ABSTRACT
Also assimilation, of lesbians into main-stream society. The presence that is visible of in the technology industry plus in digitally mediated spaces raises a couple of questions regarding the partnership between queer identities and Web technologies. This introduction up to a unique problem of Journal of Lesbian Studies explores many of these concerns and offers a synopsis regarding the articles that follow.
The Lesbians whom Tech Summit drew women—most of those queer technology workers—to ny City during the early September 2017. Leanne Pittsford began Lesbians whom Tech in 2012 responding into the not enough presence of females, and specially lesbians, when you look at the technology industry. Lesbians whom Tech is currently a 20,000-member company with chapters in over 40 urban centers throughout the world, which range from Boston to Melbourne, supplying networking and help. Pittsford, A white girl whom founded the corporation, makes certain that 50% associated with the Summit’s speakers are females of color, as well as the occasion emphasizes so it welcomes gender-non-conforming and trans ladies. In so doing, Lesbians whom Tech accomplishes a variety that lots of businesses and seminars, from technology to academia, neglect to attain. Heralded being an antidote towards the overwhelming maleness, straightness, and Whiteness of all tech conferences, one author proclaimed: “You wish to see intersectionality in practice? Head to a Lesbians Who Tech Summit” (Rizzo, 2016 ).
Nonetheless, the increase of a visibly lesbian technology organization during the exact same governmental minute of increasing acceptance and assimilation for lesbians shows a collection of questions regarding just just just just how electronic news technologies are reshaping lesbian communities that few have actually wrestled with into the literature that is scholarly. So what does the increase for the Internet that is popular mean lesbian identities and relationships? So how exactly does the multiplicity of queer identities encapsulated when you look at the codes of “butch and femme” have translated to online areas being predicated upon binaries of zeroes and people? Just how do Ebony lesbians negotiate the usually aggressive and aggressively White, male, heteronormative areas asian girl bodybuilder of massive, multiplayer games? How exactly does the performative artistic electronic tradition need a narrative from lesbians about their intimate selves? How has dating changed for lesbians when you look at the electronic period of algorithmic matchmaking? There are lots of more questions become raised about lesbians and media that are digital, however these are simply a number of the concerns addressed right right here.
This themed problem of Journal of Lesbian Studies centers on electronic news technologies and their effect on the resided and social experiences of lesbians, queer, and gender-non-conforming females.
The articles that follow originate from writers composing across a wide range of procedures and in regards to a wide selection of electronic platforms. Every one talks to a vector that is particular of identities and experience because they are mediated through electronic platforms.
Lesbians have actually recognized as butch and femme for longer than a century, however these identities refract through the lesbian community in complex methods, more salient for many than for other people (Rothblum, 2010 ). Today, these identities are increasingly being articulated online in many different brand brand new means, which Faithe Day assumes in “Between Butch/Femme: regarding the Performance of Race, Gender, and sex in a YouTube online Series. ” In this specific article, Day examines two internet show, “Between Women” and “The Peculiar type, ” developed by as well as for queer ladies of color. She analyzes the performance of masculinity and femininity while the part of visibility/invisibility within the construction of a intimate identification. While femme queers could be “hidden in plain sight, ” the gender performance of masculine-presenting females is complicated with a type or types of hypervisibility. Explores the ways in which a politics of recognition plays out in the representation of queer identity in digital media day.
Every week, a calculated 155 million individuals when you look at the United States play online game titles for at the very least three hours, and two-thirds of households have a game system, rendering it a 13-billion-dollar industry.
The Microsoft game system Xbox is just about the popular (Lofgren, 2016 ). Xbox reside allows for real-time social relationship among players, plus in this massive, multiplayer community, an important number of individual identification is provided aesthetically (video), verbally (sound), and/or through non-verbal cues (avatar, gamertag, etc.). Kishonna Gray uses up the interplay of community and identity inside her article, “Gaming Out on the web: Ebony Lesbian Identity Development and Community Building in Xbox Live. ” Through in-depth interviews with gamers, Gray finds that Black lesbian gamers are susceptible to oppression that is daily, although not limited by, racism, sexism, heterosexism, and nativism. As a result of the inequalities they encounter, they will have segregated on their own from the larger video video gaming community and play through the margins that are digital. This ghettoization reveals their not enough link with the more expensive Xbox community, even though it simultaneously solidifies their ties that are affective one another and to supportive allies inside the area. Gray assesses the fact of a Black gaming that is lesbian inside a platform that devalues their presence.
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