GenderIT.org

Sexual surveillance, you may have guessed, cannot simply be reduced to a distinct instance where x happens to y (e.g. where men surveil women). Instead, we can think of the expression “sexual surveillance” as a shorthand to talk about an assemblage of several interdependent gendered, sexualised, and racialised modes and effects of surveillance. And suddenly, the last question becomes the mo...

This piece was motivated by an amazing session on Sex and Freedom of Expression Online (transcript and video) at the 2016 Internet Governance Forum. I wrote this immediately afterwards but as with most controversial subjects, I dilly-dallied on whether or not to publish. However, thanks to the insistence of the best friend and an amazing young woman in tech who I had review this for me, I becam...

This edition on gender, labour and technology examines how gendered labour is embedded in the making of digital devices in the hardware industries spread across Asia, how inequities of gender and other dynamics of caste, race and ethnicity continue to play a role in allegedly emancipated corporate spaces across the globe, and the disturbing strands of gendered labour of volunteering and managin...

96% of people interviewed in an unprecedented national survey believe that women are being trafficked in Brazil, and 82% estimate that it takes place in their own town. These results dismiss the prevailing belief that human trafficking is an urban legend or a fictional subject from a famous Brazilian soap opera. Another significant result is the fact that 16% of people interviewed claim to know...

Initiated in 2006, the campaign Take Back the Tech! in Bosnia and Herzegovina has greatly contributed to raising awareness of how ICTs are connected to violence against women, and it has strengthened the ICT capacity of women’s rights advocates, while creating original and varied content. At the same time, BiH Take Back the Tech! and their campaigners have worked actively on building a commun...

Daily reports keep coming out about the myriad ways in which our planet is changing. We are rapidly approaching the cap of 1.5 degrees Celsius agreed as the upper acceptable limit of global warming at the Paris talks in 2015. And the talks in Marrakesh that ended in November 2016 show that these trends are likely to worsen, even if all pledges are met. However, with the governments of the world...

This piece was originally published by Deep Dives as part of the series Sexing the Interwebs While I was growing up in the sleepy town of Pune, many teenage girls made the most of their first cell phones by sending coy, flirty texts to their boyfriends and making plans about which Café Coffee Day to hang out at after school. Those blessed with early smartphones also had the privilege of upload...

Time and again, Facebook proves to be that Uncle who keeps telling you your skirt is too short, but keeps a stack of highly sexualized and objectifying images of women in his folder. Facebook and I have had a difficult relationship when it came to women’s bodies, especially their breasts and nipples. The first time I was banned from Facebook for 24 hours was for posting this (below) beautiful...