Take Back The Tech (Part II): A Feminist and Techie Dialogue on taking control of technology to end violence against women
From Anita Borg Institute Wiki
The most common type of violence happens between partners, both in hetero and homosexual couples and at similar rates across. Any type of violence against women is a threat to the future of that community. We want to focus on a woman's right to choose her life, and to help the ones who don't have that right.
There are very different types of violence: gender-based domestc violence, rape, marital rape and incest, female genital mutilation, human traficking, war crimes of rape and the list goes on.
Contents |
Some facts
- 1 in 3 women in the world experience physical violence in their lives
- 35% women in emergency rooms in the US report abuse
- hundreds of girls in Africa&Asia go through Female Genital Mutilation
- 5000 in Middle East and Southwest Asia undergo 'honor killing'
- more than 20% women have non-consensual first sexual experience.
Feminism and Information Communication Technologies (ICT) can form a powerful tool against violence. There is a Take Back The Tech (TBTT) Campaign on Nov 25th to Dec 10.
A few of the speakers in the panel:
- Jill Dimond (domestic violence survivors & advocates)
- Stefanie Markham (research in visualizing linguistic complexity and involved with Girls Scouts organization)
- SallyJean Shackleton (Women's Net in South Africa) intimate femicide, promoting a website on women's human rights.
- ...
From Harassment to Hollaback!
How technology is a problem: how ICTs are implicated in sexual violence / intimate partner Violence(IPV)
A series of interviews were conducted with 10 women who had suffered abuse. Surprisingly a high part of the harassment came through technological means:
- 7 out of the 10 women had received safety/life threatening text messages on their phones;
- several stories included harassing messages on Facebook, either through messages posted on the victim's wall, private messages to her and her family;
- other means of harassment included email and the use of geo-located services (GPS).
How ICTs can be used for activism and fighting back against sexual violence
There are multiple ways people found to get around the abuse:
- many people end up using aliases on social networks
- not producing any content on Facebook, only use it to check on friends' updates but not post anything
- use pay-as-you-go phones, switch phone every couple of weeks
- limit contact with their family, otherwise abusers could get access to their phone numbers.
There is a new concern over physical privacy! New services that use geolocation/GPS are constantly emerging, and abuse should be considered in designing these technologies.
How to fight back: Hollaback!
Hollaback! is an initiative that creates simple blogs for women to tell their story on Street Harassment. Street Harassment has been described even as a "Gateway drug" of sexual violence. It includes: verbal harassment, stalking, groping, flashing, assault etc.
The initiative uses technology to try to raise awareness on localization of street harassment stories. They used Google maps: women use their mobile phone to submit their story of street harassment; stories show up on the map and hopefully will draw attention to areas where harassment happens. More research will be conducted to draw conclusions from this data.
The website launches next week: www.ihollaback.org.
Women'sNet
Putting the Byte into Activism: Violence Against Women and ICTs. This is a South African feminist organization that empowers women and girls using ICT. They provide training, facilitate content dissemination, support women to take control over their own content and ICT use: www.womensnet.org.za
ICTs are to development what taps are to water.
Taps are different in different parts of the world. But the things they have in common are: they control the flow, accessibility, and quality of the resource.
What's gender got to do with it?
- A comparison between a Hustler issue and PCFormat (tech magazine in SouthAfrica) is suprisingly revealing. Technology is framed as a
males' playground, it controls women and alienates them; women do not use the internet cafe, which is controlled by the young men in the community.
- There are videogames explicitly promoting violence against women: rapegame.
Feminist practice of technology
Must be:
- inclusive, participatory,
- secure,
- grounded in women's realities,
- appropriate/sustainable technologies,
- transparent & open,
- creative/strategic,
- emphasizing the role of women in technology.
Another website addresses groups of women that are 10-18 years old: www.girlsnet.org.za Would like to see a social networking tool that helps girls communicate worldwide. E.g. in SouthAfrica they use 'mixit' as a social network; social networks do not expand worldwide, but we want these initiatives to reach people worldwide.
Note: these websites have teachers' training materials that may be found very useful.
Take Back the Tech
Address:
- privacy
- safety
- awareness raising
Women's Right to: information, expression, privacy. See Jan Moolman: TakeBacktheTech: Reclaiming Technology to End Violence Against Women
Discussion Questions
- What would a worldwide girls social net look like?
- Engage academia by involving students in the campaign and increase research - what kinds of projects could involve undergrad students for this?
- Given the prevalence of violence, how can technology help start conversations and start awareness?
- How to bridge the gap between cultures?
- What can a technology designer do to address IPV?
- How can privacy be re-imagined?
