The Fembot Collective was initially developed at the University of Oregon, where it was originally a research interest group led by Carol Stabile located in the Center for the Study of Women in Society.[4] Officially founded in 2011, the group grew out of conversations about the use of feminist ethics to guide transformations in open access and new media pedagogy that began as early as 2008.[1] Early projects for Fembot included the short zine series Laundry Day edited by Carol Stabile and Chelsea Bullock, and a feminist works series that spotlighted new media artists and critics.[7] Fembot launched its first issue of Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology in November 2012.[8]
Since 2015, Fembot has established a partnership with Ms. magazine around writing women academics, theorists, and athletes into Wikipedia.[9][10] The organization is currently led by Carol Stabile.
Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology
Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology is a feminist open access journal published in collaboration with the Fembot Collective.[11] It has been housed at UO Libraries and now is administered through the University of Maryland. Notably, the journal challenges conventional academic journal practices by using an open peer review process.[12]
In 2014, Gamergate supporters targeted Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology as a site of "feminist propaganda," arguing that "feminist scholars have used the journal as an outlet for propaganda, allowing them to avoid the peer review processes of traditional journals."[13] In response, Fembot members and others created a bibliography of critical resources for studying the gendered dimensions of the Gamergate controversy, published by the International Communication Association.[14]
