31:42,200
Speaker 1: and so that those things kind of get rushed aside,

638
00:31:42,480 --> 00:31:44,400
Speaker 1: but they're just as important, if not more important, than

639
00:31:45,120 --> 00:31:49,000
Speaker 1: making iPhones. Okay. So I have this theory that by

640
00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:52,080
Speaker 1: gate keeping who is and isn't quote somewhat in tech,

641
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:54,680
Speaker 1: that's really just this way of keeping out all of

642
00:31:54,680 --> 00:31:57,400
Speaker 1: these marginalized figures who maybe you weren't coders, right, people

643
00:31:57,400 --> 00:32:00,800
Speaker 1: who were artists or thinkers or organizers or activists who

644
00:32:00,800 --> 00:32:02,960
Speaker 1: are using the internet in really cool ways. It's a

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00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:05,960
Speaker 1: way to keep those folks out of the tent of tech.

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00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:08,160
Speaker 1: And I think it's important that we understand that just

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00:32:08,200 --> 00:32:10,640
Speaker 1: because you maybe aren't a coder doesn't mean you haven't

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00:32:10,640 --> 00:32:13,400
Speaker 1: had an influential or important impact on how we understand

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00:32:13,400 --> 00:32:16,680
Speaker 1: tech and culture. You know, the tent is huge. Yeah,

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00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:18,440
Speaker 1: of course, I'm like, what good is code if no

651
00:32:18,480 --> 00:32:20,120
Speaker 1: one's using it? You know, what good does that? And

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00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:21,800
Speaker 1: what good does the technology off no one uses it?

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00:32:21,840 --> 00:32:24,280
Speaker 1: I think, you know, yeah, I think you're totally right.

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00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:27,040
Speaker 1: I think people sort of to try to define what

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00:32:27,080 --> 00:32:29,240
Speaker 1: tech means in a way that allows them to remain

656
00:32:29,240 --> 00:32:32,080
Speaker 1: at the top of you know, the totem pole. But really,

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00:32:32,520 --> 00:32:35,040
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, making things is just the beginning.

658
00:32:35,080 --> 00:32:36,720
Speaker 1: And I think, I mean, I think people in tech

659
00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:41,320
Speaker 1: know that because users are the most powerful force for

660
00:32:41,440 --> 00:32:44,720
Speaker 1: innovation that that there is. I mean, the Twitter at

661
00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:47,960
Speaker 1: reply and the hashtag those came from, you know, users suggestions.

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00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 1: The Worldwide Web itself, you know, it was never meant

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00:32:50,200 --> 00:32:54,160
Speaker 1: to be a communications platform or cultural platforms. Users made

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00:32:54,160 --> 00:32:56,280
Speaker 1: that what it is. So, you know, I think we

665
00:32:56,360 --> 00:33:01,800
Speaker 1: often often underestimate the role users and that users have

666
00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:04,640
Speaker 1: in in the system, and you know, you put something

667
00:33:04,640 --> 00:33:07,400
Speaker 1: out into the world, people decide what they're going to

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00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:09,840
Speaker 1: do with it, They give it context, they give it meaning,

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00:33:10,240 --> 00:33:12,800
Speaker 1: and then then then then that sort of cycles back

670
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:15,120
Speaker 1: and the people who are designing those tools then have

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00:33:15,160 --> 00:33:17,400
Speaker 1: to take that and move forward with it. It's part

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00:33:17,400 --> 00:33:20,200
Speaker 1: of the process of developing a technology, and it's not

673
00:33:20,280 --> 00:33:22,240
Speaker 1: often considered to be, you know, part of part of it,

674
00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:24,600
Speaker 1: but it really is that that labors is invisible but

675
00:33:24,760 --> 00:33:27,840
Speaker 1: very real. Being a woman online can be tough, but

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00:33:27,880 --> 00:33:31,000
Speaker 1: it's not without hope. Clear's work as a musician grounds

677
00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:34,080
Speaker 1: are on a very specific kind of hope around technology,

678
00:33:34,400 --> 00:33:38,320
Speaker 1: where text sometimes presents an adversarial foil to humans, time

679
00:33:38,320 --> 00:33:40,560
Speaker 1: and time again, we humans find a way to turn

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00:33:40,600 --> 00:33:44,560
Speaker 1: that conflict into something beautiful that reaffirms our existence. There

681
00:33:44,600 --> 00:33:46,600
Speaker 1: have been many instances in the history of music when

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00:33:46,600 --> 00:33:49,480
Speaker 1: a new technology has come along that ostensibly is there

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00:33:49,520 --> 00:33:52,680
Speaker 1: to displace the musician. For example, the drum machine or

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00:33:52,720 --> 00:33:55,560
Speaker 1: the synthesizer. You know, these are tools that we're designed

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00:33:55,560 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 1: to replace session musicians with an easier, cheaper version kind

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00:33:59,880 --> 00:34:02,640
Speaker 1: of automation of their labor. In fact, even in the eighties,

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00:34:02,640 --> 00:34:05,880
Speaker 1: like the British Musicians Union tried to dam synthesizers. But

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00:34:06,320 --> 00:34:09,239
Speaker 1: what artists and musicians did was, instead of allowing those

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00:34:09,239 --> 00:34:12,480
Speaker 1: tools to replace them, they took control of them. And

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00:34:12,760 --> 00:34:15,000
Speaker 1: you know, they took drum machines, and they took synthesizers,

691
00:34:15,000 --> 00:34:17,880
Speaker 1: and they invented Detroit Techno, and they invented new waves,

692
00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:20,880
Speaker 1: and they invented hip hop, and they invented you know,

693
00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:24,680
Speaker 1: electronic music as it exists today, and it's many manifestations.

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00:34:24,880 --> 00:34:27,080
Speaker 1: They kind of took the thing that was threatening them

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00:34:27,080 --> 00:34:30,040
Speaker 1: with displacement and incorporated it into what they were doing

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00:34:30,080 --> 00:34:32,439
Speaker 1: and made it essential to who they were and used

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00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:34,960
Speaker 1: it to invent something new that they were integray as

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00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:38,080
Speaker 1: human beings involved with. And I think that that act

699
00:34:38,120 --> 00:34:40,319
Speaker 1: of kind of like I don't know, I like like

700
00:34:40,400 --> 00:34:43,160
Speaker 1: jumping on the grenade or something is like a really

701
00:34:43,160 --> 00:34:47,600
Speaker 1: beautiful thing that artists always do, willingly or unwillingly um

702
00:34:47,800 --> 00:34:50,440
Speaker 1: when they are faced with new technology. And I think

703
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:52,760
Speaker 1: when new technology comes along, you always have that choice.

704
00:34:52,960 --> 00:34:55,279
Speaker 1: Are you gonna let it displace you or you're gonna

705
00:34:55,320 --> 00:34:57,960
Speaker 1: let it intimidate you, or you're gonna take it, you know,

706
00:34:58,600 --> 00:35:00,920
Speaker 1: jump on it, find some new use for it, and

707
00:35:00,960 --> 00:35:02,719
Speaker 1: make it part of who you are and give it

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00:35:02,719 --> 00:35:04,960
Speaker 1: back to the world in a new form. That is

709
00:35:05,239 --> 00:35:07,160
Speaker 1: all that choice is always present, and I think that's

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00:35:07,160 --> 00:35:09,040
Speaker 1: what I try to do in my work across the board,

711
00:35:09,400 --> 00:35:11,799
Speaker 1: and I think it's the only way that we're going

712
00:35:11,840 --> 00:35:15,000
Speaker 1: to kind of keep on top of all of this technology.

713
00:35:15,120 --> 00:35:17,560
Speaker 1: And I think it's also very human. I think it's

714
00:35:17,600 --> 00:35:23,280
Speaker 1: what people always do. Um We are always trying to

715
00:35:23,280 --> 00:35:26,680
Speaker 1: create systems of meaning and beauty out of what is

716
00:35:26,680 --> 00:35:29,640
Speaker 1: coming up ahead. And I think that will never change

717
00:35:30,320 --> 00:35:32,759
Speaker 1: when you think about it. Isn't that what it means

718
00:35:32,760 --> 00:35:35,400
Speaker 1: to be a woman online or given the worst? But

719
00:35:35,520 --> 00:35:39,640
Speaker 1: somehow we keep making art, keep connecting, keep building those

720
00:35:39,640 --> 00:35:41,879
Speaker 1: little monuments to who we were and who we are.

721
00:35:42,520 --> 00:35:46,480
Speaker 1: We keep saying, Hello, I was here, you won't erase me.

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00:35:49,160 --> 00:35:50,920
Speaker 1: There are no girls on the Internet. Was created by

723
00:35:50,960 --> 00:35:53,640
Speaker 1: me Bridget Tad. It's a production of I Heart Radio

724
00:35:53,640 --> 00:35:57,120
Speaker 1: and Unboss creative Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer, Tara

725
00:35:57,160 --> 00:36:00,040
Speaker 1: Harrison as our producer, and sound engineer. Michael ma That

726
00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:03,160
Speaker 1: was our contributing producer. I'm your host, bridget Pad. For

727
00:36:03,280 --> 00:36:05,200
Speaker 1: more podcasts for my Heart, check out the I Heart

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00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:07,719
Speaker 1: Radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts