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The significance of ezines, or electronic magazines, for feminist resistance lies mainly, but not exclusively, in the possibility for networking, connection, and community. Women with disparate concerns and identities can still mobilize together online around political initiatives. The roots of ezines are in print 'zines (from magazines) which are self-produced publications, cheaply photocopied and circulated within a small group of like-minded individuals. A web page devoted to links and reviews of the ezines can be found at <http://krista.tico.com/zine.html>.
L'importance des cybermagazines, ou des magazines electroniques, pour la resistance feministe se trouve surtout, mais pas uniquement, dans la capacite qu'ils offrent aux femmes de creer des reseaux, des liens, une communaute. Malgre des interets et identites disparates, les femmes peuvent tout de meme se mobiliser en ligne autour d'initiatives politiques. Les racines des cybermagazines se trouvent dans les magazines imprimes ('zines, de magazines) qui sont des publications independantes, photocopiees, et distribuees a un petit groupe de personnes dans les memes dispositions. Une page Web dediee aux liens et recensions des cybermagazines est disponible a http://krista.tico.com/zine.html.
In his 1872 novel Erewhon, Samuel Butler writes: "How many ... at this hour are living in a state of bondage to the machines? How many spend their whole lives, from the cradle to the grave, in tending them by night and day?"(f.1) Many women who work with computers and information technology often feel as if the infernal machines constitute yet another demand on their time: there is email to be answered, voicemail to be picked up, and there are documents to be faxed. The network has chosen, on Friday at 3 pm, to shuffle off this mortal coil, and nobody can find a compatible cartridge for the printer which is sullenly and stubbornly hoarding everyone's texts. Backs ache from hunching over the keyboard and the prancing pixels on the screen strain reddened eyes. It is difficult in this context to regard cyberspace as a visionary medium for women and for feminist political activity.
Yet, although it is an electronic fantasy to which only a fraction of one percent of the world's population are privy, cyberspace has already made its presence felt in the collective un/consciousness of NetChicks,(f.2) the "digital [every]woman"(f.3) and "a thousand aunts with modems."(f.4) Women are getting online...