0 (zero), the essistential nothingness

While trying to get some grasp back on the earlier book of Sadie Plant Zeros and Ones (review) I came across this definition – just too nice quote to hold it back – extracted from Alex Galloway’s article ‘A Report on Cyberfeminism‘:

… that the zero-the nothingness of binary code-has always been the 0-ther, … (the female).

On purpose I put the last word of the quote into parenthesis, as I think her comment could be more generally read for thoughts on marginalization, (ab)use of power and general strategies of domination.

UPDATE 29.03.2006: Due to a comment I received and just to make clear here: with this quote I did not want to point out a general domination on the femal, but the principles on work within structures of marginalization. I thought as between 1s and 0s – both being equivalent and absolutly necessary components for having the binary enabled to run – it would be a clear example, that putting something – in this case 0 – to ‘nothingness’ only works by declaring it as ‘meaningless’, but never is inducted by its position within the system / code itself. As here it takes the place of an absolutly necessary factor essential to have the whole thing going. The rest is interpretation / perception. (So, my failure not to have made that clear enough.)

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