With the emergence of a new breed of hackerspaces, we are able to intuit
new tensions at work in our understandings of openness. In recognizing
these tensions we open up new possibilities for hackerspace culture, and
discover the imperative to acknowledge and challenge the multiple forms
of subordination at work on those who do not fit in to — or do not want to
be associated with — the dominant hackerspace culture. The material
manifestation of feminist hackerspaces performs the first steps in a
synthesis between feminist and hacker traditions. Feminist hackerspaces
advance an understanding that systemic and structural problems (racism,
sexism, transphobia, queerphobia, etc.) are societally embedded and thus
manifest in hackerspace culture. They attempt to challenge a variety of
oppressive systems through an intersectional stance, while foregrounding a
clear emphasis on gender. Ultimately, these spaces attempt to hack the
concept of the hackerspace — reshaping the meaning of hacking itself as a
way to hack life in all its forms so as to (re)gain autonomy. In this article, I
have shown that for feminist hackers, makers and geeks the open space
concept enshrined as the core of the standard hackerspace model is largely
undesirable. They envisage a different role for their hackerspace, one in
which boundaries offer both safety and a platform for political resistance.
In doing so they counter the myth that open spaces are necessarily
inclusive and egalitarian, revealing the issues of privilege which lurk
behind such platitudes. By simultaneously sharing principles and
establishing disparate boundaries and definitions, feminist hackerspaces
collectively express an alternate hacker, maker and geek culture. In doing
so the trajectories of hacker and feminist culture are brought together.
Though feminist hackers, makers and geeks have previously affirmed their
collective identity both online and face-to-face, their expanding material
manifestation in feminist hackerspaces has rendered their nascent culture
increased visibility and accessibility.