Risks and Resistances for Women on the Internet – Practical Possibilities of Cyberfeminism in the Digital Age

The internet has increasingly become a platform for the construction of new feminisms, for the organization of political mobilizations in favor of guidelines that affect women and the formation of feminists throughout the country. On the other hand, it is also through the internet that other forms of (digital) violence against women are created and encouraged. Thus, this post seeks to show some aspects of this double face of the Internet for women – risks and resistances – and to address how cyberfeminism has an important role to play in this political terrain that is cyberspace.

Internet as a Danger and Potential for Women

Unauthorized disclosure of intimate images, virtual threats, harassment in ride-hailing apps, online harassment, sextortion, cyberbullying, sexist pages on social networks, persecutions organized in forums against women (“chans”), strengthening of fascist and misogynist governments . These are just a few of the ways the internet helps to create and reinvent ways of violence against women. The consequences of these misogynist violence in the lives of these women are very serious and, as the prosecutor Valéria Fernandes points out, there are many cases of depression and even suicide.

On the other hand, the internet has also allowed a series of feminist practices to build and strengthen, creating and reinventing new ways of being a woman and building political resistance against gender violence in and out of cyberspace. In order to think about the internet’s power to build feminism nowadays, we must also map out the risks that we run and identify where the dangers are that the internet brings us as women, to outline our routes and strategies.

And this is where cyberfeminism comes in: in this constant dispute of land, between the danger and the potential that the Internet brings, especially for political minorities. Cyberfeminisms are multiple movements and practices that attempt to jointly articulate the agendas of feminist groups (in their large plurality) with cyber-activist agendas against Internet surveillance, in favor of policies to defend an open, secure and democratic internet.

The theoretical foundations of cyberfeminism originate in the theories of the american researcher Donna Haraway as to how our bodies are, in reality, mixed parts of technology and organism. This ranges from the glasses and dental appliances we use, to the medications and supplements we routinely take, to the increasing integration (physical and cognitive) we have with our smartphones. Unlike a robot, which is entirely constructed, a cyborg is a hybrid of nature and construction. For Haraway, we are all cyborgs, conditioned by nature and history, but constantly updated and reinvented through technological interventions.

In this sense, the author affirmed, as early as 1985, that it is essential that women seize the technologies in order to use them to transform the social reality of women. When we think about the Internet, this appropriation becomes even more urgent, since it: has developed in a context of military domination and espionage; is dominated by men in technical areas (design, planning, realization and distribution); is still marked by the low presence and silence of women; and is still a platform for exposure and violation of women and their data.

It was exploring the power of technology to change this scenario that cyberfeminism emerged in the 1990s with an artist group called VNS MATRIX and feminist thinkers such as Sandy Stone and Sadie Plant.

But materially, how does cyberferminism act in Brazil?

In Brazil, cyberfeminism has come to a head since the last decade and began as a result of the creation of feminist blogs. The pages have been posted on some websites and other Facebook pages – from feminist articles. Some examples are the Blogueiras Feministas, Blogueiras Negras, Think Olga, Transfeminismo, Biscate Social Club, Não me Kahlo, AzMina and Feminismo Sem Demagogia, among many others.

This is, therefore, one of the first and best-known possibilities explored by cyberfeminism, the use of the reach made possible by the internet – not only in quantity, but in a plurality of publics – for the dissemination of feminist ideas. It is important to notice how all these pages also demonstrate the diversity of feminist theories and practices in the country.

In addition to the expansion of these pages, the appropriations of cyberfeminisms in the country have also multiplied. This not only uses the internet to disseminate feminist texts and themes, but also as a political tool with unique features for the mobilization of feminist causes and the promotion of gender equity in the network. Despite the common criticism that, like other types of cyber-activism, cyberfeminism would be a movement that does not construct practical and effective actions, there are many actions and possibilities generated from this movement, some of them being:

– Hashtags and virtual campaigns around questions that relate to our experiences and guidelines as women and the violence to which we are subjected, such as the hashtag #agoraequesaoelas – created in 2015 to demand that women have more space within the media productions and journalism; the campaign #mulheresnagovernança – launched in 2017 claiming more space for women in the discussions and productions on Internet and Internet Governance; Hashtags like #naoviolenciadegenero and #naomereçoserestrupada, used to show data of social inequality between men and women, in order to claim rights and security. There are also hashtags used to denounce sexist and / or racist violence suffered by women and LGBTs, such as: #foiassedionasaudeufmg; #euempregadadomestica; #naomerecoserestuprada; #meubolsominionsecreto; #sentinapele; #meuprimeiroassédio (#myfirstharassment in other countries); #meuamigosecreto; and #chegadefiufiu

– Exclusive groups of women to share experiences and support as (to name two types of them): Facebook groups to buy, sell and exchange services and products made by women, such as the “We Generate Income”; lesbian maternity living sharing groups and free home insemination facilitators for couples of non-heterosexual women, such as “home-based insemination – tantalizing and donors”;

– Campaigns and mobilizations against figures and political movements that attack our bodies, lives and security, such as the group “Women against Bolsonaro” created in October 2018 and which reached 3 million participants, in addition to extensive use of the hashtag #EleNão. All of this broadened not only the scope of feminist discussion during the elections, but was instrumental in organizing events and acts with thousands of women participants.

– Development of programs and robots such as BETA, which is an online feminist robot programmed to help viralize political polls and matters issues that concern us. In addition, it aims to encourage the political engagement of women, facilitating the sending of messages to parliamentarians and participation in public research.

– Development of virtual mechanisms of denunciation and mapping of harassment, in addition to the hashtags used in social networks for this purpose. Among these platforms, we have the “Vedetas #ataques“; the site “Brasil Leaks”; the “Assédio Zero” (Zero Harassment) and “Todxs” apps; the site / map “Chega de Fiufiu” (Enough with Catcall); and the “Safernet Brasil” website. The interesting thing about these possibilities of denunciation is that they are not made from personal profiles, and some of them are concerned with the encryption of the messages and the guarantee of real anonymity of the denouncers. These are essential aspects, since in spite of the great relevance that the complaint hashtags had, many were the cases of retaliation suffered by these women, since their data were available next to their stories. In this sense, platforms such as the hotline and helpline initiatives of Safernet start from the notion that anonymity and cryptography are very important figures in guaranteeing human and political minorities rights.

– Establishment of a series of programming events for women, such as the “Gender and Citizenship Hackathon” (digital programming marathon 2014 for the development of prototype digital tools on gender violence and women’s politics by women.

            This is also the case of the various cyberfeminist groups that have emerged in the country and that have been multiplying actions and discussions regarding the construction of a feminist internet, safer for women and the appropriation of both the Internet and cyber-activism in the feminist struggle. Some examples of these are:  MariaLab; InternetLab; Intervozes, especially with its campaign #conecteseusdireitos,  Coding Rigths with several actions, especially the campaign #Safermanas; the Clandestina (or CL4NDESTINA) plataform; and also the websites  Autonomia Feminista Tecnologia; Ciberseguras; and Oficina Antivigilante.

The internet was made (and continues to be) by women too

These are just some of the expressions by which women and feminism have been taking over the internet and instrumentalising it in a powerful way. Another important action is the hard-won and growing insertion of female programmers and women who write about algorithms, such as the visualization of others that have been fundamental in the history of technology, computer science, programming and the internet, but rarely have their work known.

This is the case, for example: from Ada Lovelace, the first person to program an algorithm to be read by a machine; of Hedy Lamarr, who invented the “frequency hopping”, the basic tool for creating Wi-fi, GPS and Bluetooth; of Katherine Johnson, responsible at NASA for the calculations of the trajectories of the first American for Space and for the mission of Apollo 11 for the moon; by Jean Sammet who created one of the first computer languages, FORMAC; and so many others.

It is important to notice that the deficit of women in the area has repercussions not only on access or “female” representation, which is already problematic, but is also a matter of the production, valorization and circulation of the knowledge produced by women. However, a number of initiatives have been attempting to break down these gender barriers imposed in these areas, both in the theoretical construction of the internet and in the technical field, as is exemplified by the #mulheresnagovernança campaign.

Conclusion

This contradiction between risk and resistance that the Internet offers for women is yet another of the ambiguous tensions that surround the cyborg and feminist experiences. We women are the fruit of the internet, its systems of control, the patriarchal system and the fruit of its violence, but we are also the potential for its destructuring. We are a bug in the system that tries to violate us and we have come to wreak havoc. We have to take over cyberfeminism, we have to hack into patriarchy.

Did you like this discussion? Want to know more about the inclusion and participation of women on the internet? Read our text “Gender equity and internet: let’s go together!” of the researchers Lahis Kurtz, Luíza Brandão and Paloma Rocillo.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors .