GenderIT.org feminist talk

Indonesia has celebrated gender diversity even before the country's independence. This is indicated by the existence of five genders in the Bugis (South Sulawesi) tradition, namely: Makunrai (female), Oroane (Male), Calabai (Male with women soul), Calalai (Female with man soul) and Bissu. During the Old Order in Indonesia, some of these groups were targeted, and in the contemporary, there are still remnants of how people are denied freedom of expression around sexuality, and face hate and repression.

In Vale do Ribeira, São Paulo, Brazil, a group of ecological, quilombola farmer women, in partnership with two feminist organisations: APC and Sempreviva Organização Feminista (SOF), managed to deploy and operate their Wi-Fi mesh network. Bruna Zanolli highlights the importance of building trust, empathy and feminist guidelines in the community so that their internet infrastructure could contribute to creating resilience and not only access to communications and information to the quilombola families.

Marcela Guerra shakes us through her tarot card “The Tower”, raising awareness of the urgent need for a fresh start, for human-centred societies and infrastructures, or perish as Mother Nature agonises, and inequalities are exacerbated.

Upasana Bhattacharjee further builds on this notion of community network not only as a local connectivity infrastructure serving the unserved people and rural areas left out by markets or states, but mainly as a social actor that builds knowledge, autonomy and agency at the local level, through a community-owned infrastructure and organized operation.

This article provides insights into the recently passed Cyber Security and Cyber Crimes Act, 2021 in Zambia, from the perspective of Laura Miti, an award-winning human rights defender. Mitri alerts on how this act gives sweeping powers to the government to hush criticism of any kind and curtail freedom of expression and privacy.

The article argues that digital surveillance is part of gendered and racist disciplinary structures, that manifest in specific forms of online gender-based violence experienced by black Muslim women influencers.

Srinidhi Raghavan, coordinator of the EROTICS Regional Survey 2020, shares her learnings from cross-country feminist research on internet and sexuality through the lens of the Feminist Principles of the Internet.

Srinidhi Raghavan, coordinator of the EROTICS Regional Survey 2020, shares her learnings from cross-country feminist research on internet and sexuality in South Asia. In this first part, the researcher reflects around identity, community agency and language.

This article expresses personal experience of navigating the digital space and learning about digital security in a world filled with neurotypical upper caste people in authority.

Florencia Goldsman reviews the study "Engendering Hate: The contours of state-aligned gendered disinformation online", adding pieces to the puzzle of targeted digital violence that undermines women and LGBTIQ+ people online presences.

What can be done to make the internet healthier? Some of the most compelling answers arise in the very communities that experience the worst online violence plaguing the internet.

We welcome Facebook, Google, TikTok and Twitter commitments to tackle online abuse on their platforms, however without ensuring that the systems they create do not reproduce, and amplify existing inequalities. Built-in safety tools will only mitigate harms from the surface.

In India, the digitisation drive of services interlinked with offline violence, marginalisation and stigma make it almost impossible for transgender persons to be considered as people who deserve equal rights. Through the provisions mentioned in the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act 2019, this article gives us a glimpse of human rights violations and denial of a life with dignity.

The system of integrated biometric database in Kenya, Huduma Namba, exposes multilayered challenges of statelessness, loss of basic human rights and availing government services. Through conversations with Mariam, a Nubian woman, we learn about the tedious and extremely long waiting period to obtain an ID card, without which people from ethnic minorities are not counted as citizens, and are pushed to the margins.

The Wikipedia gender gap has been well documented for a decade. But are women in the Wikimedia movement in the same situation as a few years ago? What has changed and what still needs to be done?

In this article, three queer-identifying internet users from Pakistan, talk about queer (in)visibility and the precarity of private online spaces for expression.

This article examines the #FreeSenegal protests from a feminist perspective, depicting women's erasure from movements and revolutions in the African continent, and the prevalence of rape culture and sexual violence – even amidst anti-oppression protests.

When countries invoke peripheral laws such as pharmaceutical violations or conscientious objection clauses as justification for blocking, restricting, or limiting abortion access, they are invariably creating additional barriers, not upholding legal integrity.

The code, although open, is not neutral with respect to who contributes and for what. What happens to our contributions when we reveal our gender or sexuality? How can a project in which a significant portion of the work is invisible and not counted really be “free” and open source?

In this article, Daiane Araujo discuss the link between popular education and community networks, and argues that class, race and gender should be part of the analysis in the implementation of autonomous infrastructure and technical training dedicated to digitally excluded communities.