gender and technology

Through an actionable research roadmap, the project seeks to address knowledge gaps in understanding perpetrators of online gender-based violence.

As many human rights activists and decision makers gathered for the 68th session of CSW in March in New York, the important questions about the politics of this year's theme that looked at "addressing poverty, strengthening institutions" remained unanswered. APC WRP's Karla Velasco reflects and calls to direct energies to address biases.

Regulating new digital dangers can be challenging. This is especially true when they are unforeseeable at the time of drafting the policy. Aitana Garcia Domingo explores two policy designs that can potentially help in countering tech-facilitated violence, and discusses limitations that both these designs pose to their successful implementation.

Pakistani women have always struggled to navigate public spheres given the scrutiny and violence that they are subjected to. But they're now fighting back by taking their space in the online public spaces that enables them to access an audience on their own terms. Yet, it comes at a cost.

Pakistan government has recently introduced various laws to curb online violence. However, the undemocratic processes with which these laws have been drafted point towards their ability to directly target citizens' civil liberties on the internet. Moaz Bhangu speaks to women content creators who have been self-censoring to stay safe online.

Women make up half the population of Pakistan, and yet they're routinely denied access to identification documents based on patriarchal and archaic policies that reject any sense of autonomy over their personhood independent of men around them. Zainab Durrani speaks to some of the women who were subjected to these policies.

For a region like the MENA (which some authors refer to as S/WANA, others as Arabic-speaking countries), tech policy problems are compounded with a litany of daily struggles, most devastating of these being occupation, war, conflict, and displacement which affects, we sometimes forget,…

Habash from Egypt explores the relationship between feminism and blockchain technologies in a curious and critical review of possibilities emergent in DAOs and DisCos. They accompany us through several iterations and thought experiments on political organisation and theory in the realms of web3.

Journalist, Yara el Murr, from Lebanon presents a case study of kotobli, a book discovery platform that counters colonial algorithms used in searching for books about the SWANA region. She details how Big Tech favours publishers and authors from the Global North and presents the challenges and opportunities of working with local publishers and authors to change this.

Open-source advocate from the region, Zaatar, makes the case for digital self-defence to support sexual rights and reproductive justice movements amidst growing crackdowns and threats. She elaborates on use of secure and protective technologies to share and access information critical to feminist movements.