erotics

All sorts of members of the internet community got together for the 2014 Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Istanbul from September 2-5. There were hundreds of workshops and meetings and side events, and even an entirely parallel Internet Ungovernance Forum, challenging the dominance of governments and corporations at the IGF.

DJ's choice is a weekly section by GenderIT.org, exploring the depths of the web to provide you once a week with a top 5 of creative, interesting and informative pieces and resources on gender and ICTs. Delight yourself with this selection of “sparks”: Good readings, interesting links, videos, pictures, cool authors to point to, amazing tools, and much more. Send us interesting material to…

When I found myself suddenly having to care for and look after my new born child alone, I panicked. I panicked because I had never done this before and the ten minute tutorial on washing and feeding my infant that the nurse gave me at the hospital was lacking in many ways. I had questions, so many questions-but she didn’t have time. I was a woman, as far as she was concerned and therefore I…

APC summarised the contents of the Gender Report Card sections of the workshop reports from the Internet Governance Forum of 2012 in Azerbaijan, and the 2013 IGF in Indonesia.

The blockade of LGBTIQ websites by several Internet Service Providers (ISP) has been happening since 2011. The act is often a one-sided decision without prior notification to owner of website. In response to such situation, in 2012, LGBTIQ activists began advocating Human Rights of LGBTIQ in the area of internet management. These activists include Institut Pelangi Perempuan (IPP), Ourvoice (OV),…

Over the years, APC’s Women’s Rights Programme (WRP) has actively participated at the IGF in order to raise questions, issues, and linkages between feminism and the internet. Participation of gender advocates at the IGF has grown every year and this year’s WRP delegation includes 23 feminist and queer activists from India, Indonesia, Uganda, Argentina, Malaysia, Lebanon, South Africa, Kenya,…

Caroline Tagny interviewed Rohini Lakshané, who used to work with EROTICS India, and Sheena Magenya, from the Coalition of African Lesbians during the Global meeting on gender, sexuality and the internet in April 2014 to ask them how they understand pornography from their respective contexts, and how do they engage their activism with the intersection between sexual rights and internet rights.

I’d bet my internet that one of your first experiences with the digital social had something to do with sex. Unsolicited nudity arriving in your inbox? Hundreds of sex-related IRC channels that popped up while you searched for your local radio chatroom? Pop-ups spiraling out of control on Internet Explorer? Or maybe you went looking for it in a Lycos search. Or maybe you built a geocities site…

Over three days, the participants discussed and debated intersections of gender, sexuality, and the internet – not only as a tool – but as a new public space. In thinking through these issues, the participants at the meeting developed a set of *15 feminist principles of the internet*. These are designed to be an evolving document that informs our work on gender and technology, as well as…

Have we taken over the internet or has it taken us over? Are we using or being used by the internet? How can we resist the globalised commodification of the internet and defend it as open, diffused, decentralised and subversive? Is the divide between our online and offline lives blurring? Is this empowering or threatening? Many fascinating questions that look not for a definite and absolute…