Russel’s Glitch Feminism analyzes identity

The first explorations between identity politics and digitalization date back to as early as the 90’s, an era marked by the new rise of digital culture. Pioneers of “cyberfeminism” examined gender and gender constructs in online networks, but today, as this digital culture grows more complex, what characterizes an “identity” has gained infinite meanings. Legacy Russel, writer and advocate of revolution cybertheory, explores a new possible medium in her manifesto, Glitch Feminism. However, it seems that its theory only upholds the rhetoric of radicalism, and not the politics.

Divided into twelve brief chapters, Russel’s central argument is to embrace the “glitch”, which she defines as “a vehicle of refusal and a strategy of nonperformance, aim[ing] to make abstract again that which has been forced into an uncomfortable and ill defined material”. Essentially, existing within manufactured constructs of gender, race, and sexuality has forced people out of abstraction, and into something more black and white.

Russel explains that to abide by a binary is to assume that humans are fixed, while really, conditionality is a part of humanity. As discussed in her chapter “Glitch is Cosmic,” the body is constantly becoming, and exploring its limits may call for a cyber alternative.

This is admittedly an interesting take; cyberspace certainly does have the potential to revolutionize identity politics because online, an identity is not attached to a physical being, so there is no need for a body to exist as a cultural architecture. However, it seems that Glitch Feminism may have failed to consider how difficult this liberation would be to achieve, especially in the face of aggressive institutionalism and surveillance capitalism. Identities may be infinite, as Russel claims, but this could translate to the infinite amount of tracking that larger tech companies profit off of. If Russel’s theory can safely exist under capitalism, it is just another neoliberal idea of “friendly”, ineffective activism.

What Glitch Feminism succeeds more substantially at is how it is not at all specific to gender and sexuality. Russel argues that every tradition created for the purposes of segregating and increasing power is a notion that glitch feminists disrupt.

“Glitching” on the traditional binary is usually an inherent act that comes with the mere presence of nonwhiteness, queerness, and any facet of an identity that is historically provocative. This is where the irony of “glitch” comes in; creating space through destruction.

Still, advocating for “Glitch” is highly conceptual. In fact, most complicated philosophies do not play out so perfectly in practice, and to spend the time talking about them may distract from more pressing issues. And yes, digital and non-digital worlds are expanding into each other, but the difference between what is cyber and what is not is too vast for glitch feminism to actually be applicable.

Though Glitch Feminism is highly unlikely, Russel’s argument still teaches a valuable lesson on identity exploration. In meta verses, entities embrace all components of a self; one can recognize that masculinity and femininity, per se, are not polar points, but rather, pieces of a continuous narrative. In her own words, “We will rearrange and repurpose by any means necessary, rendering what rises from this rebirth unrecognizable from the violence of its original. Be the glitch. Let the whole goddamn thing short-circuit.” However meaningless these words are in practice, they deserve to be tested out, and if not for an identity revolution, just for ourselves.