Feminist reflections on internet policies

Since 2013 the EROTICS global survey has been carried out three times by APC-WRP to assess and learn about the role of information and communication technologies in the work of its worldwide network of gender and sexuality activists, advocates, professionals and scholars. The survey was particularly designed to reflect about their experiences and responses to online violence and censorship. Here the lead researchers involved in the survey introduce the findings from the survey.

At three different times over the past four years, the EROTICS Project: An Exploratory Research on Sexuality and the Internet, by the APC Women’s Rights Program, sent out a questionnaire to its worldwide network of gender and sexuality activists, advocates, professionals and scholars, to learn about the role of information and communication technologies in their work. The survey was particularly designed to reflect about their experiences and responses to online violence and censorship.

Co-author:  Horacio Sivori

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LOOM is a Nepal-based feminist organisation that works towards harnessing the collective power of women through multi-generational activism especially around sexual rights and sexual citizenship. As part of the EROTICS project, LOOM has been part of two studies conducted on the internet and sexual expression and online gender based violence, and in this interview they share more about the research.

Photo of workshop conducted by LOOM in Nepal. Photo credit: LOOM

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Point of View as part of EROTICS (Exploratory Research on Sexuality and the Internet) project undertook an extensive research to understand how law constructs obscenity online, and to identify specific instances of non-consensual sharing of intimate images, and the various ways in it is punished or acquitted. This study specifically looks at implementation of new laws under the Information Technology Act of India.

Image source: Digital storytelling workshop organised by Point of View.

Bishakha Datta and Smita Vanniyar talk to GenderIT about their research on Section 67 of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

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In 2017 the Independent Expert for Sexual Orientation and Gender Expression and the Yogyakarta +10 principles acknowledged the specific social, cultural, health and other issues that are faced by those who are gender non conforming, and non-binary. This article looks at the online lives of those who challenge, play with, question and disrupt the gender binary, and do more - who are visibly and obviously queer.

Image source: Second Life avatar of Nadika Nadja
THE QUEER SUBJECT AND VIOLENCE IN ONLINE AND OFFLINE SPACES

Feminist talk

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Over 80 people engaged in wildly different kinds of feminist activism across the world gathered together to discuss what does it mean to build movements around feminist principles, women’s rights, sexuality and related issues in the digital age. From the cataclysmic and profoundly loud speaking out that took place spontaneously across varied contexts with #metoo to understanding, owning and building feminist infrastructure, there is a lot that we can do as feminist activists.

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What does movement building look like in a digital age? Even as we are increasingly aware of and dependent on the internet for public engagement and mobilisation of ideas, have networked technologies significantly impacted on the characteristic and sustainability of movements?

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Kenya has few protections for the people within its own country who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, or queer. In this article Njeri Gateru traces their journey and that of the organisation National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission in Nairobi - the difficulties they have faced and their use of online tools and spaces.

Image taken from website of National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission

“Do you remember the first time you used the internet?” someone asked at the APC Making a Feminist Internet gathering in Malaysia this October.

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podcat_brunz.mp3 Page type:  In depth

In this podcast we’re going to talk about women, technology, infrastructure and the electromagnetic spectrum, from a feminist perspective. First off, let’s understand technology as ways of being, living, loving, suffering, resisting, organising, cooking...all are ancestral forms of technology. We also have infrastructure - the elements that make technologies operate so powerfully.

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In this interview with Ninka Khaindrava, she talks about the state of activism around women's rights, labour rights and sexuality in Georgia. Ninka attended the MFI meeting in Malaysia to learn more about activists and their experiences with security and online violence in other parts of the world.

Image source: Ninka Khaindrava. First women march against online violence and attacks against women in Georgia

Ninka Khaindrava works for Women's Gaze in Georgia as their communications person. Women's Gaze is also part of the FRIDA network for young women. Here is our interview with her on the work they do and the connections they seek with other people, organisations, women's movements across the world.

Namita Aavriti: Can you tell us about your context and the kind of work you do?

Feminist talk

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Lili_Anaz is an artist, communicator, photographer, writer and hackfeminist activist whose entire work is a feminist exploration about the crossroads between art, body, memory, resistances, sexuality, human rights, hacking, and free technologies. In this interview with Jennifer Radloff Lili_Anaz speaks about her passions and her work in Mexico.

A body that knows itself and knows that together with others it can generate a very strong force to hack any system.

The following interview was done with the help and interpretation by Erika Smith.

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Lulú Barrera(Luchadoras, Mexico) recorded a video of Srilata Batliwala (CREA, India) talking about movements, feminism, and disruption at the Making a Feminist Internet meeting in Malaysia in early October. This video and the short piece are to be read together as a dialogue between Srilatha Batliwala and “Primavera Violeta”.

How does technology impact in our feminist movements? from APC on Vimeo.

Feminist talk

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Just Associates believes that women who are most affected by the political, economic, environmental and health crises reverberating across the world are on the frontlines of change. In this interview with Fungai Machirori, JASS speaks about the changing nature of activism and how they rise to the challenge put forth by digital movements and tools.

Fungai Machirori speaks to a representative of Just Associates in South-east Asia in this interview that took place at the Making a Feminist Internet convening in early October in Malaysia. JASS is a global organisation that is now working on new digital forms of activism and organising. JASS believes that women who are most affected by the political, economic, environmental and health crises reverberating across the world are on the frontlines of change.

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Sanitary Panels is ironic yet hard hitting, where social commentary masquerades as a web comic and makes us rethink many of our assumptions. Here the comic explores aspects of gender and technology including discrimination faced by women in STEM education and careers.

Sanitary Panels is ironic yet hard hitting. Here social commentary masquerades as a web comic and makes us rethink many of our assumptions. This comic explores aspects of gender and technology including discrimination faced by women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) education and careers.

Image description: Comic using stick figures

Feminist talk

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The future of work in a digital economy could vary enormously depending for different people depending on where they live, who they work for or in what industry, and what access to privilege and resources they have. Dr. Becky Faith in this article examines the particular impact that automation and AI might have on gendered, precarious and often poorly paid labour that women usually are engaged in across the world, but especially in developing countries.

Article republished from Institute of Development Studies.
Insights from the AI Summit, London

Feminist talk

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Womxn in global south are making revolutionary uses of social media, and this includes people challenging casual and everyday ableism. In her column Samukelisiwe Mabaso looks at three amazing projects from different countries that are revolutionizing how disability is talked about - how they are changing language, discourse and perceptions

Genna & Felix by Kate Arthur. Image source: @katearthurartist

A university friend of mine was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) a few years ago and as a result of the disease is now disabled. Reading the posts she shares on social media about how she navigates the world as a disabled person has made me more aware of how disabled-unfriendly our world is. Whether intentionally or not, her posts on social media are helping shine a spotlight on disability. This inspired me to do some research into how other womxn in the Global South are doing the same.

Feminist talk

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In this third article on the city conversation on feminist principles of the internet in Harare, Zimbabwe, Daphne Jena interviews Chido Musodza on their work around digital security, the need for security for the women’s movement and feminists, and also broadly their take on the feminist principles of the internet.

Picture of Chido Musodza doing a training. Image source: Daphne Jena, Chido Musodza

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In this article Anthea Taderera looks at the personal and political meaning and potentials of a feminist internet. What does it mean to imagine and create a black, African feminist space with room for archiving, theorising and engagement away/free from the surveillance and regulation of state and private parties alike?

Image from Max Pixel and Wikimedia commons

For the Harare City Conversation recently held, I was particularly invested in having a conversation about the internet, and Twitter in particular, as public space for organising and resisting, cognitive of the trajectory my online critiquing, writing and general feministing has taken over the last three years.

Feminist talk

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In her third column, Samukelisiwe Mabaso explores how groups and people, artists and performers who are lesbian, gay, bisexual are using the internet and social media to spread messages about love, diversity, and acceptance. This includes projects like Coalition for African Lesbians, Gaysi, Ahwaa and others.

Image source: To Revolutionary Type Love. Artist/source: Kawira Mwirichia

Feminist talk

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In her third column, Samukelisiwe Mabaso explores how groups and people, artists and performers who are lesbian, gay, bisexual are using the internet and social media to spread messages about love, diversity, and acceptance. This includes projects like Coalition for African Lesbians, Gaysi, Ahwaa and others.

Image source: To Revolutionary Type Love. Artist/source: Kawira Mwirichia

Feminist talk

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Ghadeer Ahmed created Girl's Revolution on Twitter and Facebook a year after the revolution on Jan 25 2011 in Egypt. In this interview with Yara Sallam she traces the difficult and rewarding journey of talking about women's rights, body, sexuality, violence and harassment and sharing this with many other women and girls online. This interview is part of a longer one that conducted in October 2016 for EuroMedRights report "In Their Own Words". Ghadeer likes to introduce herself as a feminist writer.

Photograph from Girl's Revolution Facebook Page against the ban on wearing skirts in Saudi Arabia

Ghadeer Ahmed created Girl's Revolution on Twitter and Facebook a year after the revolution on Jan 25 2011 in Egypt. In this interview with Yara Sallam she traces the difficult and rewarding journey of talking about women's rights, body, sexuality, violence and harassment and sharing this with many other women and girls online.

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