“I’d blush, if I could”: ICTs, digital assistants and gender-based violence

Research shows that women occupy only about 20% of the high loads in the field of science and technology. What happens when this role is occupied by the male gender? The lack of encouragement and recognition of women in the sector is a problem that starts from basic education, leaving gaps in the levels of appropriation and skills for the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs), which add up to the values of stereotypes of subjects of technology are male dominance. Next, the problems that this gap can promote, from the difference of opportunities in the context of the information society, to the creation and application of technologies that contribute to the maintenance of this inequality, from the case of virtual assistants such as Siri, will be discussed. Apple, Alexa, Amazon or Google Assistant, Google

Digital divide and gender gap

In 2019, UNESCO published a report on gender inequality in literacy and skills indicators for the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). The text presents data on the difference in access, use and appropriation of technologies taking into account gender indicators. The document provides important information, such as the permanence of an abyss between technology positions held by women and the level of digital literacy of people considering the gender variable. According to statistics, women are 25% less likely to acquire education in the basic use of ICTs, the chances of a woman becoming a programmer are 4 times lower, and when we talk about patent registration, for example, there are 13 times less chance of being registered by a woman. The greater the complexity of the activity, the greater the gender gap recorded by the indicators.

The inclusion of ICTs in children’s education is described by the report as an important strategy to overcome this inequality. However, it is necessary that this effort starts in basic education, and not only in secondary education, when, in many contexts, school dropout increases. This can contribute to greater interest and opportunities for women who wish to enter technology careers. In countries like Brazil, the lack of skills for the use of ICTs is an obstacle to digital inclusion. However, observing the issue of gender in this scenario, it is possible to notice that this problem is greater among women users, among which is 1.6 times more recurrent the lack of ability to use ICTs as an obstacle to the use of the internet.

In addition to these and other indicators, the document also presents problems with technologies whose configurations reproduce gender violence and reinforce stereotypes. The example presented in the report are digital assistants, increasingly present in households for the comfort of users.

“I’d blush, if I could”

A 2018 survey showed that 20% of North American households already had at least one connected digital assistant machine. Scheduled to automate day-to-day tasks, the machines obey user commands to perform tasks such as calling someone, ordering food in the delivery app, turning on the light, turning on the air conditioning, among other features that can be linked to the device. One of the functions that attributed popularity to digital assistants on the internet is the possibility of interacting with the machine that is programmed to answer some questions in a casual or even funny way. The phrase that gives the report its name used to be the Siri digital assistant’s automatic response to certain types of comments that sounded like harassment. What seems to have been thought to sound like a “little joke”, emerges as evidence of the sexist imaginary shared by our society. The responsible company corrected this response in an update in 2019, after eight years of technology launch.

In a 1986 text, Winner spells out ways in which technological artifacts can carry political attributes in themselves. The author argues that the technical properties of an object manifest political choices. This happens, for example, when a strategic urban mobility plan is drawn up that designs the city for the locations that will be adequately served by bus lines. Although this is a technical measure, this is not without political consequences, since it will affect people’s lives differently. In the case of digital assistants, making her respond in a tolerant and gentle way to harassments, contributes to the solidification of the imaginary of the cordial and submissive woman, in addition to tending to associate the female place as that of subservience and receiving orders to the performance of tasks, as beings always helpful, docile and readily available.

It has a “woman’s” voice, “a woman’s name”, it replies “like a woman”. After all, does artificial intelligence have gender?

When asked if the digital assistant is a woman, Siri, for example, says she has no gender, “like cacti and certain fish species”. The Google machine responds “I don’t have sex”, and Alexa, from Amazon, responds to be a female character. Regardless of these responses, the femininity traits programmed by the manufacturers are easily perceived. There is no consensual response, for example, about why digital assistants express a female voice, as dealt with in this text from The Atlantic, or because they have names typically associated with women.

It is not the first time that machines have been attributed traits of a conception of femininity that reinforces stereotypes and violence. The sexualization of robots has also been the subject of films that more clearly explore the increasingly blurred boundaries between human and machine (as in the film Her, or, in the more recent one, Ex-machine). Likewise, controversies arose when families realized that interaction with the digital assistant in the home was affecting the way children learned to deal with others. Without having to say please or thank you, children learned about giving orders, but not how to interact with others politely. After the manifestation of user dissatisfaction, some companies incorporated into the system that the tool would thank them for their kindness when someone addressed them cordially – using “please” or “thank you”. This leads us to reflect, however, whether this would not contribute to an even more humanized perception of technological artifacts and how it can change the way we interact.

For feminist author Donna Haraway, we are hybrid bodies, crossed by nuances of the nature of culture, digital and analog, the machine and the biological body. For the author, this is not expressed only when we have a prosthesis attached to the limb, or in science fiction figures equipped with super powerful artifacts, not even when we use technologies for work or for everyday life. But also when we take medicines, go on diets, go to gyms and take many measures to enhance our biological capacities. Artificial intelligence tools like this, that participate in our home and our routine and have a name, a human-like voice that tries to answer questions naturally approaching human characteristics, take us to a scenario where these borders become each increasingly opaque and faint.

Conclusion

By encouraging women to learn and enter technology careers and markets, we have a better chance that, by increasing gender equality in the teams responsible for new technologies, we will have products that are more consistent with the diverse and complex reality we share. This does not mean that all the problems of gender inequality and machismo will then be solved, but it is an important step in the commitment to a more egalitarian society.

Seeing in these technologies our social challenges and controversies is a necessary path. We no longer distinguish between the real and the virtual world: all of this is part of a reality that we share. Understanding the barriers between technology and society will allow us to see better what our challenges are, as well as to understand how they manifest around us. Only then will we be able and able to think about ways and solutions for more inclusive and representative technologies.

Encouraging the presence of women in technology, whether through their careers or through their appropriate appropriation, is an important step for our social and political development and can help us to overcome sexist imaginary of the role of women in society. How about taking the first step? Check out the #mulheresnagovernança campaign, which exists to bring visibility and create a network among women engaged in promoting a more positive and inclusive internet.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors.
Illustration by Freepik Stories