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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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