Feminist talk

Equity in digital access in Africa is far from being a reality. There is also paucity of women in technology related careers and more broadly in STEM. In this column, Nodumo Dhlamini will explore the necessity for mentoring of women to make them confident users and implementers of ICT tools and solutions.

How do we use social media in activism? Do we reflect on our practices, on the instrumental ways of referring to people and communities that is used in reports and publications? Here is a story that looks at the use of Whatsapp by activists and what it means about unacknowledged hierarchies and barriers even within progressive spaces.

Is technology neutral or is coding political? In this article Smarika Kumar explores how algorithms work in the real world, and how they are a reflection of existing biases and forms of exclusion and discrimination in society.

The rise of dating apps allows women to take control of their social life and their choices. In this article Hija Kamran speaks to many women in Pakistan about their experience of online dating, both good and bad, whether it allows for challenging of conservative social norms or it leaves women vulnerable to abuse and other risks.

In Tanzania, even as access to internet has brought changes to the lives of people, there is still a lot to be done to get everyone connected and at the same time ensuring good policies to lay the ground for a safer internet. Rebecca explores legal options to the non consensual sharing of intimate images of women in the country. 

In this fourth column on gender and community networks, Nic Bidwell looks closely at the processes and difficulties of research on the social and gender impact of Community Networks in rural places, and focuses on some issues encountered in the nitty-gritty of such research.

Here are tips and insights on how to use social media for activism and movement-building, on how to use internet and social media to amplify your cause. In this video Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah touches on several instances of how social media can and has been used by African feminists, and especially describing popular campaigns and hashtags on Twitter

Politicians, journalists and other women with public profiles face a substantial share of online harassment, bullying and violence. In this article, Koliwe Majama shows how in the context of the Zimbabwean elections, even as the internet brings the public closer to politicians, it opens up new avenues for discrediting them and their work, and reveals the patriarchal misogyny that underlies…

In this third column on gender and community networks, GenderIT interviews Carlos Rey Moreno on what movement building around community networks is all about. How do we get policy makers, organisers, community based organisations and others invested and interested in community networks? And in this constellation of actors and organisations, how do we start talking about gender equality and…

n this column on community networks and gender, the writers will explore how communities can provide and run their own internet infrastructure, the existing forms of community networks, the legal and policy environment in which they have to exist and what are the gender dynamics around these networks. Here we interview Steve Song about the policy and regulatory environment for community…