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Community networks newsletter: Bringing to the forefront the voices and experiences of community-centred connectivity initiatives
APC’s GenderIT.org provides a space for reflection, influence and advocacy on internet policy in relation to the rights and demands of women and gender-diverse people and issues related to sexuality, with a particular focus on voices from the Global South.
Here we share a sampling of recent posts featuring the opinions, experiences and thoughts of writers from the diverse community of GenderIT contributors.
Feminist talk from AfricaSpinning protests: Kenya’s pro-government bloggers push anti-queer smears
Amidst the protests to reject the Finance Bill 2024 in Kenya, protestors were subjected to online campaigns with particular attacks on queer individuals in the country, reports Linda Ngari. Data analysis of Twitter activities of some of the most active accounts suggests that these smear campaigns were in fact coordinated, and points towards an ongoing trend victimising marginalised communities.
Beating the gender gap: Nigeria’s tech space is a challenge for women to enter
Nigeria's tech industry has shown impressive growth, contributing 16.66% to the nation's GDP, but remains heavily male-dominated. Women face unique challenges, from hiring biases to workplace harassment, even as some companies adopt women-only initiatives that sometimes feel performative. Ugonna-Ora Owoh argues that continued support and accountability are crucial to fostering a truly inclusive environment for women in tech.
Securing the future of African women and girls online
The internet has become a mirror of women's grim reality in Africa, where they are subjected to various forms of violence daily. Chioma Agwuegbo discusses the situation of online gender-based violence on the continent while envisioning a different reality that secures the digital futures of African women and girls.
Feminist talk from AsiaUnverified and false information on the internet has significantly impacted women's health in ways that leave lasting impact on their bodies. Momina Mindeel speaks to a woman who, in attempts to cure her polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), turned to social media after the health care system failed and she ended up with eating disorders.
Women street vendors are hesitant to use digital payment methods in India
While digital payments are transforming the shopping experience for people in India, the overemphasis on digitisation without addressing the gaps in technological access is creating challenges for those who lack necessary skills. As Anuj Behal reports, women street vendors say that they either don't have the skills or technology to access payments made to them, or they don't trust the platforms with their hard earned money.
The fate of Bangladesh’s cyber security act? A swift repeal
Bangladesh's Cyber Security Act replicates the draconian legislative framework that its predecessors imposed on online civil liberties in the country. With the new government in place, activists are demanding for its repeal, writes Parsa Sanjana Sajid.
Desi queer joy on the internet is defying social norms rooted in violence
Given the multifaceted structural violence that queer communities face in South Asia, their identities and existence are only referred to in relation to this violence. Arslan Athar challenges this notion and introduces how LGBTQIA+ folks in the region are reclaiming their identities by portraying the joyful parts of their lives on the internet.
Social media is helping people make environment-friendly fashion choices
The low prices of fast fashion have made it the preferred fashion choice for consumers around the world, leading to not just overconsumption but also overproduction that impacts the environment. Anmol Irfan explores how sustainability advocates are taking to social media in attempts to push for a behaviour change.
Image: Illustration by Paru Ramesh for GenderIT.org.
Regions Africa Asia Global Topics Feminist internet Freedom of expression Human rights and ICTs ICT policy Tags Areas of work Feminist internet OffCommunity networks newsletter: Bringing to the forefront the voices and experiences of community-centred connectivity initiatives
APC’s GenderIT.org provides a space for reflection, influence and advocacy on internet policy in relation to the rights and demands of women and gender-diverse people and issues related to sexuality, with a particular focus on voices from the Global South.
Here we share a sampling of recent posts featuring the opinions, experiences and thoughts of writers from the diverse community of GenderIT contributors.
Feminist talk from AfricaSpinning protests: Kenya’s pro-government bloggers push anti-queer smears
Amidst the protests to reject the Finance Bill 2024 in Kenya, protestors were subjected to online campaigns with particular attacks on queer individuals in the country, reports Linda Ngari. Data analysis of Twitter activities of some of the most active accounts suggests that these smear campaigns were in fact coordinated, and points towards an ongoing trend victimising marginalised communities.
Beating the gender gap: Nigeria’s tech space is a challenge for women to enter
Nigeria's tech industry has shown impressive growth, contributing 16.66% to the nation's GDP, but remains heavily male-dominated. Women face unique challenges, from hiring biases to workplace harassment, even as some companies adopt women-only initiatives that sometimes feel performative. Ugonna-Ora Owoh argues that continued support and accountability are crucial to fostering a truly inclusive environment for women in tech.
Securing the future of African women and girls online
The internet has become a mirror of women's grim reality in Africa, where they are subjected to various forms of violence daily. Chioma Agwuegbo discusses the situation of online gender-based violence on the continent while envisioning a different reality that secures the digital futures of African women and girls.
Feminist talk from AsiaUnverified and false information on the internet has significantly impacted women's health in ways that leave lasting impact on their bodies. Momina Mindeel speaks to a woman who, in attempts to cure her polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), turned to social media after the health care system failed and she ended up with eating disorders.
Women street vendors are hesitant to use digital payment methods in India
While digital payments are transforming the shopping experience for people in India, the overemphasis on digitisation without addressing the gaps in technological access is creating challenges for those who lack necessary skills. As Anuj Behal reports, women street vendors say that they either don't have the skills or technology to access payments made to them, or they don't trust the platforms with their hard earned money.
The fate of Bangladesh’s cyber security act? A swift repeal
Bangladesh's Cyber Security Act replicates the draconian legislative framework that its predecessors imposed on online civil liberties in the country. With the new government in place, activists are demanding for its repeal, writes Parsa Sanjana Sajid.
Desi queer joy on the internet is defying social norms rooted in violence
Given the multifaceted structural violence that queer communities face in South Asia, their identities and existence are only referred to in relation to this violence. Arslan Athar challenges this notion and introduces how LGBTQIA+ folks in the region are reclaiming their identities by portraying the joyful parts of their lives on the internet.
Social media is helping people make environment-friendly fashion choices
The low prices of fast fashion have made it the preferred fashion choice for consumers around the world, leading to not just overconsumption but also overproduction that impacts the environment. Anmol Irfan explores how sustainability advocates are taking to social media in attempts to push for a behaviour change.
Image: Illustration by Paru Ramesh for GenderIT.org.
Regions Africa Asia Global Topics Feminist internet Freedom of expression Human rights and ICTs ICT policy Tags Areas of work Feminist internet OffTaller de Comunicación Mujer se une a la red APC: "Es fundamental buscar alianzas para atajar las desigualdades sociales y las brechas políticas y digitales"
"This work of reclaiming memory is filled with a lot of affection, to look at where we've been walking, and what remains of our footprints."
They were from Brasília, Goiânia, Belo Horizonte, São Paulo and other towns and cities across Brazil. More importantly, it was 2005 and they were all on email lists and in IRC chatrooms. These particular spaces were focused on women and technology. And from those spaces sprang Birosca, a sparkling feminist movement in Brazil that ran from 2005 to 2012, and eventually had its own virtual server called Baderna, named after Marieta Baderna, the dancer from Rio. Baderna also means "disturbance" in Portuguese, an allusion to how activists are often perceived.
Cristina "Kit" Barretto de Menezes Lopes was part of Birosca from the beginning. “I learned a lot,” she says, and comments with a laugh, “I had a car, so sometimes I would handle transportation for the many needs that came up.” Menezes deeply valued those six years of Birosca and retraces those years in her new documentary, Birosca: Care, Women and Technology.
She was among the first round of recipients of the APC Women’s Rights Programme’s Feminist #TechJoy small grants, which facilitated the production of this half-hour long documentary film in the first six months of 2024. “This work of reclaiming memory is filled with a lot of affection,” she says. “These are relationships that make us revisit personal processes, to look at where we've been walking, and what remains of our footprints.”
Sorry, this video will not work because your web browser does not support HTML5 video.
It was a particular moment in the history of the internet in 2005. In Brazil, the government supported digital inclusion and the adoption of free/libre and open source software (FLOSS). In the documentary, Menezes interviews several members of the collective, one of whom reminisces how nobody needed a username or password to publish on the website. The internet was still an open space. It’s hard to remember now, but it wasn’t that long ago.
“It was a very important moment that marked the beginning of the popularisation of the internet,” Menezes wrote in the project report for APC. “This turning point of the web that enabled silenced voices to be amplified and facilitated new forms of organisation. The idea of a free and autonomous internet was put into practice by young and vibrant hearts that planted seeds.”
"The idea of a free and autonomous internet was put into practice by young and vibrant hearts that planted seeds."
Birosca began with a group of women who were involved in the Global Network of Independent Media Centres, better known as Indymedia, a website for citizen journalism and the world’s first open source software, according to one interviewee in the film. As the project grew, “we felt the need to create a space for women in technology,” says Isabela "Toya" Fernandes, one of the founders of Birosca, in the film.
As a transfeminist collective, they worked on several techno-political issues that still pique us today, including private monopolies, deploying open source software and the restrictions imposed by big corporations. The collective provided its own email services – not just out of pride, but to make a political point. Similarly, it was a political choice to use OSS like Cinelerra for video editing (even if it crashed a lot) and Audacity to edit audio. They worked on hardware and the software and were autonomous.
As she was shooting the interviews, Menezes heard a phrase repeated that stayed with her. Several women mentioned how working in the collective, "They 'learned how to learn’ because we were supporting each other, but it was us for us. So much of it was about paving the way ourselves, writing tutorials that didn’t exist. We learned so we could teach. It was a process of great generosity – with ourselves, with others, and with the process itself.”
This phrase became a key touchpoint as it triggered further memories for Menezes: “I felt very welcomed in Birosca, in that moment in time, because I was the oldest in the group but the youngest when it came to technology.” Menezes was 35 then and most of the other members were a decade younger. “I didn’t have the boldness they had to take things apart; I was afraid of breaking them. And there, in the project, I started to lose that fear of making mistakes.”
Learning, teaching and breaking gender norms while doing itWorking on technology was, of course, going against the grain of gender expectations, but Menezes has an intriguing insight that goes further on how the work on technology intersected with the activists’ lives. “Through our time in Birosca, we started to understand the difficulty of accessing technology as a taboo – it was the same taboo that had prevented us from knowing our own bodies. […] Breaking away from that gave us a powerful sense of autonomy, and we thought it was important to share that, to document this experience.”
This point is echoed by almost every person interviewed in the film. “We talked about the body, about technology, about the fear of not knowing enough,” says Karine "Foz" Batista. Ianni Luna reads out from old notes for a meta-recycling and sexuality workshop that they conducted, discussing the parallels about knowing your own body and a piece of hardware, in opposition to the more usual, detached discourse around technology. “We made a point of having people tell us about themselves. We talked about our private lives in connection with technology.”
“No other collective was discussing the same things as us – feminism, gender and technology,” says Fernandes. “We talked about how society wouldn’t enable us to get to know ourselves sexually, just like not knowing how to open a PC and find out if that motherboard worked, and how it worked.”
Menezes and other women from the collective thought it was crucial to share this aspect and to document this experience. “Making the film made me revisit the importance of this desire to learn,” she adds. “Because at that moment it wasn't clear, but now, looking back at this process through the film, it’s much clearer how important it was to have been part of it all.”
A legacy of thinking and nurturingIt’s hard to find Birosca on today’s internet with its fragile archives and flickering amnesia, but Menezes says the memory of Birosca is significant and hence its documentation is significant. The film premiered in June this year at the Casarão da Cultura in the city of Rio Claro, a significant audiovisual hub in the interior of São Paulo.
Fernandes says in the film that “Birosca is like a dandelion, it’s flown and spread out there. Each of us holds a part of it, we’re still friends.” Menezes remembers Birosca as “bold, beautiful and poetic," and comments, "It lives on not only in the memories of those who lived through that moment but now, documented, so that others can know that this moment existed.” She adds that she wanted the film “to provoke a tension through these discussions. to continue thinking, revisiting the paths, the milestones, the points of arrival. It's really good to know the history, the paths that others have taken for us to be where we are today, whether to learn from mistakes or to create new possibilities."
There is much evidence in the film of the value of such revisiting. As Aline Freitas says in the film, the collective opened up conversations so much beyond just technology. “Birosca gave me a feeling of being sheltered. I’d say that feeling made my life so much easier.”
Regions Latin America & the Caribbean Topics Feminist internet Free/libre and open source software (FLOSS) Internet feminista Media and ICTs Tags Areas of work Feminist internet Column Seeding change OffTaller de Comunicación Mujer se une a la red APC: "Es fundamental buscar alianzas para atajar las desigualdades sociales y las brechas políticas y digitales"
"This work of reclaiming memory is filled with a lot of affection, to look at where we've been walking, and what remains of our footprints."
They were from Brasília, Goiânia, Belo Horizonte, São Paulo and other towns and cities across Brazil. More importantly, it was 2005 and they were all on email lists and in IRC chatrooms. These particular spaces were focused on women and technology. And from those spaces sprang Birosca, a sparkling feminist movement in Brazil that ran from 2005 to 2012, and eventually had its own virtual server called Baderna, named after Marieta Baderna, the dancer from Rio. Baderna also means "disturbance" in Portuguese, an allusion to how activists are often perceived.
Cristina "Kit" Barretto de Menezes Lopes was part of Birosca from the beginning. “I learned a lot,” she says, and comments with a laugh, “I had a car, so sometimes I would handle transportation for the many needs that came up.” Menezes deeply valued those six years of Birosca and retraces those years in her new documentary, Birosca: Care, Women and Technology.
She was among the first round of recipients of the APC Women’s Rights Programme’s Feminist #TechJoy small grants, which facilitated the production of this half-hour long documentary film in the first six months of 2024. “This work of reclaiming memory is filled with a lot of affection,” she says. “These are relationships that make us revisit personal processes, to look at where we've been walking, and what remains of our footprints.”
Sorry, this video will not work because your web browser does not support HTML5 video.
It was a particular moment in the history of the internet in 2005. In Brazil, the government supported digital inclusion and the adoption of free/libre and open source software (FLOSS). In the documentary, Menezes interviews several members of the collective, one of whom reminisces how nobody needed a username or password to publish on the website. The internet was still an open space. It’s hard to remember now, but it wasn’t that long ago.
“It was a very important moment that marked the beginning of the popularisation of the internet,” Menezes wrote in the project report for APC. “This turning point of the web that enabled silenced voices to be amplified and facilitated new forms of organisation. The idea of a free and autonomous internet was put into practice by young and vibrant hearts that planted seeds.”
"The idea of a free and autonomous internet was put into practice by young and vibrant hearts that planted seeds."
Birosca began with a group of women who were involved in the Global Network of Independent Media Centres, better known as Indymedia, a website for citizen journalism and the world’s first open source software, according to one interviewee in the film. As the project grew, “we felt the need to create a space for women in technology,” says Isabela "Toya" Fernandes, one of the founders of Birosca, in the film.
As a transfeminist collective, they worked on several techno-political issues that still pique us today, including private monopolies, deploying open source software and the restrictions imposed by big corporations. The collective provided its own email services – not just out of pride, but to make a political point. Similarly, it was a political choice to use OSS like Cinelerra for video editing (even if it crashed a lot) and Audacity to edit audio. They worked on hardware and the software and were autonomous.
As she was shooting the interviews, Menezes heard a phrase repeated that stayed with her. Several women mentioned how working in the collective, "They 'learned how to learn’ because we were supporting each other, but it was us for us. So much of it was about paving the way ourselves, writing tutorials that didn’t exist. We learned so we could teach. It was a process of great generosity – with ourselves, with others, and with the process itself.”
This phrase became a key touchpoint as it triggered further memories for Menezes: “I felt very welcomed in Birosca, in that moment in time, because I was the oldest in the group but the youngest when it came to technology.” Menezes was 35 then and most of the other members were a decade younger. “I didn’t have the boldness they had to take things apart; I was afraid of breaking them. And there, in the project, I started to lose that fear of making mistakes.”
Learning, teaching and breaking gender norms while doing itWorking on technology was, of course, going against the grain of gender expectations, but Menezes has an intriguing insight that goes further on how the work on technology intersected with the activists’ lives. “Through our time in Birosca, we started to understand the difficulty of accessing technology as a taboo – it was the same taboo that had prevented us from knowing our own bodies. […] Breaking away from that gave us a powerful sense of autonomy, and we thought it was important to share that, to document this experience.”
This point is echoed by almost every person interviewed in the film. “We talked about the body, about technology, about the fear of not knowing enough,” says Karine "Foz" Batista. Ianni Luna reads out from old notes for a meta-recycling and sexuality workshop that they conducted, discussing the parallels about knowing your own body and a piece of hardware, in opposition to the more usual, detached discourse around technology. “We made a point of having people tell us about themselves. We talked about our private lives in connection with technology.”
“No other collective was discussing the same things as us – feminism, gender and technology,” says Fernandes. “We talked about how society wouldn’t enable us to get to know ourselves sexually, just like not knowing how to open a PC and find out if that motherboard worked, and how it worked.”
Menezes and other women from the collective thought it was crucial to share this aspect and to document this experience. “Making the film made me revisit the importance of this desire to learn,” she adds. “Because at that moment it wasn't clear, but now, looking back at this process through the film, it’s much clearer how important it was to have been part of it all.”
A legacy of thinking and nurturingIt’s hard to find Birosca on today’s internet with its fragile archives and flickering amnesia, but Menezes says the memory of Birosca is significant and hence its documentation is significant. The film premiered in June this year at the Casarão da Cultura in the city of Rio Claro, a significant audiovisual hub in the interior of São Paulo.
Fernandes says in the film that “Birosca is like a dandelion, it’s flown and spread out there. Each of us holds a part of it, we’re still friends.” Menezes remembers Birosca as “bold, beautiful and poetic," and comments, "It lives on not only in the memories of those who lived through that moment but now, documented, so that others can know that this moment existed.” She adds that she wanted the film “to provoke a tension through these discussions. to continue thinking, revisiting the paths, the milestones, the points of arrival. It's really good to know the history, the paths that others have taken for us to be where we are today, whether to learn from mistakes or to create new possibilities."
There is much evidence in the film of the value of such revisiting. As Aline Freitas says in the film, the collective opened up conversations so much beyond just technology. “Birosca gave me a feeling of being sheltered. I’d say that feeling made my life so much easier.”
Regions Latin America & the Caribbean Topics Feminist internet Free/libre and open source software (FLOSS) Internet feminista Media and ICTs Tags Areas of work Feminist internet Column Seeding change OffSeeding change: "Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act means having to suppress who we are just to keep safe"
Seeding change: "Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act means having to suppress who we are just to keep safe"
Seeding change: "Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act means having to suppress who we are just to keep safe"
Seeding change: "Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act means having to suppress who we are just to keep safe"
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