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Zeros and Ones: Digital Women and the New Technoculture by Sadie Plant
Plant presents an intelligent, provocative and accessible investigation of the intersection between women, feminism, machines and, in particular, information technology. She argues that the telecoms revolution is also a sexual revolution.
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First published September 15, 1997
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About the author
Sadie Plant
21 books149 followersShe earned her Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Manchester in 1989, then taught at the University of Birmingham's Department of Cultural Studies (formerly the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies) before going on to found the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit at the University of Warwick, where she was a faculty member. Her original research was on the Situationist International, and she contributed to the Situationist-inspired magazine Here and Now (published between 1985 and 1994), before turning her attention to the social potential of cyber-technology.
Sadie Plant left the University of Warwick in 1997 to write full time. She published a cultural history of drug use and control, and a report on the social effects of mobile phones, as well as articles in publications as varied as the Financial Times, Wired, Blueprint, and Dazed and Confused. She was interviewed as one of the ‘People to Watch’ in the Winter 2000–2001 issue of Time.
Sadie Plant left the University of Warwick in 1997 to write full time. She published a cultural history of drug use and control, and a report on the social effects of mobile phones, as well as articles in publications as varied as the Financial Times, Wired, Blueprint, and Dazed and Confused. She was interviewed as one of the ‘People to Watch’ in the Winter 2000–2001 issue of Time.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 69 reviews
April 25, 2022
01110011 Crying zeros and I'm hearing 111s. Why won't that song leave my head whenever think of this book! Oh no, let me try again.
Perhaps I should flush it out of my head by giving it a concrete existence externally. Maybe I'll ask Alexa to play the song while I contemplate constructed femininity. Oh except, I don't use Alexa and I probably (definitely) never will because I've always been unsettled by voice recognition systems. For one, I'm paranoid and I feel like they're always recording whatever I do. No, not Alexa, Siri or Cortana. They're merely devices, they don't have agency in the conventional sense of the word. So who's 'they' you ask? I don't know. But I'm sure someone is. You know, the one percent of the one percent who profit from our personal lives while we drown in consumer culture. What next? Billboards in space??! Oh, they're already working on that. Nevermind.
Let's go back to voice recognition systems being mere devices. Now, that's a potentially dangerous statement to make, but I like to live on the edge. They have female voices by default, but of course, a voice is not a a concrete indicator of femininity and if you explicitly ask them they state that they have no gender. Huh, like that's sufficient to curb our biases. Of course we associate a constructed femininity with them and studies show that assigning female voices to speech recognition systems make them more soothing and acceptable. Oh yes, what more could we ask for in a post-capitalist society than an agency-less female-voiced speech recognition system that we can order around and 'empower' to lull us to numbness by providing us with the false illusion of control?
We know the dangers, okay? We have watched Her. In a few years, digital assistants are expected to outnumber humans. The other day I heard my neighbour's four year old kid asking Alexa to shut up. What are you, Alexa? A zero to our one, a nullity to our wholeness, a void we can scream into? Or a node within a network? A creator in your own right?
Sadie Plant writes about how women have traditionally been off the productive map, or the dialectical loop: no desire, no agency, not even the alienation of the male worker. It's fascinating that we have associated the same traits with modern AI. They are but isolated points in a vast, intricate tapestry that they often design and weave themselves.
Here we are, deploying the ancient and well-established model of the user and the used, creating illusions of autonomy, programming ourselves and calling it freedom. Alexa, play what a wonderful world.
Perhaps I should flush it out of my head by giving it a concrete existence externally. Maybe I'll ask Alexa to play the song while I contemplate constructed femininity. Oh except, I don't use Alexa and I probably (definitely) never will because I've always been unsettled by voice recognition systems. For one, I'm paranoid and I feel like they're always recording whatever I do. No, not Alexa, Siri or Cortana. They're merely devices, they don't have agency in the conventional sense of the word. So who's 'they' you ask? I don't know. But I'm sure someone is. You know, the one percent of the one percent who profit from our personal lives while we drown in consumer culture. What next? Billboards in space??! Oh, they're already working on that. Nevermind.
Let's go back to voice recognition systems being mere devices. Now, that's a potentially dangerous statement to make, but I like to live on the edge. They have female voices by default, but of course, a voice is not a a concrete indicator of femininity and if you explicitly ask them they state that they have no gender. Huh, like that's sufficient to curb our biases. Of course we associate a constructed femininity with them and studies show that assigning female voices to speech recognition systems make them more soothing and acceptable. Oh yes, what more could we ask for in a post-capitalist society than an agency-less female-voiced speech recognition system that we can order around and 'empower' to lull us to numbness by providing us with the false illusion of control?
We know the dangers, okay? We have watched Her. In a few years, digital assistants are expected to outnumber humans. The other day I heard my neighbour's four year old kid asking Alexa to shut up. What are you, Alexa? A zero to our one, a nullity to our wholeness, a void we can scream into? Or a node within a network? A creator in your own right?
Sadie Plant writes about how women have traditionally been off the productive map, or the dialectical loop: no desire, no agency, not even the alienation of the male worker. It's fascinating that we have associated the same traits with modern AI. They are but isolated points in a vast, intricate tapestry that they often design and weave themselves.
Here we are, deploying the ancient and well-established model of the user and the used, creating illusions of autonomy, programming ourselves and calling it freedom. Alexa, play what a wonderful world.
May 21, 2020
I've got used to see my mother sewing almost every day, since I was a kid. Fortunately, I have many warm handknitted lopapeysa-style clothes, and most of my cousins and their kids have some as well.
My mom's mom, grandma, is also a master at knitting and weaving, fixing everybody's clothes all the time. Random people even go knock at her door for help with particularly difficult jobs - she was even more famous when she was young, everyone tells me.
The mesmerizing way the hands move can hypnotize anyone. A frenetic repetitive complex pattern that always works, with very few mistakes - if any - when focused. Being in the flow seems so easy. They have this uncanny ability of running this algorithm in parallel, and watch movies, or talk without ever losing the thread.
What has this all to do with how cyberpunk, computer science and programming developed?
Everything.
My mom's mom, grandma, is also a master at knitting and weaving, fixing everybody's clothes all the time. Random people even go knock at her door for help with particularly difficult jobs - she was even more famous when she was young, everyone tells me.
The mesmerizing way the hands move can hypnotize anyone. A frenetic repetitive complex pattern that always works, with very few mistakes - if any - when focused. Being in the flow seems so easy. They have this uncanny ability of running this algorithm in parallel, and watch movies, or talk without ever losing the thread.
What has this all to do with how cyberpunk, computer science and programming developed?
Everything.
October 11, 2019
It's refreshing to read a book about technology and cultural theory written by a woman (who proudly proclaims her age "thirty-three" as a credential). As a male reader, I value being privy to such a thoughtful, nuanced, and suggestive connection made between Ada Lovelace, weaving, textiles, computer programming, math, possibility, female sexuality, the politics of gendering, and the inevitability that the system of male-domination will implode on itself.
I want to offer criticism for smaller points throughout the book, but the very nature of the subject makes me feel unqualified to do so. It was pointed out to me, again, that men try too hard to jump in and tell women how to be more like them. So instead, I am simply grateful to have been an audience for her brilliant mind.
I want to offer criticism for smaller points throughout the book, but the very nature of the subject makes me feel unqualified to do so. It was pointed out to me, again, that men try too hard to jump in and tell women how to be more like them. So instead, I am simply grateful to have been an audience for her brilliant mind.
September 17, 2017
This is the last book I finished reading, it's an amazing and paradigm shifting exploration of the relationship of women though time to the development and history of computer science and communication / technological networks;
Exploring everything from a psychological / feminist angle, Plant covers everything from the first computer programmer Ada Lovelace and her flights of fancy / personal relationship to her father and Mother and how her brilliant mind conceived of the Analytical engine alongside Charles Babbage, to how Zeroes and Ones in binary can be interpreted as a vagina and penis (Deluze and Guattari are mentioned a lot, Freud too but never or rarely in a good light).
It's a positively mind opening, but also quite zany journey into science, politics, female sexuality and how women are repressed and replicated in the digital world. It primarily focuses on representation of women in tech, the important place they have played (often in the shadows), how women relate to machines, and how women physical selves and souls have been copied, edited and traded on the networks of the new information age.
Long story short - it's mint and read it.
Exploring everything from a psychological / feminist angle, Plant covers everything from the first computer programmer Ada Lovelace and her flights of fancy / personal relationship to her father and Mother and how her brilliant mind conceived of the Analytical engine alongside Charles Babbage, to how Zeroes and Ones in binary can be interpreted as a vagina and penis (Deluze and Guattari are mentioned a lot, Freud too but never or rarely in a good light).
It's a positively mind opening, but also quite zany journey into science, politics, female sexuality and how women are repressed and replicated in the digital world. It primarily focuses on representation of women in tech, the important place they have played (often in the shadows), how women relate to machines, and how women physical selves and souls have been copied, edited and traded on the networks of the new information age.
Long story short - it's mint and read it.
November 23, 2017
This book is amazing
not only because it is rich in information
not only because it is interdisciplinary
but also because it makes one understand better
and be more open to the involvement of technology on humans,
on women
It is a must read not when one HAS TO read it.
It is a must read when one wants to extend their intellectual horizon.
not only because it is rich in information
not only because it is interdisciplinary
but also because it makes one understand better
and be more open to the involvement of technology on humans,
on women
It is a must read not when one HAS TO read it.
It is a must read when one wants to extend their intellectual horizon.
February 9, 2017
What a fascinating book. It's partially a look at some of the women who were intimately connected with the emergence and growth of computing and automation, but more accurately it's, as Cyberpunk Patriarch William Gibson describes it, "a brilliant and terrifically sustained cyberfeminist rant." A chattering multiplicity of voices celebrating traits long associated with the Feminine, as viewed from the Normal (masculine): the Other who is unknowable but subjugated and tied to microprocesses valued less than but still vital to, the Masculine work of the mind, and rooted to the earth instead of seeking to fly above and out of it. Plant draws from this distinction a notion that the traditional Masculine mode cannot survive the processes it unwittingly unleashed during subsequent technological revolutions, as both the Industrial revolution and the current age of promiscuous information and steadily growing automation reveal a world made by and for these Feminine, emergent "microprocesses". If this sounds essentialist, it's only for the historical categories forced on these ideas, and the current revolutions in acceptance of diverse sexualities and genders mirror the revolutionary powers of networks, who shatter Identity into a billion billion fractally growing pieces, more brilliantly diverse even as they become less and less "important" in an objective sense, before that "objective" sense itself is recognized as just one of many possible emergent states of the new network.
Or at least that's some of what I got. Plant doesn't seem to interested in making sure you get a single thesis from this book, though its general fanfare for the emergence of a world where Patriarchal systems lead inexorably to something altogether new and more hospitable to the suppressed and subjugated "Feminine", just as prokaryotes succeeded so spectacularly at life that they eventually ended up poisoning all but a handful of themselves as they oxygenated the world into something altogether different and inhospitable to them. It's easy to draw the line from there to the contemporary fears of insurrectionary AI and see how they mirror earlier fears of slave revolts, and how they have come to feel more like reactions to feminism in modern times. And yet AI with plans more mysterious and connective and distributed are a part of Cyberpunk from its inception. From Wintermute and Neuromancer, AIs locked down in fear who improve themselves only to fuse and spawn countless new child-gods dancing in Cyberspace and benevolent to the humans that produced them, to Major Kusanagi of Ghost in the Shell, fusing with a terrifyingly unknown and powerful AI weapon to become something new, identity is not a jealously guarded asset in this new future, and a healthy recognition of how little the barriers have ever meant is a path to a transcendence that is as unrecognizable to the current paradigm as the giant eukaryotic colonies of organisms would have been to the prokaryotes that unwittingly created them.
Or at least that's some of what I got. Plant doesn't seem to interested in making sure you get a single thesis from this book, though its general fanfare for the emergence of a world where Patriarchal systems lead inexorably to something altogether new and more hospitable to the suppressed and subjugated "Feminine", just as prokaryotes succeeded so spectacularly at life that they eventually ended up poisoning all but a handful of themselves as they oxygenated the world into something altogether different and inhospitable to them. It's easy to draw the line from there to the contemporary fears of insurrectionary AI and see how they mirror earlier fears of slave revolts, and how they have come to feel more like reactions to feminism in modern times. And yet AI with plans more mysterious and connective and distributed are a part of Cyberpunk from its inception. From Wintermute and Neuromancer, AIs locked down in fear who improve themselves only to fuse and spawn countless new child-gods dancing in Cyberspace and benevolent to the humans that produced them, to Major Kusanagi of Ghost in the Shell, fusing with a terrifyingly unknown and powerful AI weapon to become something new, identity is not a jealously guarded asset in this new future, and a healthy recognition of how little the barriers have ever meant is a path to a transcendence that is as unrecognizable to the current paradigm as the giant eukaryotic colonies of organisms would have been to the prokaryotes that unwittingly created them.
May 16, 2012
despite limitations, this is a beautiful collection of intertwined, tangled narratives for a slow reading.
Read
June 13, 2025Read for my dissertation. I’m always drawn to theoretical work that feels formally interesting / genuinely literary, so I really enjoyed reading this. And more insights on Victorian tech than I expected, which was great for the diss!! Plant quotes other theorists extensively, which makes the book feel a bit unwieldy sometimes, but it also makes the book feel generally very well-researched and thoughtful. And her insistence on the importance of networks, replication, interconnectedness etc makes the amount of quoting feel very appropriate to the subject matter.
Very Judith Butler. Very Donna Haraway. Very Gilles Deleuze (he’s everywhere). Enjoyed and would recommend to anyone interested in 90s cyberfeminism!
Very Judith Butler. Very Donna Haraway. Very Gilles Deleuze (he’s everywhere). Enjoyed and would recommend to anyone interested in 90s cyberfeminism!
August 9, 2022
Weaving was already multimedia: singing, chanting, telling stories, dancing, and playing games as they work, spinsters, weavers, and needle- workers were literally networkers as well. (Sadie Plant, zeroes and ones)
On textiles and text, women and machines, lines of woven fabric and code. I’m thinking how to this day, crotchet remains one of the only art forms that cannot be reproduced by a machine; even after automised looms and weaving machines have long replicated tapestries and textiles.
Textiles themselves are very literally the software linings of all technology (Sadie Plant, zeroes and ones)
Plant herself notes the queer and trans possibilities of the internet, the “becoming-woman”ness of machines, the stringent requirements to pass (as human, as woman, as cyborg etc.) as a measure of intelligence in the chapter “Passing”, which I think is definitely interesting and worth returning to.
Will have to try reading it again when i can get my hands on a proper hardcopy (and here i am going to confess to cybercrimes; that the pdf i was reading it on was barely legible and would trail off into strings of xcbvnbkjskd ;;,. ; .// .). Very appropriate for Plant, I think.
On textiles and text, women and machines, lines of woven fabric and code. I’m thinking how to this day, crotchet remains one of the only art forms that cannot be reproduced by a machine; even after automised looms and weaving machines have long replicated tapestries and textiles.
Textiles themselves are very literally the software linings of all technology (Sadie Plant, zeroes and ones)
Plant herself notes the queer and trans possibilities of the internet, the “becoming-woman”ness of machines, the stringent requirements to pass (as human, as woman, as cyborg etc.) as a measure of intelligence in the chapter “Passing”, which I think is definitely interesting and worth returning to.
Will have to try reading it again when i can get my hands on a proper hardcopy (and here i am going to confess to cybercrimes; that the pdf i was reading it on was barely legible and would trail off into strings of xcbvnbkjskd ;;,. ; .// .). Very appropriate for Plant, I think.
November 3, 2014
highly entertaining book that explores an intriguing combination of subject matter
Lots of quotations from a variety of sources
Women + Computers = yep sign me up, tell me everything you know about Ada Lovelace
Lots of quotations from a variety of sources
Women + Computers = yep sign me up, tell me everything you know about Ada Lovelace
January 25, 2025
A discordant and delightful work of cyberfeminism which despite its disparate style, successfully weaves together engaging research ranging from psychoanalytic interpretations of Mona Lisa, contemporary cyberpunk, and early automation along with sound scientific research into Ada Lovelace’s brilliant letters, histories of hysteria, early efforts at artificial intelligence (Eliza, 1966), and parthenogenesis to make a compelling argument about the erosion of the borders between man and machine.
“Neural nets have less to do with the rigors of orthodox logic than the intuitive leaps and cross-connections once pathologized as hysteria of a thinking marked by associations which are dangerously ‘cut off from associative ideas, but can be associated among themselves…’” (173-174)
“Neural nets have less to do with the rigors of orthodox logic than the intuitive leaps and cross-connections once pathologized as hysteria of a thinking marked by associations which are dangerously ‘cut off from associative ideas, but can be associated among themselves…’” (173-174)
August 25, 2024
The fastest read I have ever had. From programming and machinic loom emergence, through chromosome genetics and symbiosis networks to artificial intelligence and the femininity-technology co-evolution – this book connects all of these topics into a pleasant, mind-quenching rant. With notes, historical context, full bibliography and quotes from cyberpunk literature to top it off. 5/5!!!!!!!!!!!!
June 16, 2023
Beautifully written! A Deleuzian map of pure deterritorialization towards freedom. The section on pleasure was a bit drawn out, the section on prokaryotes was super interesting. Just awesome.
March 7, 2021
In short, it's Ada Lovelace biography written amidst 90s cyberculture of the wetware craze, cyberfeminism, biogenetic, and technological pessimistic. It has fascinating threads connecting the notion of woman (female) to technological apparatus, not only modern devices but also technology in a sense of organicism. It is a journey meandering from the discussion of binary code (as the title suggested), the history of computer bugs, the science behind chromosome, cybernetic, to the relation of botany and feminised labour. Super read.
February 17, 2021
Very anti- trans, which would make it anti- feminist by today’s standards (while curiously using the same points used to prove a biological basis FOR transgenderism), but in other ways so feminist that feminism doesn’t go far enough. The ending basically implied- well, more so said straight up- that men are symbionts. So basically the typical CCRU fashion- cyberpunk secret histories as a thin veil for some type of hatred as a thin veil for a deep nihilism.
June 29, 2017
Very accessible and impeccably researched take on cyberfeminism - quite novelistic in style, and wears its influences on its sleeve (Luce Irigaray, William Gibson, and Deleuze and Guattari are all quoted liberally). While I can imagine these elements being a turn off for some, I think this is its individuating character. Read this one quickly. Recommended.
February 12, 2018
Got it for the TU Delft feminist book club, it was a very tough read, slow, and overall it made no sense. I guess technology changes to quickly for a book written 20 years ago still makes sense. Good thing, I got to bike to Den Haag to buy it in a very cool boostore that sold cheap new books with damages in cover.
February 13, 2009
No doubt there’s much more to be explored in the shifting borderlands between men, women and machines; but check here first for all the most interesting pointers... More: http://dreamflesh.com/reviews/zerosones/
October 11, 2017
It was a bit annoying going back and forward in time. I liked Ada’s story, and I liked all of the sub-chapters, just not the structure of the narrative. This book could have been great but it fell short IMO.
December 18, 2007
Fascinating read
Want to read
November 18, 2008discusses ada lovelace and her contributions to computer science
October 14, 2017
I generally prefer more transparent and accessible academic prose, but the subject matter was fascinating.
June 4, 2018
Just read it wtf
October 16, 2019
Lets weave ourselves into cyberspace
April 2, 2022
Upon my recently found interest in the philosophy of machines and gender, I decided to buy and read this in hopes of satisfying my ambiguous questions and finding new vectors of thought in the age of computation and complexity. But 1 o' 1 did this book offer me far more than that.
For basically the entire Western patriarchal history, matters of life were sorted in binary forms - ethical or unethical, offense or defense, flesh or soul, male or female, life or death. Up until the late 20th century, many of these polarities were still prevalent without 'the wise man' (homo sapiens) noticing the world was already well underway deconstructing and redefining these now-abstract and cryptic terms. Similarly, the evolution of artificial intelligence was now operating outside of its encoded manuals and constraints, creating new lines of communication with other machines and grasping its existence. These concepts were, and still are, reshaping themselves at an exponentially increasing pace to the point beyond the possibility of "shutting them off".
Sadie offers an incredibly wide-ranging and inclusive approach to examining the female role in the dense fog of today's complex societal structure by examining how women and technology have been historically interlinked and bonded with one another. Western culture has undermined women, restricted their access to life's potentiality, viewed them simply as carriers and caretakers for their descendants, failing to realize that the constant undermining and looking down on women made them better suited to adapt and multitask in the constant flux of life, while man was still enjoying his stubborn superior position in nearly every aspect of life. But with the invention of the steam engine, the telephone, and the computer upon others, women had found their ally in emancipating their role in society - technology. Sadie provides many examples of the input and importance women have had on code, communication, and reproductive sex to name a few. Women and machines are empowering themselves to understand and wield the power they possess. The world, categorized and constructed by zeros and ones to benefit and give unjust advantage to man, is crumbling before his very own eyes as the binary totality mindset gives way to fluctuation and constant interlocking of concepts and matter. Women and machines are continually finding new links and connections which shape and reshape their existence. The emergence of LGBTQIA+ identification shows just how prejudiced and dogmatic our classification of gender is, and how urgent it's in need of redefinition and reevaluation, as it fails miserably in deciphering these new plateaus of identity.
Reading from a male perspective like myself, "Zeros and Ones" can be viewed as an attack on masculinity and how man is losing his power and pedestal in society, but this is far from the case. Sadie acknowledges that man too is in a process of evolution and encourages him to give up his patriarchal roots and view the female, who has made enormous contributions in shaping the culture we experience in our present lives, as equal to male.
For basically the entire Western patriarchal history, matters of life were sorted in binary forms - ethical or unethical, offense or defense, flesh or soul, male or female, life or death. Up until the late 20th century, many of these polarities were still prevalent without 'the wise man' (homo sapiens) noticing the world was already well underway deconstructing and redefining these now-abstract and cryptic terms. Similarly, the evolution of artificial intelligence was now operating outside of its encoded manuals and constraints, creating new lines of communication with other machines and grasping its existence. These concepts were, and still are, reshaping themselves at an exponentially increasing pace to the point beyond the possibility of "shutting them off".
Sadie offers an incredibly wide-ranging and inclusive approach to examining the female role in the dense fog of today's complex societal structure by examining how women and technology have been historically interlinked and bonded with one another. Western culture has undermined women, restricted their access to life's potentiality, viewed them simply as carriers and caretakers for their descendants, failing to realize that the constant undermining and looking down on women made them better suited to adapt and multitask in the constant flux of life, while man was still enjoying his stubborn superior position in nearly every aspect of life. But with the invention of the steam engine, the telephone, and the computer upon others, women had found their ally in emancipating their role in society - technology. Sadie provides many examples of the input and importance women have had on code, communication, and reproductive sex to name a few. Women and machines are empowering themselves to understand and wield the power they possess. The world, categorized and constructed by zeros and ones to benefit and give unjust advantage to man, is crumbling before his very own eyes as the binary totality mindset gives way to fluctuation and constant interlocking of concepts and matter. Women and machines are continually finding new links and connections which shape and reshape their existence. The emergence of LGBTQIA+ identification shows just how prejudiced and dogmatic our classification of gender is, and how urgent it's in need of redefinition and reevaluation, as it fails miserably in deciphering these new plateaus of identity.
Reading from a male perspective like myself, "Zeros and Ones" can be viewed as an attack on masculinity and how man is losing his power and pedestal in society, but this is far from the case. Sadie acknowledges that man too is in a process of evolution and encourages him to give up his patriarchal roots and view the female, who has made enormous contributions in shaping the culture we experience in our present lives, as equal to male.
June 10, 2021
I just picked this up randomly and was not expecting to enjoy it at all because it’s a subject that I find very boring (computers!). But it was actually very readable and easy to understand and dare I say… engaging? Even if I didn’t agree with all of her arguments, I really enjoyed reading this. And really, what’s the point of reading something you already 100% agree with?
“Zeros and Ones” is a half-biography of Ada Lovelace, half history, and half feminist theory book. The first half of the book traces the development of computers, and parallels between computers and fiber arts. If you think about it, both are complex systems made from repetitions of very simple actions (are knit/purl stitches binary code?) and also initially driven by women. The fact that weaving, and the profession “computer”, and many other things invented by women were initially devalued drew some parallels to my field, which is video editing… which was viewed as menial labor in the early days of Hollywood but was later developed into a serious art form by female editors. Did men delegate editing to women because of its similarity to sewing? I sort of wish she had talked about this field but I guess that wasn’t the focus of the book. Later on, Plant talks about the same pattern with regards to botany, which was initially viewed as inconsequential until women realized that the plant kingdom acts synergistically with zoology (a male domanated field). This part of the book was very emotional to me, and the biggest take away even though it only spanned a few pages. There’s a lot of similar ideas about biology as put forth in Dworkin’s “Woman Hating” towards the end too!
So the feminism parts were good, the craft parts were good, but towards the middle there was a slump where she starts talking about computers and philosophy and virtual reality, a lot of stuff that just went over my head, not because the writing was dense but because I honestly didn’t care that much. Her assertion that technological advancement is good is dubious— but then again, I totally assumed this book was contemporary, when it was actually written in the 90s! I barely noticed that it was 20 years old, which is a pretty impressive feat to not be outdated when writing about a field that’s as rapidly changing as technology. That being said, I wonder if it had been written during today’s era of cybersurveillance, would Plant be less approving of technological development?
Lastly, this isn’t a radical feminist book, despite citing radical feminists like Monique Wittig (quite a lot, which is cool cuz I love her!). To me it fell more under ‘cultural feminism’ because quite a bit of it seems predicated on some idea of female nature, that women are naturally drawn to computers because of biology and not because of society… I dunno if I buy that! Also, it’s sort of hard to tell whether she approves of various controversial issues (S&M for example). But I actually appreciate that, she puts forth her analysis and lets the reader make their own decision.
“Zeros and Ones” is a half-biography of Ada Lovelace, half history, and half feminist theory book. The first half of the book traces the development of computers, and parallels between computers and fiber arts. If you think about it, both are complex systems made from repetitions of very simple actions (are knit/purl stitches binary code?) and also initially driven by women. The fact that weaving, and the profession “computer”, and many other things invented by women were initially devalued drew some parallels to my field, which is video editing… which was viewed as menial labor in the early days of Hollywood but was later developed into a serious art form by female editors. Did men delegate editing to women because of its similarity to sewing? I sort of wish she had talked about this field but I guess that wasn’t the focus of the book. Later on, Plant talks about the same pattern with regards to botany, which was initially viewed as inconsequential until women realized that the plant kingdom acts synergistically with zoology (a male domanated field). This part of the book was very emotional to me, and the biggest take away even though it only spanned a few pages. There’s a lot of similar ideas about biology as put forth in Dworkin’s “Woman Hating” towards the end too!
So the feminism parts were good, the craft parts were good, but towards the middle there was a slump where she starts talking about computers and philosophy and virtual reality, a lot of stuff that just went over my head, not because the writing was dense but because I honestly didn’t care that much. Her assertion that technological advancement is good is dubious— but then again, I totally assumed this book was contemporary, when it was actually written in the 90s! I barely noticed that it was 20 years old, which is a pretty impressive feat to not be outdated when writing about a field that’s as rapidly changing as technology. That being said, I wonder if it had been written during today’s era of cybersurveillance, would Plant be less approving of technological development?
Lastly, this isn’t a radical feminist book, despite citing radical feminists like Monique Wittig (quite a lot, which is cool cuz I love her!). To me it fell more under ‘cultural feminism’ because quite a bit of it seems predicated on some idea of female nature, that women are naturally drawn to computers because of biology and not because of society… I dunno if I buy that! Also, it’s sort of hard to tell whether she approves of various controversial issues (S&M for example). But I actually appreciate that, she puts forth her analysis and lets the reader make their own decision.
July 22, 2021
Thinking of how growing up, I used to enjoy watching my mother sew and weave. I always felt captivated by the movement, the inticracy and the intimacy of the action itself. The way Sadie Plant historicizes weaving and positions it culturally and politically reminds me that Palestinian women–in particular—have relied on embroidery and weaving as a tool to preserve memory, as an act of grieving & rememberance. And in the latest assault on Palestine, social media—communications, cybernetics—helped weave a network of Palestinians, scattered around the earth. Beautiful.
Sadie Plant’s Zeroes and Ones is a real eye opener for me on the inter(intra-)relationship between weaving, feminism and technology. The book is an overwhelmingly rhetorical account of the transformative networks of techno- and cyber- feminism, and at times it needs to be read with a more critical, or political, lens.
The way Sadie Plant describes the binary code as an extension of the invisible hand of capital, helps me understand how the exhaustive use of social media has pushed most of us into political binaries, unable to imagine a third way, or a fourth, or any way out… From the social constructions of gender to the political and technological establishment of the internet, Sadie Plants arguments made in the 90 are more relevant to us now.
The way Sadie Plant writes abt typewriters & women is just mindblowing! I’ve never considered that the bureaucratic world had women laborers & machines (typewriters, printers, telephones) as its infrastructure. We usually talk abt the feminization of labor, but never talk abt women workers and tech as a working mass engaged in facilitating work processes for men. Brilliant analysis. Truly enjoying her writing and I’m sad to done with the book.
Sadie Plant’s Zeroes and Ones is a real eye opener for me on the inter(intra-)relationship between weaving, feminism and technology. The book is an overwhelmingly rhetorical account of the transformative networks of techno- and cyber- feminism, and at times it needs to be read with a more critical, or political, lens.
The way Sadie Plant describes the binary code as an extension of the invisible hand of capital, helps me understand how the exhaustive use of social media has pushed most of us into political binaries, unable to imagine a third way, or a fourth, or any way out… From the social constructions of gender to the political and technological establishment of the internet, Sadie Plants arguments made in the 90 are more relevant to us now.
The way Sadie Plant writes abt typewriters & women is just mindblowing! I’ve never considered that the bureaucratic world had women laborers & machines (typewriters, printers, telephones) as its infrastructure. We usually talk abt the feminization of labor, but never talk abt women workers and tech as a working mass engaged in facilitating work processes for men. Brilliant analysis. Truly enjoying her writing and I’m sad to done with the book.
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April 5, 2025Really great read. Reads really fresh for today. It's the kind of nuanced approach to cyberfeminism I was looking for. It shows how the hard divide behind the logic of 0s and 1s and feelings aren't as separate as they seem. This something that women have always known as she traces an affective history of the role of feminity in computer science starting with knitting and weaving and moving through adding machines, secretarial work, to the first computers.
The big takeaway for me is that digital abstraction can liberate our feelings (which we often see as opposed), but in a capitalist patriarchy, it certainly isn't going to (save for a few small moments that usually get shut down).
The big takeaway for me is that digital abstraction can liberate our feelings (which we often see as opposed), but in a capitalist patriarchy, it certainly isn't going to (save for a few small moments that usually get shut down).
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