INTERVIEW with Ivana, in Pula during the eclectic tech carnival in August 2002
When was the first time when you heard of the Genderchangers?
I think the first time when I heard of the GCA was in Weimar, when I talked to the ASCII-guys. They had an ASCII presentation and they were talking about what was happening there, so they said they have there an amazing group of girls who are into hardware courses and so on.
I never met a group of girls before that were doing anything with the computer in an organised way, so I can say that in some ways I felt lonely because of that, but I feel really better now.
Why did you feel lonely?
Well maybe because I wanted to find another potential in using computers, not just by doing technology in a commercial way. And I was interested in teaching women how to use computers but I never managed to find a group of girls that were interested enough to get the knowledge without to have to rely on all the guys around to take it from them, when they needed that.
Would it be different if this course would have been given by men?
I think it would be much different, the atmosphere in the room and during the workshops is very different from everything I saw before. It is really friendly and I think everyone is very enthousiastic about this thing and it is not just another workshop or another course. It has a deeper meaning.
What is the deeper meaning?
Maybe that it is called 'sistering', maybe something about reclaiming things that are around us, reclaiming media and everything that is reachable with computerknowledge. Also, it is not just about computerknowledge but also about getting to know each other and getting to know people who are thinking and doing the same things you are doing, so, I think it is a very nice idea of female knowledge-exchange.
Reclaiming, taking it back from?
Not just from men, maybe from corporations and so on. But I think that female have another type of power, maybe another type of feeling, maybe another way of looking at the world and we are definitely less aggressive and maybe wiser in doing some things. So I think that all the movements will go better with more female in it. They don't like just devestating power.
Do you tell men about this and do they understand what you are doing, or do you not try to explain to men.
I try to explain and it really depends on who they really are. If they are knowledgable about gender-issues and technology-issues than it is fine by them, and they would really like to join us, but they don't have problems that we decided to be alone here. On the other hand, ordinary men you can meet on the street are either very sceptical about everything we are doing here, or he cannot understand and he thinks that we do 'who knows what' . He wouldn't understand why we want to be alone and what kind of workshop we have.
What would for you be the primary goal of these happenings here?
I think the primary goal would be definitely to exchange some knowledge between each other and to prepare for the next etc, to make all the documents, to call other women who are not so much into technology but who can share the spirit and the work with the others, and maybe the women from Eastern Europe and Latin America and Africa and so on.
Why especially these women?
Because I think that the western world don't have that kind of problems with injustice, with the so caleld 'Digital Divide.'
So I think it is very interesting for a woman without access to technology to get to know how to use it and to get to know how you can use 486 computers with free software on it, and post your article on Indymedia what is happening near your home and so on.
How would internet and technology help women?
I think without real content technology doesn't mean anything, it's just a game, it's just losing time because you have all nice chips and so on and that's the way the western world all the time deals with technology. But if we are teaching technology to women without access but who have real content, I think we are going another way around to to solve all the technology problems. This problem is that you have on one side all the people without access but with content and on the other western world more and more loss of content. The only content has been given by the companies who want to take the world we are living in.
I think to generally ad to this content I don't thing there is a real difference between men and women, to hold a movement. But I think for men it looks more reasonable to take computers, to take a camera, to go outside and to write an article. I don't blame only men for the world we are living in because I think women have decided to play the role that have prescribed to them. Even many women I know didn't want to come here because 'computers are for men' and 'if you do a computer you are not girlish enough, why do I need to know anything about a computer if I can do like "Help" and three boys will come to solve the problem.' I personally really don't like the idea of being dependent of anyone. So, I don't think there is, in sharing content, in giving content, a real difference between men and women, but definitely the willing to share content is stronger with me. They know they can do it, they are permitted to do it, that is the tradition.
I think that for the first year we got women who already have some statements about technology and about sharing and so on, but I think it is a very good idea to keep with this work for next year, to maybe make a bigger event and to put attention on the women without maybe not just women in Albania or Latin America but maybe Cosmo girls, and girls who just have ideals of getting married and finding a football-player for a boyfriend. Maybe it is a good way into mainstream media and to get journalists to come here and to show them that there is really an alternative for commercialisation of everything.