08 12 2000
Larissa Lissjutkina:
ich bin noch am leben! (Translation from Russian)
Dear Jana, dear Andrea, dear fellowcountrywomen - Irina, Irina and Valentina.
hello to all from Frechen!
My name is Larissa Lissjutkina, I came for permanent living from Moscow to Germany. In Moscow I
finished at the historical institute of the MGU (Moscow State University), then wrote and defended my
dissertation on Max Weber's religion sociology at the philosophical institute, then worked through 20
years at the IMPD AN SSSR, which changed its name at least 10 times after 1992. We were joking that
they don't pay us, because the whole budget is being spent on signboards. At the moment of my leaving in
1996, the sign said: "Institute of comparative Politology". In Moscow I worked a lot for newspapers and
magazines, including also about gender topics. In germany I taught at the universities of Bielefeld, Münster
and Eichstätt. Now I don't have a permanent occupation, I earn my living as a journalist and translator.
I take part at the discussion with a delay, because its beginning fell together with the end of my temporary
job in Berlin and with my departure to my "little home" - the settlement Frechen, where I live very cosyly
under the attic of a one-family-house. Frechen is south of Cologne (something like Ljuberec or
Malakhovki). All emails were being sent to both my adresses in Berlin and Frechen. Unfortunately, in
Frechen at my home-computer, I just could open two texts by Jana and Andrea from 21. Nov.2000
01:58:25 + 0100, Brat@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de, and from Wed.29. Nov. 2000 11:49:40 + 0300;
baba-yaga1@mail.ru. But best of all my computer accepted the text from 16. Aug.2000.19:09:37,
geaendert 19:23:50. All other texts I could't open, but I succeeded to print them out in Berlin and brought
them home.
Now it's time to begin.
First I want to react to the first letter by Andrea and Jana from the 21st of november.
I agree with the text until the words: "Cyberfeminists above all are "cyber", and not "feminists". It's hard for
me to imagine such an arrangement of accents even for the West, but for Russia this is at all impossible in
my opinion. First, it seems to me logically inacceptable. How one only can be a feminist in virtual space?
Or only in real? And how to define onself in another space? As a non-feminist or an anti-feminist? Of
course, if a woman spends all her live in front of a computer, she is a cyberfeminist. But that's not only a
position of idea ("ideynaya"), but an existence in a certain space. In your concept, Jana and Andrea, there
is the question No. 2.3.2: "Which spaces are being claimed by women?" For me a cyberfeminist is a
feminist who most of the time "inhabits" cyberspace either because of certain circumstances or because
she prefers to. In Russia, feminism is marginalized to such a high degree that it takes immense intellectual
strength to make it emerge, to identify oneself with it, and then even to extrapolate it to "cyberspace"
(i.o. english). Therefore a Russian cyberfeminist above all must be a feminist. By the way, it seems to me,
that this cannot be different in the West, if one doesn't take feminism as the postmodern inter- and
contextual game: in the cyber-context I am a feminist and in another context a gray woolf.
It is an understandable phenomenon for me, that a symbolic representation of mythologemes (of the
Woman) takes place in "cyberspace", although I am convinced that this is not the last word said. The real
woman also will find her representation in the course of how the elitarity of this space will be
disassembled. Similar to that how it happened with the automobile. Even today in "cyberspace" a very
democratic language has consolidated, which ignores grammatical structures and hierarchies. In the mass it
doesn't have anything in common with the language of the elitist theoretical discourse, on contrary, such a
discourse is absolutely marginal in the internet. The political and solidarity representation of the concrete
woman already is on the threshold of "cyberspace".
It seems to me that I have already answered the question: What is the common ground between cyberfeminists and
only-feminists.
What are such labels good for? That's a good question. You are asking it that I want to say: well, for
nothing. "To label" ("naveshivat etiketi") has a negative connotation in Russian as well as in German. By the
way, in English as well. But in our case it is not like this at all. First af all, the term "cyberfeminism" is
bearing witness of the expansion of feminism into a prestigious and perspectivist region, and if we do not
assume that cyberfeminists stop being feminists in all other spaces, it stands for a widening of the feminist
zone. And second, we are leading this discussion, and I like this. Once again an occasion for a discourse
and activisation of one's own position. And for society it is a signal that today without feminism nothing can
exists any more. It is everywhere, and in "cyberspace" as well. Isn't that a benefit?
Concerning the last question: Do I want to look for agencies/activities in "cyberspace", build new
"networks" and subvert gender relationsships, I shortly answer: YES!
This was the answer to the letter from Berlin.
The second letter came from Singapure.
Hello Irina!
No one of the Russian participants has said anything about Andrea's and Jana's suggestion to address
each other in familiar term within the limits of this discussion. Therefore I take the suggestion as
unanimously accepted and address you with "ty". But if this is not fine with you, I will be ready to change
my addressing without any offence and arguing.
Good, that you kind of interpreted our long time to get running at the beginning. I am asking Jana and
Andrea to relate this explanation to me as well, although my delayed start is mainly connected with the fact
that my Berlin boss didn't leave me for the littlest moment, was standing behind my back and was looking
at my computerscreen to learn to work with my program after I leave. I couldn't stay at the office after
work (and now in Frechen I cannot open the files!).
I fully agree with your statement: ""In my opinion politics and activism have to include corporeality and
actuality, as well as theoretical approaches and virtuality."" In my opinion as well. In general I react very
vulnerably to any fragmentation and instrumentalization of my self. Instinctively I prefer holistic forms
of existence and of self-expression (this really does blockade any carrieristic development, and the
western context does resist a lot more agressivly to such claims than the russian one). Concerning your
appeal to be aware of ethnic differences between Russian women, I understand this as the urgence to
consider and interpret differences in socio-cultural positions, which exist in different national communities.
Were you thinking about this, or rather about ethnos in the context of biology?
The question about biotechnology seems to me the key figure in the present philosophical discourse in
general. At first sight it isn't connected with cyberfeminism in a direct line, as is politics or culture. But an
inner connection does exist, probably an even closer one. For me this is like two poles (or two focuses),
in which the temporal quality of time is emerging and reflecting in a concentrated form. Therefore I
would also like to discuss this topic, but I don't l«know how. I only have questions, and no answers. It is not
about technophoby and technophily, but it's about that it is neccessary to interpret the object, which at the
same time appears as the subject, and as the Other (in Hegelian terms) relating to the the interpreting
subject. In such a situation an interpreting subject existed only then, when he wanted to interpret God. But
now he himself appears as the Creator relating to this biotechnological object-subject. Things are getting
even more complicated as this new subject is not yet created, but already a reception of it's particular
elements is taking place... Last years German discussion about the "Humanity park" showed that
philosophers ask this question only in the form of medial sensation, as carrieristic strategy. And in Russia all
the sqarreling took place beyond society's awareness and beyond any theoretical discourse, neither did it
get the attention of carrieristic positions, because in our country there is no tabu, which could bring profit
to the initiator by being broken in the form of a scandalous sensation. I would like to know what thoughts
you have, Irina, concerning this.
I would also like to answer to the theses by Mitrofanova, which Irina Aktuganova sent as a "supplement"
to Irina Aristarkhova. But not today any more. The clock says 5 to 12.
Good night! This is not my last letter.
Larissa
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