Latin America in a Glimpse: Gender, feminism and the internet in Latin America

APC y  Asoci­a­cion Dere­chos Digi­ta­les presen­tan una publi­ca­cion acerca de las colec­ti­vas en america latina que traba­jan los temas de genero, femi­nismo e inter­net.. 

El report esta dispo­ni­ble en caste­llano y en ingles.

During the last three years, Latin America in a Glimpse has been an annual recount of the most rele­vant events in Latin America in terms of tech­no­logy and human rights. This summary allows readers to get an idea of the scene in the region regar­ding: rele­vant issues discus­sed, emer­ging thre­ats, the response of public poli­cies to the challen­ges projec­ted by tech­no­logy and the role that civil soci­ety orga­ni­za­ti­ons are playing in those scena­rios.

We also wanted to high­light the work that each of the civil soci­ety orga­ni­za­ti­ons are doing in their respec­tive coun­tries and areas of inter­est, both through the report and the annual event held the day before the inter­net Gover­nance Forum, with the inten­tion to esta­blish a bridge between Latin America and other regi­ons of the globe, to faci­li­tate inter­ac­tion with finan­ci­ers, allies and colle­a­gues.

In this fourth edition of Latin America in a Glimpse we wanted to conti­nue this work, but with a twist. Follo­wing a global trend, we want to unders­tand the intri­cate link between gender and tech­no­logy, and the respon­ses that, from this part of the world, diffe­rent groups of women have given to this complex, proble­ma­tic and diffi­cult rela­ti­ons­hip. We set our objec­tive on rese­ar­ching the projects that have been deve­lo­ped during 2017 in Latin America that work the inter­sec­tion of gender and tech­no­logy. We want to answer ques­ti­ons such as: Which are the criti­cal areas being explo­red? What are the main problems? And, above all, who are the people behind each of these projects, which are their moti­va­ti­ons and how is their work framed in a larger pano­rama of the strug­gles for gender equity?

An incre­a­singly violent and hostile digi­tal envi­ron­ment towards women, the lack of parti­ci­pa­tion in the diffe­rent layers of the inter­net ecosys­tem, and a gene­ra­li­zed scena­rio of scarce oppor­tu­ni­ties, multi­di­men­si­o­nal injus­ti­ces and invi­si­bi­lity, has gene­ra­ted a series of diffe­rent answers, but with a common goal: a digni­fied inter­net for women, where they can exer­cise their rights freely and deve­lop in an inte­gral and auto­no­mous way; where digi­tal tech­no­lo­gies are a tool for perso­nal and collec­tive fulfill­ment, and not a weapon of the male domi­na­ted status quo.

What we found was a highly active commu­nity of orga­ni­za­ti­ons and collec­ti­ves that prac­ti­cally covers the entire spec­trum of nodes in digi­tal envi­ron­ments, from the crea­tion of femi­nist servers to the discur­sive occu­pa­tion of the inter­net through self-mana­ged media. Women who have deci­ded to lose their fear of error and have disco­ve­red the joy of lear­ning, expe­ri­men­ta­tion and soro­rity. Faced with devas­ta­ting statis­tics, the initi­a­ti­ves listed here are power­fully inspi­ring. That is preci­sely the idea: to build bridges between the women menti­o­ned here and those who – due to our lack of time, know­ledge or even clum­si­ness – are not; women doing simi­lar jobs in other regi­ons of the planet and, above all, those who after reading the follo­wing pages are encou­ra­ged to join the fight. The latter will surely appear in the next editi­ons of this report.