GenderIT.org
With growing populations, decentralisation of opportunities is important, and the internet is a crucial way to achieve it for both urban and rural communities. In order to bridge the digital divide(s), gender should be at the core of the development circle to ensure equal access to services and opportunities. In Tanzania, slightly over 23 million people are internet users, which is an internet penetration of 43%, with 86% of them accessing the internet via mobile phones. Governments are movin...
Social media feminist influencers play an important role in reminding us offline and institutionalised feminists that the "who" in feminist movement building matters less than the "how". If there is something that we all have to admit, it is the fact that we have always had influencers. Less than 10 years ago we had political, ideological and yes, feminist influencers who too had followers; on listservs and mailing lists and academic journals where their ideas held what they thought were the ...
Non-consensual dissemination of intimate images is quickly becoming one of the major challenges that women in Uganda online have to overcome. The women that are targeted are women of influence – musicians, models, journalists, bloggers and women with online influence. Women in Uganda find themselves in a position where they have nowhere to turn; they are caught between a rock and a hard...
Does technological progress support or hinder the human rights of women and gender diverse people? And what about their privacy rights? On the one hand, the right to privacy protects online spaces where people can securely navigate their sexual and gender identity. Yet, on the other hand, privacy has historically been considered a tool to control sexuality and gender identities by patriarc...
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer and others (LGBTIQ+) people across the world face varying levels of discrimination, exclusion, precarity, violence and phobia. Our difference seems to cancel out the possibility of empathy. But while there is the growing anti-gender backlash in Eastern Europe, Latin America and other parts of the world, there is also amazing strength of ne...
In June 2015, an organised online defamation campaign began against Iranian queer feminist and writer Shadi Amin. A website claimed that Amin had perpetrated rape, abuse, bullying and money laundering. The website was accompanied by a Facebook page, a Twitter account and an Instagram account, all of which replicated its claims that Amin was guilty of “documented cases of verbal, physical and ...
A brief observation of the analytical frameworks used by a great number of Kenyan social media users around the controversy surrounding the release of the Kenyan film Rafiki may make you more familiar with the rubrics of “artistic freedom” and “freedom of speech” than those of “queerness” and “precariousness” (here “queerness” accounts for those Kenyans who live outsid...
It is awfully painful to read online trolling, threats, hateful and dehumanising comments, and insults on Twitter against the queer Ethiopian community. Yet, I can’t help feeling that there are opportunities that arise from the explosion of support in spite of the extreme hatred on social media platforms. It started when religious groups, particularly the Ethiopian Orthodox church, protested ...
In the past year we have seen a number of countries implement laws that recognise diverse gender identities and expand the rights of transgender people. Uruguay is one such example. In October 2018, Congress passed a law setting out legal gender recognition through self-determination, defining gender-affirming surgery and hormone therapy as a right paid for by the national government, reserving...
Fighting for a free and open internet for all involves recognising the many ways that online access and experience are affected by identity and social position. This understanding has not only informed but motivated the work of APC and its community throughout our existence. Our projects always seek, in one way or another, to level the digital playing field. One of the most significant factors ...
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