UPDATE: Here is the complete list of submissions, amazing, beautiful and inspiring!
http://www.netbehaviour.org/pipermail/netbehaviour/20090331/010439.html

I’m late doing this, but here it is..

check out this post for background…

I’ve mainly stayed away from the discussion of gender issues in technology. I didn’t think that I had any real expertise to share. But over the last six months, after many conversations, it has become clear that many of my female friends in tech really do feel disempowered. They feel invisible, lacking in confidence, and unsure how to compete for attention with the men around them.

Then I see the stupid puerile misogynistic manner with which some of the more powerful voices in the tech community – some of them repeat offenders – treat women, and it makes me very cross indeed. The objectification of women is bad enough when it’s done by the media, but when it’s done by a conference organiser or tech commentator or famous tech publication, what message does it send? Nothing but “You will never be taken seriously, but we might take notice of you if you’re hot.”

…

Thus was born Ada Lovelace Day, and this pledge:

“I will publish a blog post on Tuesday 24th March about a woman in technology whom I admire but only if 1,000 other people will do the same.”

well, i wanted to participate in the Netbehaviour list compilation for Ada Lovelace day, so I wrote this today…

I was so excited to see this, as I’m always filling in my students about ada lovelace, who seems to get left out somehow of our “introduction to computing and the arts” class, often, or only brielfy mentioned…

So I signed up for the list. But I’m not a woman, I’m transgender. I don’t identify as a man or a woman, but I guess you could say I’m mtf, in permanent transition. So, if you want a submission from a femme transgirl, here goes…

my name – micha cárdenas

i’m interested in the interplay of the body, technology and biopolitics. i did a performance called Becoming Dragon in dec 2008. just finishing up my mfa at ucsd, just started working in sheldon brown’s experimental game lab. i blog at http://technotrannyslut.com

inspired by… so many women, but i guess here are the main ones… many of whom are already probably mentioned but i can add why for me.

avital ronell – http://as.nyu.edu/object/avitalronell.html – philosopher of technology, for being my friend and mentor, ever so briefly, one summer at EGS, and a massive inspiration who turned my whole idea of knowledge and thought and ways of approaching politics upside down and inside out. i can’t even describe how much i owe to her…

Allucquere Rosanne (Sandy) Stone – http://sandystone.com – another philosopher of technology, another amazing woman who i met at EGS who was so supportive of me throughout my 15 immersive performance of Becoming Dragon, being more than generous, providing guidance, wisdom and grounding, and for thinking through the questions of online worlds and gender so long before i even started considering them, and for so generously providing me with personal advice about transitioning that was so valuable to me.

adriene jenik – http://adrienejenik.net – networked performance artist, creator of distributed social cinema – adriene is one of the main reasons i am even in grad school and decided to dedicate myself to being an artist and has also been so, so generous and giving throughout my years working with and knowing her. her warmth along with her deep, deep knowledge of new media art has guided me so much. she has been one of the main people in my life to really educate me about feminism.

orlan – http://orlan.net/ – for not being afraid to find the limits of merging the body and technology, orlan is the artist who has inspired me most. i think her work is a shining example and challenge to artists’ commitment everywhere.

donna haraway – another massive inspiration for how i think about politics and technology and the body who’s thinking on interspecies and transspecies relationships helped me develop my own ideas in my work.

beatriz da costa – bioartist, interspcies collaborator – http://www.beatrizdacosta.net/ – for making so much inspiring bioart, for the brilliant, brilliant term Tactical Biopolitics, for her guidance in one short studio visit about Becoming Dragon which helped me reframe my approach to the whole project, and which has turned out to me a great suggestion.

elle mehrmand – http://visarts.ucsd.edu/something-happening/?author=18 | http://myspace.com/assemblyofmazes (that’s her band, but she’s working on a website soon) -my closest and dearest friend right now, a brilliant new media performance artist and beautiful, strong, brave ally.

subrosa – http://cyberfeminism.net/ – for their brilliant linking of witchhunts, queer and gender variant persecution and feminine knowledge production in Yes Species.

probably not surprising, but its my personal list…