Global Meeting on Gender, Sexuality and the Internet

APC’s Women’s Rights and Communication Information Policy programmes work to explore and promote a queer and feminist analysis of the practice and governance of internet technology. Since 2008, the EROTICS project has looked particularly at sexual rights movements’ engagement with the internet across the globe, as well as constructions and expressions of non-heteronormative sexualities online. The 2011 EROTICS research findings from India, Lebanon, Brazil, US, and South Africa showed a variety of emerging issues related to women’s agency and autonomy online versus violations of privacy, harassment and threats, censorship and regulation, oppressive government policies, and male-dominated tech spaces. In 2013, we followed up with a global monitoring survey that examined threats and strategies employed by sexual rights activists to organize and promote their work online.

The fast-paced progression of the internet as a social and technical space places urgency on the development of feminist discourse and strategy in response to online misogyny and sexism. At the same time, discourse on internet rights and freedoms is growing, with increased focused on privacy, security and freedom of expression. Yet there has been little focus on issues of gender and sexuality in internet rights movements, nor adequate strategising about how to promote and protect sexual rights in internet rights strategies and discourse.

We therefore invite you to join our Global Meeting on Gender, Sexuality, & the Internet to explore and develop our collective understanding of what a feminist internet looks like. The meeting will be held in Malaysia between April 12 and 17 and brings together scholars, activists, and policy specialists from local, regional, and international organizations and networks.

Goals

* Articulate, deepen, and clarify thinking and analysis around contentious issues of gender, sexuality, and the internet including questions around ‘harmful content,’ pornography, ‘hate speech,’ gender-based violence, and sexual rights.

* Develop a set of evolving Feminist Principles of the Internet.

* Build a network of feminist and queer activists, academics, internet rights experts, and techies to identify collaborative strategies across movements

* Build capacity on engaging with human rights mechanisms and UN instruments to advance sexual rights and women’s human rights in relation to the internet.

Follow the dialogue online using the hashtag #imagineafeministinternet

Logistic advisory

Download the logistic advisory here

Resources

Sexual Rights Activism & the Internet: Infographic

Geekfeminism.org interview with APC's Joy Liddicoat about the meeting and plans to develop feminist principles of the interview.

Survey on sexual activism, morality, and the internet

New edition of Security in-a-Box: Challenges faced by women human rights defenders and sexual rights activists

World Wide Web of Desire: Content regulation on the internet

Human rights and the internet: A review of perceptions in human rights organisations

Global Information Society Watch 2013: Women's rights, gender and ICTs

APC Internet rights are human rights training curriculum

Global Internet Governance Forum 2013 workshop report: Connecting Our Rights: Strategies for Progress

Global Information Society Watch Special Edition: Communication rights ten years after WSIS

Human rights and internet protocols