GenderIT.org in-depth

The internet is viewed as the gateway to development. So, how do we respond to the challenge of the persistent digital divide? Mariana Fossatti says that we have to do this from a standpoint of decolonising our thinking, and only that will open the possibilities of reconsideration of the global governance of the internet, prioritising factors of justice and equity.

In the last five years, reports on connectivity around the world show remarkable progress: those of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) recorded a year-on-year increase of 9% and 20%, respectively, in fixed and mobile broadband subscriptions, while this growth is even stronger in the global South.

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Technology is not gender neutral and this article shows how social media companies and tech corporations play a role in perpetuating online gender-based violence. What we need is a critical examination of the tools available and their underlying techno-politics so we can create community alternatives for feminist communication.

Image source: Fancycrave at Pexels.

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The choice between developing new laws and frameworks for cyber offences or to work with existing laws is a dilemma faced in many countries in the global South. In this article, the legal solutions to non consensual intimate images are examined from the perspective of women who have been victimised. What do we want and expect from our legal and judicial mechanisms? How can these be more accessible, and how do we ensure equality for women of different backgrounds?

Image source:Poster from InternetLab, Gender and other social markers.

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Violence against women online is shaped by historical, cultural and social factors and this article explores the specific context of Bangladesh. This includes specific targeting of public women and journalists online and the exploitation of women by those they have intimate relationships with. Far from being an "elite white country problem", this article shows how women in the global South have to deal with various forms of online gender-based violence and ineffective policing and judicial systems.

Detail of poster: End violence against women now! More details here

1. Introduction

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Image source: Author

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An understanding of online gender-based violence as part of the structure of cultural and social violence that women face is essential to finding solutions or to combat it. In this article Serene Lim delves into what could be feminist legal approaches to online GBV, the alleged opposition to free speech and the multi-generational work required to dismantle frameworks of patriarchal oppression.

To write about online gender-based violence (GBV) is to write about everything for it is oppression so pervasive that it is natural and normalised. Yet, it is also to write about nothing. It is rarely new or original even when it is perpetrated online.

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IT for Change held a consultation in 2017 on the various forms of gender based cyber violence that affects women in India. Here various researchers and speakers gathered to share their data, insight and questions on the kinds of online violence faced by women in different professions, strata and social locations - from vernacular journalists to students in colleges, rural and urban women. This article also looks at various legal mechanisms and solutions offered by the state and what could be the way to address online violence.

Detail of poster designed for conference by Syeda Tanzeela Husain, AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi for the National Dialogue on gender-based Cyber Violence.

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Does technology and modernity dismantle hierarchies of social exclusion, like casteist and skin colour based discrimination in India? This is the question that is examined in-depth in this article that looks at the experience of Dalit women dating through apps in the Indian context, the roles that they are expected to play and how caste continues to play a role in romantic and sexual relationships and in relation to savarna (dominant caste) women.

Detail of collage by Flavia Fascendini

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The EROTICS report 2017 looks at sexuality, sexual rights and communication rights in South Asia in particular, and in this introduction to the report, hvale explores the conceptual overlaps and connecting threads in these varied contexts. South Asia's troubled colonial legacy of tackling sexuality related issues is evident in the many violations of rights of LGBTQI people, and the introduction looks at the importance of the internet in building connections and community, but also as a space of violence.

In plain sight, on sexuality, rights and the internet in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka

A feminist framework at the intersection of Internet with sexuality and rights

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As part of the EROTICS research, the Women's Media Collective, Sri Lanka did research on 1) human rights of Sri Lanka lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer and 2) is on use of online space by lesbian women. In this interview by Shubha Kayastha, WMC talks about their process and recommendations.

Image source: Shubha Kayastha (sketch by participants in a sexuality workshop). Title: freedom of thought. Description: Art work showing different way in which one can access knowledge and enjoy sexual rights.

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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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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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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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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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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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Neo Musangi is a performing and visual artist, academic and researcher. They are non-binary (preferred pronouns: they and them). In this interview Neo talks about various things – sexuality and gender based groups, the women’s movement and feminism, the role of visual and performing art and their disgruntlement with academia, being non binary openly and publicly both online and offline.

Source: Own work by Neo Musangi. Title: Manpower, installation

I begin my interview with trepidation. In my experience in India, trans, gender non-conforming, non binary and intersex people are wary of knowledge projects, and with good reason. There is a history of epistemic violence here – of being surveyed, written about and made into metaphors around fluidity of gender (and even sexuality) with a bare minimum of participation from those who are gender non-conforming, non binary, trans or intersex.

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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.

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

Yara Sallam: How did the idea for the “Girls Revolution” Facebook page come about?

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