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Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto
Simone de Beauvoir said “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” The glitch announces: One is not born, but rather becomes, a body.
The divide between the digital and the real world no longer exists: we are connected all the time. What must we do to work out who we are, and where we belong? How do we find the space to grow, unite and confront the systems of oppression? This conflict can be found in the fissures between the body, gender and identity. Too often, the glitch is considered a mistake, a faulty overlaying, a bug in the system; in contrast, Russell compels us to find liberation here. In a radical call to arms Legacy Russell argues that we need to embrace the glitch in order to break down the binaries and limitations that define gender, race, sexuality.
Glitch Feminism is a vital new chapter in cyberfeminism, one that explores the relationship between gender, technology and identity. In an urgent manifesto, Russell reveals the many ways that the Glitch performs and transforms: how it refuses, throws shade, ghosts, errs, encrypt, mobilizes and survives. Developing the argument through memoir, art and critical theory, Russell also looks at the work of contemporary artists who travel through the glitch in their work. Timely and provocative, Glitch Feminism shows how the error can be a revolution.
The divide between the digital and the real world no longer exists: we are connected all the time. What must we do to work out who we are, and where we belong? How do we find the space to grow, unite and confront the systems of oppression? This conflict can be found in the fissures between the body, gender and identity. Too often, the glitch is considered a mistake, a faulty overlaying, a bug in the system; in contrast, Russell compels us to find liberation here. In a radical call to arms Legacy Russell argues that we need to embrace the glitch in order to break down the binaries and limitations that define gender, race, sexuality.
Glitch Feminism is a vital new chapter in cyberfeminism, one that explores the relationship between gender, technology and identity. In an urgent manifesto, Russell reveals the many ways that the Glitch performs and transforms: how it refuses, throws shade, ghosts, errs, encrypt, mobilizes and survives. Developing the argument through memoir, art and critical theory, Russell also looks at the work of contemporary artists who travel through the glitch in their work. Timely and provocative, Glitch Feminism shows how the error can be a revolution.
178 pages, Paperback
First published September 29, 2020
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About the author
Legacy Russell
13 books74 followersLegacy Russell is an American curator and writer. She is associate curator of exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem. Previous to this role Russell worked as an independent curator alongside her work at online platform Artsy expanding the company's gallery relations across Europe.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 352 reviews
October 17, 2020
This manifesto is blurbed by Lil Miquela, which in and of itself should give the reader pause. In the chapter "Glitch is Anti-Body" Russell compares Miquela to the queer artist Kia Labeija—an HIV-positive Black and Filipino woman who practices voguing and self-portraiture—arguing that both "deploy the imaginary as a computational strategy of survival" and act as "embodiments of persistent refusal ... actively re-imagining and re-centering neoteric realities." Although Russell does briefly consider that Miquela represents "a perverse intersection of a neoliberal consumer capitalism and advocacy," she never fully engages with what this means. Nor does she fully explain why we should embrace Miquela as a model of glitch feminism. Miquela doesn't have a real body—and what? Draw it out for us please.
While Glitch Feminism is an enjoyable primer on basic ideas from gender theory/cyberfeminism, it's not really offering any new ideas on its own, instead regurgitating what we can already glean from Judith Butler, Donna Haraway, etc. We already know that the border between online and offline is fuzzy, and that the Internet allows us to inhabit multiple identities, and that it perhaps lets us temporarily transcend our race, class, gender, so on. The counter-response, of course, is that surveillance and algorithms and so on enable big tech to monetize whatever identities we assume. Russell does point out that, say, Facebook adding 58 gender options isn't actually progress, but her analysis still feels too optimistic — there's not enough clarity on how we can bypass, thwart, disrupt surveillance to create our own spaces of play. I was also disappointed bc Fred Moten (whom she quotes) has written so much good stuff on "the break," "the cut" and the politics of invisibility (drawing from Ralph Ellison), all of it tied to technologies of reproduction, and she doesn't effectively incorporate those concepts to flesh out her idea of the glitch. The idea of "glitch feminism" probably felt more radical when she wrote her original manifesto but as it stands this book feels more like a rebrand of existing ideas than a genuinely new way of thinking.
While Glitch Feminism is an enjoyable primer on basic ideas from gender theory/cyberfeminism, it's not really offering any new ideas on its own, instead regurgitating what we can already glean from Judith Butler, Donna Haraway, etc. We already know that the border between online and offline is fuzzy, and that the Internet allows us to inhabit multiple identities, and that it perhaps lets us temporarily transcend our race, class, gender, so on. The counter-response, of course, is that surveillance and algorithms and so on enable big tech to monetize whatever identities we assume. Russell does point out that, say, Facebook adding 58 gender options isn't actually progress, but her analysis still feels too optimistic — there's not enough clarity on how we can bypass, thwart, disrupt surveillance to create our own spaces of play. I was also disappointed bc Fred Moten (whom she quotes) has written so much good stuff on "the break," "the cut" and the politics of invisibility (drawing from Ralph Ellison), all of it tied to technologies of reproduction, and she doesn't effectively incorporate those concepts to flesh out her idea of the glitch. The idea of "glitch feminism" probably felt more radical when she wrote her original manifesto but as it stands this book feels more like a rebrand of existing ideas than a genuinely new way of thinking.
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February 3, 2022"Ognuno di noi contiene moltitudini, e in quanto femministe glitch, non abbiamo uno ma tanti corpi".
Partendo dal principio - ereditato, in parte, da Simone de Beauvoir - che "corpo non si nasce, lo si diventa", Legacy Russell struttura il suo manifesto glitch, o meglio, il manifesto della sua comunità di appartenenza, formata da artisti queer che rivendicano l'uso di corpi feticizzati e marginalizzati, attivisti che hanno fatto del digitale il loro luogo, uno spazio in cui sperimentare ibridando la fisicità con la filosofia cyborg. È una prima persona plurale quella che si fa soggetto, non si è mai soli nel processo di ristrutturazione del reale e di costruzioni di nuovi immaginari. Perché è questo l'obiettivo del femminismo glitch: "mandare in cortocircuito il maledetto sistema" per preparare il terreno "al futuro caleidoscopico che desideriamo".
Glitch è un termine ripreso dalla tecnica, vuol dire errore, imprevisto. Abbracciare un malfunzionamento significa rifiutare il sistema dato, rifiutarlo e registrare l'anomalia. Glitch è una negazione critica al mainstream ma è anche un'opportunità, una strategia di disobbedienza e una forma d'espressione del sé. Spesso il glitch è associato a un vero e proprio effetto visivo presente sugli schermi, una deformazione di un'immagine, di un suono. Uno squarcio che lascia intravedere un mondo che sta al di sotto della superficie. "Un moto di liberazione in cui immergersi per demolire i limiti che definiscono il genere, la razza e l’identità sessuale". Il glitch diventa il simbolo di un femminismo profondamente digitale, che vede il cyberspazio come “una stanza tutta per sé” in cui esplorare ed espandere la propria identità. Ecco allora la rassegna di artisti e attivisti QTPOCI+ (Queer & Trans, People of Color, Indigenous) che indagano le relazioni che si sviluppano tra genere, identità e tecnologia e si domandano se c'è modo di andare oltre il corpo così come ci è stato "consegnato" e per ribellarsi al binarismo di genere. Proprio il digitale e la creazione di avatar genderless, così come le infinite sperimentazioni e i "travestimenti" che ognuno di noi attua online, potrebbero essere una strada percorribile, nonostante tutti i limiti e le criticità legate alla Rete.
La parte più interessante del saggio è la critica al "dualismo digitale" che troppo spesso distingue il tempo passato allo schermo e il tempo passato nel mondo, semplificando la relazione tra il mondo online e quello “away from keyboard” ovvero "distante dalla tastiera". Questo termine - AFK - è decisamente preferito dall'autrice rispetto a IRL - "In Real Life"- perché quest’ultimo suggerisce che la vita online non sia vita reale bensì una semplice fantasia, mentre tutto il libro si basa proprio sul registrare l’impatto che abbiamo online e le sue ramificazioni all’interno di uno spazio offline. Per tante comunità infatti il cyberspazio è un luogo sicuro, di accettazione, in cui vivere ed esprimere se stessi in libertà mentre l'offline è un mondo violento e discriminatorio.
È una lettura che fa quello che promette: squarcia l'unico schermo che credevi dovessi guardare e ti fa vedere cosa c'è dietro. Una commistione tra critica d'arte contemporanea (un po' malriuscita considerando che quando si parla di opere visuali, non si capisce quasi NIENTE di come siano fatte) e manifesto attivista.
Per chi cerca qualcosa di decisamente diverso rispetto al canone.
Avvertenze: si ammanta di una retorica poco esplicativa e possiede una specificità metropolitana newyorkcentrica che potrebbe non interessare ai più.
Partendo dal principio - ereditato, in parte, da Simone de Beauvoir - che "corpo non si nasce, lo si diventa", Legacy Russell struttura il suo manifesto glitch, o meglio, il manifesto della sua comunità di appartenenza, formata da artisti queer che rivendicano l'uso di corpi feticizzati e marginalizzati, attivisti che hanno fatto del digitale il loro luogo, uno spazio in cui sperimentare ibridando la fisicità con la filosofia cyborg. È una prima persona plurale quella che si fa soggetto, non si è mai soli nel processo di ristrutturazione del reale e di costruzioni di nuovi immaginari. Perché è questo l'obiettivo del femminismo glitch: "mandare in cortocircuito il maledetto sistema" per preparare il terreno "al futuro caleidoscopico che desideriamo".
Glitch è un termine ripreso dalla tecnica, vuol dire errore, imprevisto. Abbracciare un malfunzionamento significa rifiutare il sistema dato, rifiutarlo e registrare l'anomalia. Glitch è una negazione critica al mainstream ma è anche un'opportunità, una strategia di disobbedienza e una forma d'espressione del sé. Spesso il glitch è associato a un vero e proprio effetto visivo presente sugli schermi, una deformazione di un'immagine, di un suono. Uno squarcio che lascia intravedere un mondo che sta al di sotto della superficie. "Un moto di liberazione in cui immergersi per demolire i limiti che definiscono il genere, la razza e l’identità sessuale". Il glitch diventa il simbolo di un femminismo profondamente digitale, che vede il cyberspazio come “una stanza tutta per sé” in cui esplorare ed espandere la propria identità. Ecco allora la rassegna di artisti e attivisti QTPOCI+ (Queer & Trans, People of Color, Indigenous) che indagano le relazioni che si sviluppano tra genere, identità e tecnologia e si domandano se c'è modo di andare oltre il corpo così come ci è stato "consegnato" e per ribellarsi al binarismo di genere. Proprio il digitale e la creazione di avatar genderless, così come le infinite sperimentazioni e i "travestimenti" che ognuno di noi attua online, potrebbero essere una strada percorribile, nonostante tutti i limiti e le criticità legate alla Rete.
La parte più interessante del saggio è la critica al "dualismo digitale" che troppo spesso distingue il tempo passato allo schermo e il tempo passato nel mondo, semplificando la relazione tra il mondo online e quello “away from keyboard” ovvero "distante dalla tastiera". Questo termine - AFK - è decisamente preferito dall'autrice rispetto a IRL - "In Real Life"- perché quest’ultimo suggerisce che la vita online non sia vita reale bensì una semplice fantasia, mentre tutto il libro si basa proprio sul registrare l’impatto che abbiamo online e le sue ramificazioni all’interno di uno spazio offline. Per tante comunità infatti il cyberspazio è un luogo sicuro, di accettazione, in cui vivere ed esprimere se stessi in libertà mentre l'offline è un mondo violento e discriminatorio.
È una lettura che fa quello che promette: squarcia l'unico schermo che credevi dovessi guardare e ti fa vedere cosa c'è dietro. Una commistione tra critica d'arte contemporanea (un po' malriuscita considerando che quando si parla di opere visuali, non si capisce quasi NIENTE di come siano fatte) e manifesto attivista.
Per chi cerca qualcosa di decisamente diverso rispetto al canone.
Avvertenze: si ammanta di una retorica poco esplicativa e possiede una specificità metropolitana newyorkcentrica che potrebbe non interessare ai più.
Read
October 22, 2020solid book but i had to keep reminding myself that it is a ‘’manifesto” and to not get frustrated that many ideas are not fully fleshed out. the first two chapters resonated the most and i enjoyed how Russell brought in examples from black artists and other artists of color to explore the core concepts of GF. the two major critiques i have are 1) it didn’t feel like feminism was the most accurate foundational concept for the work - feels much more focused on identity and gender more generally (ie resistance to a binary concept of gender) 2) the work seems to intentionally evade the commodification of identity in the virtual realm and how that influences engagement/community building/value/sense of self and limits ones ability to truly resist the systems that exist AFK. The influence and role of capitalism cannot be overlooked and i’m hopeful the author will continue to build on the ideas in this work in future writings.
June 9, 2025
Hmm. Idk about all that necessarily …. Looking forward to discussing with lesbian feminist book club tomorrow tho as always! You can join by dming the Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lesbianfemi...
June 25, 2021
i want to be made uninterpretable by the algorithm
October 8, 2020
Agh, this is a difficult book to review. I was hooked on the bio but the book, for me, just didn't live up to its blurb. It's less a book and more of an extended metaphor slash niche and lengthy university essay. Hats off to the writer though for writing something very unique that transgresses boundaries and genres (much like the Glitch).
March 9, 2021
i like the premise of this book, that the virtual world, as a place you don't need a body, is a place to "glitch" the gender binary/other oppressive systems
provocative and refreshing in a theoretical landscape that fetishizes idea of bodies/embodiment + still tends to be technophobic
i guess when all we had was the non-virtual, bodies/embodiment mattered (and ofc still do). but now memes serve the same purpose. "the body is itself an architecture that is activated and then passed along like a meme to advance social and cultural logic"
the "right to complexity" is such a nice idea
but! i thought overall this book did not have much to say / glossed over touchy issues w the ideology. like yes embodiment can be bad. so can virtuality. russell will concede this briefly then move on. like yah the internet is being overtaken by corporations/mega platforms, all the beautiful cool shit on it is being commodified, but let's not deal with this reality and instead celebrate the theoretical liberatory potential of being bodiless as represented by these very specifically interpreted works of art
she has a weird uncritical take on lil miquela where she's like, yah lil miquela could "epitomize a perverse intersection of a neoliberal consumer capitalism and advocacy," but she also "epitomizes what becomes possible with avatar perform-ativity" so... let's move on! and then she criticizes fraud icon anna delvey (as well as amalia ulman who's work i'm not familiar w) for representing how white women can get away w anything when it seems like delvey does represent something about glitching capitalism... she exposes the fraud that it is?? of course delvey is not like a 100% pure political good but that's because glitch, and representation, are really not that politically potent. i much prefer materialist analyses of technology from like logic magazine. grounded in the material world, they can better account for nuance instead of a simple good/bad binary. read blockchain chicken farm!
i like this review quote that "glitch feminism takes technology primarily as an aestheticized metaphor" https://www.bookforum.com/print/2703/...
and "glitch feminism emphasizes the power of representation"
unlike the reviewer i think these are real flaws. i did like the works cited. black/queer artists kinda on the margins of the art world. but i guess what's cool about that art is that it doesn't have a single meaning, it isn't dogma, and her interpretations felt like simplifications in order to serve her utopian theory. it is a manifesto, maybe i don't like manifestos, still shouldn't manifestos at least be written in direct, not repetitive language since there's not much space to begin w? i didn't like the gushy prose and felt all 12 theses ("glitch is X") were effectively the same thing reworded differently
provocative and refreshing in a theoretical landscape that fetishizes idea of bodies/embodiment + still tends to be technophobic
i guess when all we had was the non-virtual, bodies/embodiment mattered (and ofc still do). but now memes serve the same purpose. "the body is itself an architecture that is activated and then passed along like a meme to advance social and cultural logic"
the "right to complexity" is such a nice idea
but! i thought overall this book did not have much to say / glossed over touchy issues w the ideology. like yes embodiment can be bad. so can virtuality. russell will concede this briefly then move on. like yah the internet is being overtaken by corporations/mega platforms, all the beautiful cool shit on it is being commodified, but let's not deal with this reality and instead celebrate the theoretical liberatory potential of being bodiless as represented by these very specifically interpreted works of art
she has a weird uncritical take on lil miquela where she's like, yah lil miquela could "epitomize a perverse intersection of a neoliberal consumer capitalism and advocacy," but she also "epitomizes what becomes possible with avatar perform-ativity" so... let's move on! and then she criticizes fraud icon anna delvey (as well as amalia ulman who's work i'm not familiar w) for representing how white women can get away w anything when it seems like delvey does represent something about glitching capitalism... she exposes the fraud that it is?? of course delvey is not like a 100% pure political good but that's because glitch, and representation, are really not that politically potent. i much prefer materialist analyses of technology from like logic magazine. grounded in the material world, they can better account for nuance instead of a simple good/bad binary. read blockchain chicken farm!
i like this review quote that "glitch feminism takes technology primarily as an aestheticized metaphor" https://www.bookforum.com/print/2703/...
and "glitch feminism emphasizes the power of representation"
unlike the reviewer i think these are real flaws. i did like the works cited. black/queer artists kinda on the margins of the art world. but i guess what's cool about that art is that it doesn't have a single meaning, it isn't dogma, and her interpretations felt like simplifications in order to serve her utopian theory. it is a manifesto, maybe i don't like manifestos, still shouldn't manifestos at least be written in direct, not repetitive language since there's not much space to begin w? i didn't like the gushy prose and felt all 12 theses ("glitch is X") were effectively the same thing reworded differently
November 8, 2020
More manifesto than theory, but creative and thoughtful throughout! Is lacking a madness or disability studies perspective which is a rather significant cause for concern when so many obvious parallels exist. How are we still discussing embodiment and body politics without directly engaging with (dis)ability? Nonetheless Russell is incisive and critical in their call for feminists and queer theorists to look to the internet as a legitimate space of theory, community, and identity. Completely worthwhile as an intro text, and to familiarize oneself with how anti racist feminisms can and already do manifest digitally.
October 30, 2021
I think the idea is good, but I wanted more substance from the book. I would, however, read a straight memoir from Russell.
February 19, 2021
Very nice very good i loved this!!!! Trying to delve more in2 cyberfeminism n its variations so this was an extremely delicious primer of Russell’s take on cyberfeminism via her work on glitch feminism!
I found the “glitch” rly straightforward to understand, which also made me feel empowered and capable of understanding sum rly complex ideas that Russell unpacks vry well. She writes so passionately its truly infectious, a call 2 action like no other.
Most of what (little) i know abt cyberfeminism is based on hayles’ work so my perspective felt rly refreshed reading Russell’s take on the same/similar ideas of corporeality, the digital as materiality, marginalised bodies etc. which in and of themselves serve to question the visibility of white cis women in this field and the invisibility of anyone who falls outside of that category, Russell herself bein Black femme and queer.
This has also been the most interrogative book on gender n the (gender) binary i have ever read so far ever n i must say everyday i question more n more its relevance n usefulness lol. Just a thought but i cant help continually seeing gender as an outdated way to assign labour n continue to subjugate one against the other under capitalism (under the name of equal competition lol) which then arguably serves 2 marginalise all (inevitably) save for one breed of human called the White Cis Man. Nobody mention how much this paragraph doesnt make grammatical sense pls .
Super excited 2 research more in2 this rich n luscious, emerging n evolving topic, n also endeavour 2 read more by Black authors and prioritise their worldviews as a way 2 further question and dismantle the prioritisation of white views n white supremacy in pretty much every area of lyf whether that b online or in the AFK world. Very nice book i enjoyed vry much🥸!!
Edit: i jus skimmed over a lot of the reviews for this lil book n i dont understand why ppl r faulting Russell for doing anything other than writing n presenting exactly what she already claims to be doing ... which is writing a manifesto . LOL like she promised one and delivered! Expecting exactly food for thought or an introductory primer on her own contribution to cyberfem discourse i was still extremely impressed! Jus my 2 cents :)
I found the “glitch” rly straightforward to understand, which also made me feel empowered and capable of understanding sum rly complex ideas that Russell unpacks vry well. She writes so passionately its truly infectious, a call 2 action like no other.
Most of what (little) i know abt cyberfeminism is based on hayles’ work so my perspective felt rly refreshed reading Russell’s take on the same/similar ideas of corporeality, the digital as materiality, marginalised bodies etc. which in and of themselves serve to question the visibility of white cis women in this field and the invisibility of anyone who falls outside of that category, Russell herself bein Black femme and queer.
This has also been the most interrogative book on gender n the (gender) binary i have ever read so far ever n i must say everyday i question more n more its relevance n usefulness lol. Just a thought but i cant help continually seeing gender as an outdated way to assign labour n continue to subjugate one against the other under capitalism (under the name of equal competition lol) which then arguably serves 2 marginalise all (inevitably) save for one breed of human called the White Cis Man. Nobody mention how much this paragraph doesnt make grammatical sense pls .
Super excited 2 research more in2 this rich n luscious, emerging n evolving topic, n also endeavour 2 read more by Black authors and prioritise their worldviews as a way 2 further question and dismantle the prioritisation of white views n white supremacy in pretty much every area of lyf whether that b online or in the AFK world. Very nice book i enjoyed vry much🥸!!
Edit: i jus skimmed over a lot of the reviews for this lil book n i dont understand why ppl r faulting Russell for doing anything other than writing n presenting exactly what she already claims to be doing ... which is writing a manifesto . LOL like she promised one and delivered! Expecting exactly food for thought or an introductory primer on her own contribution to cyberfem discourse i was still extremely impressed! Jus my 2 cents :)
February 20, 2023
This was the absolute worst book I've ever read. I was really uncertain about adding it to my 'nonfiction' tag - I know this is meant to be a conceptual manifesto, but not one page of this book is rooted in reality. I was tempted to tag this book as 'comedy' because it was a joke start to finish. It has 'feminist' in the title, but this is 100%, not a feminist book. In fact, quite the opposite, it did not discuss misogyny ONCE. This book is all about recreating lives and 'personas' online, yet didn't discuss the misogynistic and / or misogynoir vile threats and insults that bombard pretty much every girl and woman's accounts. 🤔 Two quotes really struck me because of how utterly ridiculous they are; "one is not born a body but acquires one," and "the corporeal body is becoming obsolete." What?! This divorce from our physical selves and dismemberment of us into parts is deeply concerning. Humans are bodies. Our minds and bodies are not separate entities engaged in conflict. Not liking aspects of ourselves is a normal experience that everyone goes through. The answer is not to project our self-hatred and insecurities into avatars and live half lives in reality and unobtainable fantasies online. I struggle to see how this book is revolutionary. From my perspective, it's a narrative that adds more sand to the sandbox where people can bury their heads.
October 28, 2020
Really good manifesto. In "Glitch Feminism", Legacy Russell sets down the fundamentals for her theory of feminism - which is, intuitively, glitch feminism - whose aim is to break with the excessive dogmas which coerce us into categorised existence by embracing the glitch - the error which breaks with categories - and performing it extensively. The author recognises that these systems of dogmas - such as race, gender and sexuality - are both at fault for creating and a manifestation of a hierarchy of permissions to exist for those who are disenfranchised, forcing them to either give up their life or change it into a more socially conforming life.
Through the book, Russell shows us numerous examples of mostly digital art done by black and/or queer artists which relate to this and demonstrate how online life is no longer dragged to the subalternity of relevance and how it becomes increasingly important to truly express ourselves as beings which seek to be free from the AFK category systems and to revolutionise our offline existence - Whitman's popular verse "(I am large. I contain multitudes.)" is here often quoted and acts as a motto to propel this plurality of online existences into a dominant plain of existence. Taking after Simone de Beauvoir, Legacy Russell claims that "one is not born, but rather becomes, a body", to signal how the right to have a body for those who are disenfranchised, to exist as an outlier in this heavily categorised society, can be reclaimed.
I have not read much on cyberfeminism, but this book greatly helped me understand a few questions surrounding it and how one can use glitch feminism to break with the shackles of stereotypical existence.
Through the book, Russell shows us numerous examples of mostly digital art done by black and/or queer artists which relate to this and demonstrate how online life is no longer dragged to the subalternity of relevance and how it becomes increasingly important to truly express ourselves as beings which seek to be free from the AFK category systems and to revolutionise our offline existence - Whitman's popular verse "(I am large. I contain multitudes.)" is here often quoted and acts as a motto to propel this plurality of online existences into a dominant plain of existence. Taking after Simone de Beauvoir, Legacy Russell claims that "one is not born, but rather becomes, a body", to signal how the right to have a body for those who are disenfranchised, to exist as an outlier in this heavily categorised society, can be reclaimed.
I have not read much on cyberfeminism, but this book greatly helped me understand a few questions surrounding it and how one can use glitch feminism to break with the shackles of stereotypical existence.
Read
April 6, 2023I am not the most internet/cyber-oriented person, but I found this very thought provoking! my favorite parts were exploring feminism as a virus or cog in the machine of the social order, a kind of philosophy of disruption. I haven't read much gender expansive theory and this felt like a good place to start.
February 2, 2021
"Facebook's fifty-eight gender options (and three pronouns, lest we forget!), first made available for users in 2014, was not a radical gesture—it was neoliberalism at its finest. If a body without a name is an error, providing more names, while proffering inclusivity, does not resolve the issue of the binary body. Rather, it makes and requires a box to be ticked, a categorisation to be determined. Binaries are still presented within the variety of options, and moreover recognition via these platforms urges us to believe that signifying who we are to others is the only pathway to being deemed fit to participate. Poet, artist, and "academia-adjacent independent researcher" Caspar Heinemann puts it best: "In a climate of generalised precarity and instability, naming skin should be the least of our worries: if everything is collapsing, gender's coming down with it. So traumatised cyborg subject is the new normal, but is that the best we can hope for?"
hated some of it, thought other parts were overwrought, but some of it was really smart and interesting. i particularly loved the above page and am extremely inclined to check out the references🫀
hated some of it, thought other parts were overwrought, but some of it was really smart and interesting. i particularly loved the above page and am extremely inclined to check out the references🫀
July 1, 2021
"As glitch feminists, this is our politic: we refuse to be hewn to the hegemonic line of a binary body. [...] We want a new framework and for this framework, we want new skin. The digital world provides a potential space where this can play out. Through the digital, we make new worlds and dare to modify our own. [...] The glitch is for those selves joyfully immersed in the in-between, those who have traveled away from their assigned site of gendered origin. The ongoing presence of the glitch generates a welcome and protected space in which to innovate and experiment. Glitch feminism demands an occupation of the digital as a means of world-building."
The glitch metaphor gets repetitive very quickly in this half academic half internet lingo manifesto. I think it would've been more accurate to promote it as a book about self exploration and not feminism.
The glitch metaphor gets repetitive very quickly in this half academic half internet lingo manifesto. I think it would've been more accurate to promote it as a book about self exploration and not feminism.
August 24, 2023
Interesting, fun + well written but did that weird thing typical of post-modernist philosophy where it used a bunch of terms and arguments that it expects you to already have an understanding of and agree with without explaining anything
Has some sentences that feel more like a vague collection of words than an actual point
Incoherency literally defeats the point of philosophy
Has some sentences that feel more like a vague collection of words than an actual point
Incoherency literally defeats the point of philosophy
October 21, 2021
the idea of exploring feminism in a digital age - where you can create your own identity and pick + choose which parts of you people see online - is a really interesting one, i only wish this had gone into more detail instead of just outlining things
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March 4, 2021Not planning on writing a review for this one (never do for research-related stuff, aha), but I love this line so much: We want wild, amorous, monstrous bodies.
March 11, 2022
Other than that the title specifically includes "feminism," I didn't really feel that this was a feminist book at all. I can see how it is, in a way, an extension of feminist thought - sort of an inclusion of those previously excluded and a normalization of an other - but to me that's a stretch. It felt more sort of norm-critical in general with a soft eye towards marrying the cyber and tactile worlds (I'm specifically avoiding the use of "irl" here since the author argues for the online world being more real than the physical one - she champions the use of "afk," away from keyboard, instead).
But who knows, maybe I'm just so far away from being the target audience here that I just can't connect - especially when the author doesn't even try to sort ease the reader in, it's full-bore from page one and pretty heavy in the lingo (or, that is, what I presume to be the lingo since I am not already initiated).
"Glitch Feminism" is definitely a manifesto more than anything. It's light on substance and fleshed out though and more interested in getting the activist word out. Because of this, I really don't see the use in this book for someone it doesn't speak directly to. That is, for myself. I read this purely out of curiosity and to gain some knowledge and insight into a movement that I know nothing about. Well, I still know nothing about it - other than that the author feels strongly that it is necessary and urgent.
Don't get me wrong, I totally get the appeal of an online life for those who have not found their niche in society, for those who feel that they fall through the cracks. Indeed, these are the people Russel speaks to - and she shows how their art-forms and more or less active protests express this. However, I get a bit of a sour taste in my mouth anytime people start talking about overthrowing systems without providing alternate solutions. It's been tried. It's been done. And it's almost always ugly.
In fact, throughout the book I couldn't help but draw parallels to some unsavory elements that have made similar claims (albeit with different target groups) and capitalized on the disenfranchised of society.
In summary then, I did not find much to write home about in this book, but I'm sure some will. It's also a niched introduction to an interesting wider discussion about the convergence of physical and online life, so I can't say that it's a waste of time. However, for me, it was just barely ok, and I wouldn't recommend it.
But feel free to let me know how and why I'm wrong!
But who knows, maybe I'm just so far away from being the target audience here that I just can't connect - especially when the author doesn't even try to sort ease the reader in, it's full-bore from page one and pretty heavy in the lingo (or, that is, what I presume to be the lingo since I am not already initiated).
"Glitch Feminism" is definitely a manifesto more than anything. It's light on substance and fleshed out though and more interested in getting the activist word out. Because of this, I really don't see the use in this book for someone it doesn't speak directly to. That is, for myself. I read this purely out of curiosity and to gain some knowledge and insight into a movement that I know nothing about. Well, I still know nothing about it - other than that the author feels strongly that it is necessary and urgent.
Don't get me wrong, I totally get the appeal of an online life for those who have not found their niche in society, for those who feel that they fall through the cracks. Indeed, these are the people Russel speaks to - and she shows how their art-forms and more or less active protests express this. However, I get a bit of a sour taste in my mouth anytime people start talking about overthrowing systems without providing alternate solutions. It's been tried. It's been done. And it's almost always ugly.
In fact, throughout the book I couldn't help but draw parallels to some unsavory elements that have made similar claims (albeit with different target groups) and capitalized on the disenfranchised of society.
In summary then, I did not find much to write home about in this book, but I'm sure some will. It's also a niched introduction to an interesting wider discussion about the convergence of physical and online life, so I can't say that it's a waste of time. However, for me, it was just barely ok, and I wouldn't recommend it.
But feel free to let me know how and why I'm wrong!
October 1, 2021
At its best, this manifesto provides the project of queering the body with powerful metaphorical language drawn from tech terminology, particularly language that deals with glitching and errors. The last few sections that talk about glitch as mobilization in concrete political terms are particularly interesting but also the briefest.
At its most frustrating, it repeatedly sidesteps the problem of surveillance in the online world, repeatedly insisting that a queer gender construction subverts, frustrates, and encodes against corporate and state data harvesting, as if the creation of multiple online selves withholds information from these entities rather than feeding them more and more data.
For the most part, however, this manifesto simply rehashes ideas that are widely accepted in gender studies/theory, with the only twist being the addition of terminology specific to the digital era; we "ghost" the body rather than deconstruct it, or create a "ciphertext" of our bodies rather than make them a palimpsest.
Ultimately, this was a disappointing read, mostly because I really wanted to like it and instead found it largely boring, but also because I am simply nowhere near as optimistic about the radical utopian potential of digital life as Russell seems to be. If anything, digital life tends to fill me with despair and helplessness because of all the ways it diverts our attention from the meaningful (re)production of our lives outside of capitalism and corners us into being nonconsensually tracked, identified, exposed, and captured. This is without even mentioning that in the same way that the internet allows our queer selves to proliferate, subvert, and multiply, so it allows those who want to kill, crush, and suppress the "glitches" of our bodies to proliferate, subvert, and multiply. Does that prevent us from calling it an inherently radical tool for (re)identifying ourselves? Every day, my answer to that question gets closer and closer to a resounding "yes," and so perhaps, in that sense, this manifesto is simply not for me.
At its most frustrating, it repeatedly sidesteps the problem of surveillance in the online world, repeatedly insisting that a queer gender construction subverts, frustrates, and encodes against corporate and state data harvesting, as if the creation of multiple online selves withholds information from these entities rather than feeding them more and more data.
For the most part, however, this manifesto simply rehashes ideas that are widely accepted in gender studies/theory, with the only twist being the addition of terminology specific to the digital era; we "ghost" the body rather than deconstruct it, or create a "ciphertext" of our bodies rather than make them a palimpsest.
Ultimately, this was a disappointing read, mostly because I really wanted to like it and instead found it largely boring, but also because I am simply nowhere near as optimistic about the radical utopian potential of digital life as Russell seems to be. If anything, digital life tends to fill me with despair and helplessness because of all the ways it diverts our attention from the meaningful (re)production of our lives outside of capitalism and corners us into being nonconsensually tracked, identified, exposed, and captured. This is without even mentioning that in the same way that the internet allows our queer selves to proliferate, subvert, and multiply, so it allows those who want to kill, crush, and suppress the "glitches" of our bodies to proliferate, subvert, and multiply. Does that prevent us from calling it an inherently radical tool for (re)identifying ourselves? Every day, my answer to that question gets closer and closer to a resounding "yes," and so perhaps, in that sense, this manifesto is simply not for me.
July 21, 2022
idkkk im not convinced cyber feminism is a great theoretical intervention. i don't think "glitch" is a particularly useful metaphor for framing our lines of flight from/refusal of racial capitalism, and i think at times russell hides the weak metaphor behind now-cliche overly-strong verbs in critical theory. sorry i just don't buy that a "glitch" necessarily "explodes," or "shatters" or "destroys" or even "decolonizes" (also, see: "decolonization is not a metaphor). furthermore, some of the theorizations in here were weird. im not sure that it is particularly generative to say a black woman with hiv and a fictional-ai-v-influencer on instagram are both "glitches." also also, for a book so interested in decolonial thought/practice, it seems weird that russell never considered the material fact of the internet--whose land is being mined, whose labor is stolen, whose land is polluted, etc. sure, a glitch may be a cool framework, but not when it is based on material, colonial, gendered, racialized violence!!! anyway this book is a pretty good primer on contemporary gender/race theory, but i think it's theorizations misstep when they step off the beaten path idk
December 4, 2020
Nothing is perfect but then again maybe I say that as one who fully embraces a sense of rejection. That is to say, I am quick to acknowledge my desire to say "no." This book is also collection of rejections. It says "no" over and over again. Whatever slips in agreements that I might have with Russell are mostly minor and as such I appreciate how much of this book was centered on rejection as well as the synthetic and thus gives strength to the virtual (and what might also be called "artificial"). This book speaks to art and maybe also artifice to a certain extent. At any rate, Black queer women/NB of a certain age may really resonate with theses certain ideas. And what does not resonate is worth investigating and exploring. Even if one disagrees wholeheartedly, I'd suggest having the argument with the text so that you can further form your own manifesto for there are not nearly enough manifestos for us as queer Black people in this digital/virtual/synthetic age.
January 10, 2021
Though Glitch Feminism incorporates art and anecdotes, it’s still very academic in tone – not a beginner’s guide to queer theory, nor a light read. I’m glad to have more insight into the malleability of our identities in the digital era, but probably could have used a primer first…
My full review is up now on Keeping Up With The Penguins.
My full review is up now on Keeping Up With The Penguins.
May 8, 2022
Requires so much background information that I felt most of the book that the author is just saying words without meaning anything. A me problem again, but every statement was so far removed from my personal lived experience that I couldn't even take what it was saying seriously.
Read
July 5, 2024this took me a while to read even though it was short and read easily lol. but i rly rly liked some of the ideas it presented! there was stuff abt neoliberalism that made me want to reread the neoliberal multiculturalism piece from sasam - i like how it talked about rejecting acceptance:
“We refuse the rhetoric of "inclusion" and will not wait for this world to love us, to understand us, to make space for us.”
fuck yeah!!!! idk i’ve been in my hating representation era 😭😭 and it talked about corporations:
“Facebook's fifty-eight gender options (and three pronouns, lest we forget!), first made available for users in 2014, was not a radical gesture-it was neoliberalism at its finest.' If a body without a name is an error, providing more names, while proffering inclusivity, does not resolve the issue of the binary body. Rather, it makes and requires a box to be ticked, a categorization to be determined.”
ugh this reminded me of seeing the police at pride and seeing how much of a corporate shitshow it was… like wdym it was sponsored by fucking walmart wtf. it talks about glitch as an error in protest of capitalism kind of? :
“glitch as failure - A computer virus costs capitalism. It degrades productivity within the machine. A computer virus is a threat to the function of the machine and its economy. A machine transforms into one that cannot perform, that quite literally cannot work, forgets how to work, works against its function.”
kind of unrelated but i was thinking abt the connections of glitch/virus as error/failure when it comes to disability - it would be interesting to write smth autotheory related to this idk. like my body quite literally cannot work. not a perfect metaphor but interesting train of thought lol.
and ofc this which was just beautifully tragically said:
“When we name bodies in an effort to render them useful, we end worlds.”
ahhhh. so many other things it talks abt too including how gender can be expressed online as well as how the internet is degraded by cis white ppl compared to the radical potential it can/does hold. (edit: i was reading other ppl’s comments and i was like ok acc yes while the author does address capitalism they kind of gloss over the surveillance aspects of the internet…esp in today’s world i feel like there is radical potential in like AFK connection?)
the 12 sections also felt very repetitive to me. also agree with ppl saying there is a weird lack of disability studies in this. but im glad i was introduced to a lot of these ideas!
i’m glad i picked this up from my prof and finally finished reading it!!!
“We refuse the rhetoric of "inclusion" and will not wait for this world to love us, to understand us, to make space for us.”
fuck yeah!!!! idk i’ve been in my hating representation era 😭😭 and it talked about corporations:
“Facebook's fifty-eight gender options (and three pronouns, lest we forget!), first made available for users in 2014, was not a radical gesture-it was neoliberalism at its finest.' If a body without a name is an error, providing more names, while proffering inclusivity, does not resolve the issue of the binary body. Rather, it makes and requires a box to be ticked, a categorization to be determined.”
ugh this reminded me of seeing the police at pride and seeing how much of a corporate shitshow it was… like wdym it was sponsored by fucking walmart wtf. it talks about glitch as an error in protest of capitalism kind of? :
“glitch as failure - A computer virus costs capitalism. It degrades productivity within the machine. A computer virus is a threat to the function of the machine and its economy. A machine transforms into one that cannot perform, that quite literally cannot work, forgets how to work, works against its function.”
kind of unrelated but i was thinking abt the connections of glitch/virus as error/failure when it comes to disability - it would be interesting to write smth autotheory related to this idk. like my body quite literally cannot work. not a perfect metaphor but interesting train of thought lol.
and ofc this which was just beautifully tragically said:
“When we name bodies in an effort to render them useful, we end worlds.”
ahhhh. so many other things it talks abt too including how gender can be expressed online as well as how the internet is degraded by cis white ppl compared to the radical potential it can/does hold. (edit: i was reading other ppl’s comments and i was like ok acc yes while the author does address capitalism they kind of gloss over the surveillance aspects of the internet…esp in today’s world i feel like there is radical potential in like AFK connection?)
the 12 sections also felt very repetitive to me. also agree with ppl saying there is a weird lack of disability studies in this. but im glad i was introduced to a lot of these ideas!
i’m glad i picked this up from my prof and finally finished reading it!!!
March 14, 2023
more like a 4.5 bc although it’s brilliant and thought provoking, intersecting our digital world with both feminism and art, it is not entirely accessible
Read
December 9, 2023read this because i thought it would be useful for a paper i’m writing. interesting book, advances some good arguments, makes me very curious to check out a lot of the scholars and creatives cited throughout. and i like the glitch thing. glad i read this.
February 3, 2022
There aren't many books that can theorize what it means for humanity to become more absorbed in our tech without having an all-out existential brain crisis. Glitch Feminism, however, provides us with a critique and manifesto of how our physical bodies and social perceptions of those bodies fail our freedoms of expression, identity, and finding community.
In embracing the contradiction of the "glitch," or a computing/systems error—that simultaneous liminal place where we straddle both a frozen moment in time and a movement of frustration to progress forward—Legacy Russell proposes a cyberfeminist theory that aligns with the contradictions of an ever-expanding, cosmopolitan social system. In cyberspace, we can exist as multiple avatars that spawn from one AFK human body and feel liberated in expressing our creative and authentic identities when communicating with others.
This theory seems to harken back to the more uplifting, aspirational Internet 1.0 days of yore, but integrates creative and artistic expression of the contradictory bodies, the raced and hypervisible and invisible and impossible bodies that refuse to be simply categorized and catalogued in this new decade of a more politically polarized America.
I had also found this manifesto insightful and empowering as a nonbinary, mixed race Asian American who has to confront being boxed in and labelled on a daily basis by those outside me who wish to categorize and pin down "who I am" like an entomologist does with the husks of dead insects. This book provides a powerful reminder to raced, trans, queer, non-white folks that we are allowed to exist as we are, to create as we please, without having to succumb to cis/het/white/male perceptions of identity and art.
While I certainly wanted to see more critique of cyberfeminism and Legacy Russell's glitch fem theory at work, I was also thrilled to read the manifesto she left us with instead.
In embracing the contradiction of the "glitch," or a computing/systems error—that simultaneous liminal place where we straddle both a frozen moment in time and a movement of frustration to progress forward—Legacy Russell proposes a cyberfeminist theory that aligns with the contradictions of an ever-expanding, cosmopolitan social system. In cyberspace, we can exist as multiple avatars that spawn from one AFK human body and feel liberated in expressing our creative and authentic identities when communicating with others.
This theory seems to harken back to the more uplifting, aspirational Internet 1.0 days of yore, but integrates creative and artistic expression of the contradictory bodies, the raced and hypervisible and invisible and impossible bodies that refuse to be simply categorized and catalogued in this new decade of a more politically polarized America.
I had also found this manifesto insightful and empowering as a nonbinary, mixed race Asian American who has to confront being boxed in and labelled on a daily basis by those outside me who wish to categorize and pin down "who I am" like an entomologist does with the husks of dead insects. This book provides a powerful reminder to raced, trans, queer, non-white folks that we are allowed to exist as we are, to create as we please, without having to succumb to cis/het/white/male perceptions of identity and art.
While I certainly wanted to see more critique of cyberfeminism and Legacy Russell's glitch fem theory at work, I was also thrilled to read the manifesto she left us with instead.
December 28, 2020
Eggcellent. Be a glitch. I think the primary thing that's worthy of taking away from this book is not necessarily that it is so novel, nor is it necessarily unblemished in a metaphysical regard (or perhaps even an ethical regard as others have pointed out in their reviews. Certainly some comparisons here need to be investigated more fully.) But is a MANIFESTO after all, which it appears many reviews seem to forget. Manifestos have a messy habit of splashing through lots of thoughts without fully investigating them.
What's important here for me is a clear language of action that many other similar radically intersectional feminist manifestos seem to just miss. In that sense, at least for me, this was a welcome success! This book comes along at just the right time for lots of questions I have and connects to some important "glitchy" moments that I never had quite put together in my own academic journey such as remix, "ghosts", encryption, and virus, all of which have their space in digital humanities on their own. However, this contextualizes them in a way that adopts a much more ethical bent that I needed to understand in juxtaposition to the common scientism of digital sociology and information sciences.
The plan is to continually find the space to break our semiotically encoded bodies in a way that materializes other material feminists even more. To become a space in which energy is rerouted into one's self away from our (post-)demographic metadata as normal, to insist upon our materiality by putting ourselves in spaces between. To be glitches which insist upon the right to queer existences where the cybernetic design never worked to begin with by making breaks known.
What's important here for me is a clear language of action that many other similar radically intersectional feminist manifestos seem to just miss. In that sense, at least for me, this was a welcome success! This book comes along at just the right time for lots of questions I have and connects to some important "glitchy" moments that I never had quite put together in my own academic journey such as remix, "ghosts", encryption, and virus, all of which have their space in digital humanities on their own. However, this contextualizes them in a way that adopts a much more ethical bent that I needed to understand in juxtaposition to the common scientism of digital sociology and information sciences.
The plan is to continually find the space to break our semiotically encoded bodies in a way that materializes other material feminists even more. To become a space in which energy is rerouted into one's self away from our (post-)demographic metadata as normal, to insist upon our materiality by putting ourselves in spaces between. To be glitches which insist upon the right to queer existences where the cybernetic design never worked to begin with by making breaks known.
January 25, 2022
Would have prefered to give 3.5 stars than just 3, but I have too many issues to give 4.
I only picked up this book for the cover art, which is 5/5. The book itself is insightful and beautifully written, but a lot of the arguments aren't fleshed out enough, with the author jumping between different topics without linking that well.
My least favourite comparison in the book has likely already been pointed out; Legacy suggests that Lil Miquela and queer artist Kai Labeija both "deploy the imaginary as a computational strategy of survival," with both actively re-imagining our realities. I don't fully understand why we're looking towards Miquela in the world of Glitch Feminism, and I don't see how it can be linked to a person who's creating art about their struggles and how they see the world. The idea was not strong enough for me.
Finally, I do think the title of the book is misleading. I don't think this is really a book about feminism, to me it's a book about gender and identity, with feminism and race theory sprinkled in for good measure. It was still a compelling read and I definitely enjoyed it, but I wouldn't go into the book expecting what's actually on the blurb.
I only picked up this book for the cover art, which is 5/5. The book itself is insightful and beautifully written, but a lot of the arguments aren't fleshed out enough, with the author jumping between different topics without linking that well.
My least favourite comparison in the book has likely already been pointed out; Legacy suggests that Lil Miquela and queer artist Kai Labeija both "deploy the imaginary as a computational strategy of survival," with both actively re-imagining our realities. I don't fully understand why we're looking towards Miquela in the world of Glitch Feminism, and I don't see how it can be linked to a person who's creating art about their struggles and how they see the world. The idea was not strong enough for me.
Finally, I do think the title of the book is misleading. I don't think this is really a book about feminism, to me it's a book about gender and identity, with feminism and race theory sprinkled in for good measure. It was still a compelling read and I definitely enjoyed it, but I wouldn't go into the book expecting what's actually on the blurb.
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