Difference between revisions of "Including gender in privacy and digital security"

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== Including gender in privacy and digital security ==
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The Gender and Technology Institute enabled the creation of a conversation coming from experiences located in 30 different countries about how we could develop practices that enable women, trans* persons and other groups at risk to include privacy and digital security into their lives, and how we could keep on learning while helping others to learn about those concepts, methods and tools once back home. Recurrently, our reduced amount of free time, fragmented and precarious lives and lack of individual and collective self-care cultures were pointed at as major challenges to become trainers on the ground. How can we include and pack those fast evolving privacy and digital security practices into our already very busy lives as human rights defenders and activists? How can we find collective mechanisms of support to keep advancing together and empower each other?
  
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=== Context and distance traveled ===
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In the following, the focus will be on the three steps that allow to include gender in privacy and digital security practices. The steps include first, the relationship between gender roles and violence against women and technology, second, the reframing from exclusion and discrimination to inclusion and self-inclusion and finally, the intersectional and integrated (holistic) approach to understand gender, privacy and digital security.
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“Securing Online and Offline Freedoms for Women: Expression, Privacy and Digital Inclusion” is a project coordinated by Tactical Technology Collective and funded by the Swedish International Cooperation Development Agency and in collaboration with the APC women programme. The project aims at strengthening a global network of Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRD) and activists delivering advocacy, awareness raising and training to privacy and digital security. Through applied and participative research, adapted curricula and learning resources, training opportunities and support to base ground activities organised by its participants, the intention is to mitigate and tackle the effects of online violence and ICT related threats against women, trans* persons and their collaborators. By training those to act as intermediaries-trainers within their organisations and communities, the project intends to strengthen freedom of expression and opinion.
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As underlined by APC, “Technology related violence is a form of Violence Againt Women (VAW) that manifests in the context of new technologies. ICTs can be used to perpetrate violence in a variety of ways. Perpetrators of violence use mobile phones and the internet to stalk, harass and monitor women’s movements and activities”.1 As a result, vocal women are too often trapped in a situation where the internet is crucial to their work but is also the place where they are surveilled, harassed and punished for speaking out. These trends largely represent an extension of offline prejudices and discrimination and have several real-world effects. Overall, they represent a further deterrent to the participation of women and marginalised communities in democratic processes and a severe challenge to their ability to access the public sphere and exercise their fundamental rights.  There is limited systematic documentation and analysis of these incidents, but there is growing recognition as to their prevalence globally and increasing demand for a high level of response. From our own research and direct work with WHRD during the past twelve months, we can confirm that this problem takes the same form across a wide range of change agents in different environments globally. At this stage, what we see in response to these attacks, regardless of the community, is a series of fractured and case-by-case actions and a small number of groups working consistently to raise awareness, document and understand the nature of the problem and seek solutions.
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Because these new forms of violence have become more visible and pervasive in the last few years, individuals and organizations are increasingly willing to protect themselves as the overwhelming number of candidatures to our Gender and Technology Institute made clear, with over 350 applications submitted in less than three weeks.  Then, through a process of rigorous review, all applications were pared down to 48 participants and a group of 18 facilitators were selected, who came from organisations such as SAFE, Protection International, Donestech, as well as APC and Tactical Tech, and adding the logistics team and some visitors, we were about 80 in total.
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Many women and trans* persons still feel that digital security is not for them, because it often fails to take into account their realities and the specific threats they are facing. Moreover, there is a lack of technical confidence and know-how within priority communities. Currently a large bulk of this expertise has to come from outside and this raises two problems – first a lack of informed and appropriate technical advice, and second questions of trust and long-term ownership. WHRD need to feel they are part of the digital security field and that they are not just the recipients of focused trainings delivered by external actors and organisations. By becoming an active part of this extended network of digital security trainers and developers, they are able to build their own technical skills and in-home capacities and reach some type of sustainability and multiplier effect across time.
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Our first milestone consisted in the organisation of the Gender and Technology Institute, which gathered women human rights defenders from the global south to a week long training.
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Besides two parallel tracks aimed at acquiring digital security training and privacy advocacy skills and the hands-on sessions focused on specific tools, the Institute included skill shares run by participants and lively evenings that went from self-organised, participant-driven sessions to more skill-sharing on digital tools in the self-organised hacklab, to spontaneous interactions in a chilled-out atmosphere.
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By gathering all those participants together, with accordingly varied background and origins and with a broad palette of work and activism experiences and usage of technologies, we also aimed at mapping and documenting existing knowledge and experiences about how to introduce a gender dimension into privacy and digital security.
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The GTI enabled the creation of a conversation coming from experiences located in 30 different countries about how we could develop practices that enable women, trans* persons and other groups at risk to include privacy and digital security into their lives, and how we could keep on learning while helping others to learn about those concepts, methods and tools once back home. Recurrently, our reduced amount of free time, fragmented and precarious lives and lack of individual and collective self-care cultures were pointed at as major challenges to become trainers on the ground. How can we include and pack those fast evolving privacy and digital security practices into our already very busy lives as human rights defenders and activists? How can we find collective mechanisms of support to keep advancing together and empower each other?
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In the following, the focus will be on the three steps that allow to include gender in privacy and digital security practices. The steps includes first, the relationship between gender roles and violence against women and technology, second, the reframing from exclusion and discrimination to inclusion and self-inclusion and finally, the intersectional and integrated (holistic) approach to understand gender, privacy and digital security.
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=== First step: Acknowledge gender roles and Violence Against Women along the technological cycle ===
 
=== First step: Acknowledge gender roles and Violence Against Women along the technological cycle ===
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==== Governance of Internet and ICT ====
 
==== Governance of Internet and ICT ====
  
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We must claim the power of the internet to amplify alternative and diverse narratives of women’s lived realities'. For this reason the feminist principles of the internet cannot turn into an ideology but need to be an open evolving platform. A space of agitation and construction of political practices so that the internet facilitates new forms of citizenship that enable individuals to claim, construct, and express our selves, genders, sexualities.  And it precisely for this reason that we should not confine ourselves to the use of internet as a tools but must understand, monitor and engage with those who govern the internet. Now the governance of the internet is a very complex universe,: a decentralized and international multistakeholder network of interconnected autonomous groups drawing from civil society, the private sector, governments, the academic and research communities and national and international organizations. Moreover, it is also important to influence policies within the social media platforms we are actively using to present ourselves online, coordinate and network with our different social networks composed by our friends, families, colleagues, activists and so on. Because of this, including gender means alspo enabling a greater participation of women, trans* and queer into institutions contributing to the governance of Internet inasmuch as inside companies delivering services for supporting our networking online.  
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We also must claim the power of the internet to amplify alternative and diverse narratives of women’s lived realities'. For this reason the feminist principles of the internet cannot turn into an ideology but need to be an open evolving platform. A space of agitation and construction of political practices so that the internet facilitates new forms of citizenship that enable individuals to claim, construct, and express their selves, genders, sexualities.  And it is precisely for this reason that we should not confine ourselves to the use of internet as a tool but must understand, monitor and engage with those who govern the internet. Now its governance is a very complex universe, a decentralized and international multistakeholder network of interconnected autonomous groups drawing from civil society, the private sector, governments, the academic and research communities and national and international organizations. Besides, it is also important to influence policies within the social media platforms we are actively using to present ourselves online, coordinate and network with our different social networks composed by our families, colleagues, activists friends. Because of this, including gender means also enabling a greater participation of women, trans* and queer into institutions contributing to the governance of Internet inasmuch as inside companies delivering services for supporting our networking and online identity.
  
 
==== The end of life of technologies ====  
 
==== The end of life of technologies ====  
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=== Second step: From exclusion and discrimination to inclusion and self inclusion processes ===
 
=== Second step: From exclusion and discrimination to inclusion and self inclusion processes ===
  
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This review of the steps composing the technological cycle shows that including gender into privacy and digital security requires first to acknowledge that gender gaps, discrimination and VAW are happening along the process in a structural way and that they influence the conditions of women, trans* persons and at risk minorities in relation to their experience of/with ICT. It also shows that when we use technologies, we should reflect about how those are liberating or alienating for other groups and individuals. Liberating technologies can be defined as appropriated technologies that do not harm, are rooted in the free software and culture principles and are designed by default against surveillance, opacity and programmed obsolescence, and this is one of the first things we should consider when switching from fighting exclusion to focusing on inclusion.
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This review of the steps composing the technological cycle shows that including gender into privacy and digital security requires first to acknowledge that gender gaps, discrimination and VAW are happening along the process in a structural way and that they influence the conditions of women, trans* persons and at risk minorities in relation to their experience of/with ICT. It also shows that when we use technologies, we should reflect about how those are liberating or alienating for other groups and individuals. Liberating technologies can be defined as appropriated technologies that do not harm, are rooted in the free software and culture principles and are designed by default against gender based violence, surveillance, opacity and programmed obsolescence, and this is one of the first things we should consider when switching from fighting exclusion to focusing on inclusion.
  
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As pointed out by different researchers to stop exclusion is not the same thing as achieving inclusion. Focusing on exclusion might lead us to believe that inclusion is impossible, when there are actually women who include themselves in ICT and digital inclusion actions and policies that have been effective. Thus, although research on exclusion is the basis for knowing the needs of inclusion, it is not enough to understand the motivations, facilitators, policies or strategies for women's development in ICT. There is a need to shift the question from why women do not access, use, study or work in ICT to the question of why, where and how women have become involved in ICT and have been welcomed to it, in order to learn from the specific inclusion and self-inclusion processes based on the experiences of women already included and their wishes, as well as the analysis of actions for inclusion.
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==== Moving towards inclusion ====
  
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Placing inclusion in the centre of our activities becomes more consistent with feminist theories that considers the experiences of women at the heart and point of departure of our reflections. In fact, feminism of technology focusing on the presence and inclusion processes, has brought to light the contributions and uses that women make of ICT and thus have focused on the worlds and experiences of women. With this, role models for many more could be put in the spotlight, as well stereotypes about gender and ICT could be weakened. In this sense, research has also questioned the binary tendency of the study of women in technology, by focusing on women while making visible their diversity and going beyond the dichotomous comparison to men. Finally, the inclusion paradigm has also helped to generate new inclusive opportunities for other women and collectives and have made visible alternative developments of ICT. When referring to self-inclusion of women in ICT we position women as agents conducting their own ICT inclusion and focus on the mechanisms that they activate and/or decide to follow to contribute to and transform ICT.
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To stop exclusion is not the same thing as achieving inclusion. Focusing on exclusion might lead us to believe that inclusion is impossible, when there are actually women who include themselves in ICT and digital inclusion actions and policies that have been effective. There is a need to shift the question from why women or trans* persons do not access, use, study or work in ICT to the question of why, where and how we have become involved in ICT and have been welcomed to it. This becomes more consistent with feminisms that consider the experiences of women and trans* persones at the heart and point of departure of our reflections and have brought to light the contributions, uses and desires we make of ICT. With this, role models for many more could be put in the spotlight, as well stereotypes about gender and ICT could be weakened.
  
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The main self-inclusion mechanism commonly stated consists of different ways and motivations for learning. However, many women do not learn in formal education nor study engineering, but engage in non-formal and informal learning processes. In addition, as in many other sectors, women seek and access ICT jobs to self-include themselves in ICT. However, due to gender stereotypes women find it difficult to engage in self-promotion. When finding barriers in a given context or seeking new opportunities most of the women have opted for mobility, both occupational (moving to other departments or companies to do a similar job) and geographic (even moving to other countries). Some women even become entrepreneurs to carry out their ideas and projects, alone or with other partners, to maintain and continue their ICT practices, as well as set several self-regulating practices as another mechanism of self-inclusion, such as establishing certain plans and organizations to follow.
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The need for women and trans* persons' inclusion in ICT is a question of gender justice and equality. However, there are many other arguments that support an improved inclusion in ICT. Increasing our representation in ICT also increases the pool of skilled IT workers, and privacy and digital security developers and trainers. Moreover, this means to work in sectors with higher pay and prestige and at the cutting edge of current changes. Including women and trans* persons in ICT would also increase the diversity of participant profiles in developing ICT and the information society in general. This would include the voices, perspectives and needs of thousands of potential users, as well as increasing the opportunities for creating new technological products that are more extensive and adaptable to many different profiles while, at the same time, facilitating the development and transformation of the ICT sector itself and society as a whole.
  
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The need for women’s inclusion in ICT is a question of gender justice and equality. However, there are many other arguments that support an improved inclusion of women in ICT. Increasing women's representation in ICT also increases the pool of skilled IT workers, which nowadays is in high demand. Moreover, they work in sectors with higher pay and prestige and at the cutting edge of current changes. Including women in ICT would also increase the diversity of participant profiles in developing ICT and the information society in general. This would include the voices, perspectives and needs of thousands of potential users, as well as increasing the opportunities for creating new technological products that are more extensive and adaptable to many different profiles while, at the same time, facilitating the development and transformation of the ICT sector itself and society as a whole.
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==== Self-inclusion mechanisms ====
  
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=== Third step: Adopt an intersectional and integrated (holistic) approach ===
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When referring to self-inclusion of women and trans* persons in ICT we position ourselves as agents conducting our own ICT inclusion and focus on the mechanisms that we activate and/or decide to follow to contribute to and transform ICT. The main self-inclusion mechanism commonly stated consists of learning.  However, many women do not learn in formal education nor study engineering, but engage in non-formal, informal learning processes and often volunteer activities. In addition, as in many other sectors, women and trans* persons seek and access ICT jobs and activism to self-include themselves in ICT. However, due to gender stereotypes we find it difficult to engage in self-promotion or in making visible our contributions. When finding barriers in a given context or seeking new opportunities most of the women and trans* persons have opted for mobility, both occupational and geographic. Many of us become entrepreneurs or tech related activists to carry out our ideas and projects, alone or with other partners, to maintain and continue our ICT practices, as well as set several self-regulating practices as another mechanism of self-inclusion, such as establishing certain plans and organizations to follow. Women and trans* persons also build new networks. In relation to that, we have been collaborating and sharing knowledge but also works, codes and resources that could help and be used by others. Through collective participation we learn, interact or even generate new projects as well as new forms of inclusion. In ocassions we create new groups or events that could foster gender and technology at the same time.
  
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Previous experiences related to gender inclusion have identified a number of auspicious factors facilitating the entrance and immersion of women and minorities groups in technology. First factor identifies the importance of an access to education, resources and infrastructure. Second factor relates to a context perceived as safe and friendly. In this regard, the existence of tools, spaces and contents of interest and/or useful for women is a necessity.  Besides, the availability of role models and other mentoring, tutoring and support mechanisms is important as one crucial challenge relates to the sensation of isolation felt by many women and LGTBQ who do not count in their organization or community with a network of support to keep up with their motivation and willingness to learn and engage with privacy and digital security. Because of all this, active encouragement from family, friends, media, school or gender specific public policies have also been stressed.
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==== Inclusion factors ====
  
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Moreover, our own learning processes and exchanges have also brought deep insights about what stands at the core of a methodological approach for gender inclusion into privacy and digital security making us aware of the importance of adopting an intersectional and feminist approach to technologies, inasmuch as an integrated (holistic) approach to security.
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Previous experiences related to gender inclusion have identified a number of auspicious factors facilitating the entrance and immersion of women and minorized groups in technology.In a nutshell main recommendations for the inclusion of more women into technology and therefore privacy and digital security fields are:
  
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Intersectionality refers to a corpus of theories and practices that state that oppression within society, such as sexism, racism, biphobia, homophobia, transphobia, and belief-based bigotry, do not act independently of one another. These forms of oppression interrelate, creating a system that reflects the "intersection" of multiple forms of discrimination.7 Intersectionality goes hand by hand with a gender lens because both require to understand ones privileges in any of the different dimensions of our social lives. The women composing this network have indeed many identities that can relate to their ethnic background, age, geographical location, economical situation, political and inner beliefs, sexual orientation, professional status, mobility capacities and a long list of other elements. Accordingly when assessing the risks they are exposed to and the strengths they have, which constitute the basis of any travel journey towards privacy and digital security, they are required to take into account all those dimensions.
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* Facilitate women and trans* persons' access to ICT. For example: encourage your daughter or student, create pedagogical materials on gender and ICT, share your mouse and tools with her, and collaborate with collectives that work on equality.
  
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Additionally, the integrated (holistic) security perspective seeks to overcome the unhelpful separation between approaches which focus on digital security, personal/organizational security, and psycho-social well-being. This involves recognizing the effect of stress, fatigue and trauma on activists abilities to engage with 'rational' processes of risk analysis, security planning and skill building in digital security; furthermore, it recognises the impact of new technologies on our ability to accurately perceive indicators of danger and take action to stay safe. Many participants felt that an integrated approach to security made more sense with many of the groups that were trained on the ground such as indigenous groups, women in rural and poor areas, LGTBQ, sex and health activists, anti mining and environmental activists, journalists and community champions. An integrated approach enables participants to think about how threats related to each others and which security practices help them to transform their loneliness and individual fears into collective strategies to overcome dangers and creating protection among the members of a connected network.
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* Make visible, create awareness and recognise women and trans* persons' contributions. For example: Pay attention and visualize their past and present experiences and achievements. Give credit and promote their contributions and their gender diversity.
  
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This manual is divided in two core parts. First, it will explore the questions of and practices surrounding the management of online identities. When wanting to improve ones digital security and privacy practices, it is crucial to understand the threats and challenges we face and are exposed to when living online and the ways in which to protect oneself accordingly. Second, the focus will go over the concept of safe spaces, its importance both online and offline and the ways in which a group or a community can build safe spaces to bring about empowerment, enable resistance when necessary, care for oneself and others, and fostering our community.
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* Create gender friendly environments. For example: implement a welcome policy, encourage work-life balance measures, avoid sexist jokes and fight against any type of harassment and violence.  
  
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== Synthesis: A feminist internet and its reflection on privacy, security, policy and violence against Women ==
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* Mentor and sponsor: For example: Offer yourself as a mentor and share your collective/company knowledge with her. If an interesting new role is vacant, point to her as a candidate.
  
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What does a feminist internet mean? Does it already exist or need to be invented, shaped and shared? Where can we find it and is it worth looking and working towards it?
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* Practice Feminims, Let us be and transform: Do not expect what has been traditionally there. Be open to non linear trajectories, to new uses of old tools, other and new ways of doing and even other ways of living femininities and masculinities.
  
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I am a feminist since I can remember for myself. To be precise I was identifying as a girl, and when the girl started getting older the world, the usual fellow teen that can make our lives a miracle or a hell, started to tell me who I was, what I could do, but more and more often what I could not do. That's was exactly the time I came out as a feminist and since than I stayed truthful to the quest, navigating the challenge of genders designed around us, our bodies, our life-choices and so on.
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=== Third step: Adopt an intersectional and integrated (holistic) approach ===
  
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It was in 1992 that the cryptic ICT – Information and communication technology enters my life: computers and then the internet. The combination was fascinating and kept growing until in 2003 the internet became fully my place and space of politics and work. And as soon as I enter it, I started questioning it. It was missing something, the women.
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Moreover, our own learning processes and exchanges have also brought deep insights about what stands at the core of a methodological approach for gender inclusion into privacy and digital security making us aware of the importance of adopting an intersectional and feminist approach to technologies, inasmuch as an integrated (holistic) approach to security.  
  
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The Balkans, were not different from many other place of the world, civil society groups were increasingly using it for communication, for generating and store information and for networking. Two things were very much common: women were generally using but not administrating  or maintain systems/machines1and they were not confident in their ability to understand technology. As many other feminist activists I felt the urgency to have more women into tech convinced that it was a strategic asset we could not just leave up to the 'male experts'.
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==== Intersectionality ====
  
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The human mind-intelligence is embodied in the real world. If the real world is sexist (but we can add misogynist, homophobic, exploitive), it is very likely that most of the technology that develops will have the virus of sexism in its core as well. That core will seamlessly define rules and space of the virtual world. But if feminism was an integral, indispensable part of virtual space, technology and media then it would be able to stand tall and would “fight” shoulder to shoulder against the ruling ideology, values, beliefs and behaviors of course.  
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Intersectionality refers to a corpus of theories and practices that state that oppression within society, such as sexism, racism, biphobia, homophobia, transphobia, and belief-based bigotry, do not act independently of one another. These forms of oppression interrelate, creating a system that reflects the "intersection" of multiple forms of discrimination.7 Intersectionality goes hand by hand with a gender lens because both require to understand ones privileges in any of the different dimensions of our social lives. The women composing this network have indeed many identities that can relate to their ethnic background, age, geographical location, economical situation, political and inner beliefs, sexual orientation, professional status, mobility capacities and a long list of other elements. Accordingly when assessing the risks they are exposed to and the strengths they have, which constitute the basis of any travel journey towards privacy and digital security, they are required to take into account all those dimensions.
  
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If feminism was part of the infrastructure and programming language since the invention of Internet following its up to date development, it would practically flow through all of the things related to Internet and technology, from the fridge to the oven, from TV to cyborgs, from Intel to Google, from Facebook to Reddit, from Linux community to Microsoft2.
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==== Integrated security perspective ====
  
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A diversity genealogy
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Additionally, the integrated (holistic) security perspective seeks to overcome the unhelpful separation between approaches which focus on digital security, personal/organizational security, and psycho-social well-being. This involves recognizing the effect of stress, fatigue and trauma on activists abilities to engage with 'rational' processes of risk analysis, security planning and skill building in digital security; furthermore, it recognises the impact of new technologies on our ability to accurately perceive indicators of danger and take action to stay safe. Many participants felt that an integrated approach to security made more sense with many of the groups that were trained on the ground such as indigenous groups, women in rural and poor areas, LGTBQ, sex and health activists, anti mining and environmental activists, journalists and community champions. An integrated approach enables participants to think about how threats related to each others and which security practices help them to transform their loneliness and individual fears into collective strategies to overcome dangers and creating protection among the members of a connected network.
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The first unavoidable step into a feminist internet is the act of naming all creators, inventors that nurture the infrastructure and the code. They are all the she or not-just-he mathematicians, scientists, technologist that we never learn into schools they exist3. They are relevant because of their contributions to the development of tech and as role models. We always look around us for people to get inspired by. Their visibility, the fact we do not have to dig and apply for post-doctoral studies to find their biography, is essential to inspire and motivate any young girl to respond to the call. So it is an act of feminist political practice and solidarity to acknowledge all the women who teach  us, regardless we read, listens or watch them on screen or they were our companions, friends, colleagues. Humans learn trough examples, we need to be generous and populate our worlds with all the names, actions and invention of all the women we know. This bring us to the first principle for/of a feminist internet:
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A feminist internet starts with and works towards empowering more women and queer persons – in all our diversities – to dismantle patriarchy.4
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This manual is divided in two core parts. First, it will explore the questions of and practices surrounding the management of online identities. When wanting to improve ones digital security and privacy practices, it is crucial to understand the threats and challenges we face and are exposed to when living online and the ways in which to protect oneself accordingly. Second, the focus will go over the concept of safe spaces, its importance both online and offline and the ways in which a group or a community can build safe spaces to bring about empowerment, enable resistance when necessary, care for oneself and others, and fostering our community.
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To build a genealogy is important but is not enough, we need universal, affordable, unfettered, unconditional and equal access to the internet5. According to the International Telecommunication Union, 16% fewer women than men used the internet in developing countries in 2013 and 45% in sub-Saharan Africa, partly due to the costs of mobile broadband making up a higher percentage of women’s income6. The access we advocate is different from the the precarious, proprietary access, granted by corporation that shape and decide the way we interact with one another. Think of the internet.org7, the initiative proposed and promoted by Facebook in India, under the cover of free mobile access for the poor it mask a brutal monopoly8. A perfect machine not only to monitor, surveil and harvesting our data/information but most important to instigate our desires, generate our consumption needs and direct them towards their advertising companies9. And since Facebook is global only by its size (currently the biggest populated states after China) it is important we understand that the gift of internetorg is not one of generosity, is instead one-fit-to-all-kind-of-standard based on western white capitalism where patriarchy is at the root of the system. If we understand this, then we understand the importance of advocating for access with/from a feminist perspective.
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So the feminist principle of the internet are a feminist agenda that should be part of the agenda of any feminist activists, individuals, group or organizations and should consistently and by default be part of Womens Human Rights Defenders strategy, because the feminism we advocate is: 'an extension, reflection and continuum of our movements and resistance in other spaces, public and private.
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It is not an add-on or a pop-up window of any sort but is our agency: awareness and decision of understanding the internet as 'a transformative public and political space' as in fact it is. Reclaim it as we do with and for many other things. In doing so, we need to remember that among us there are privileges of many kinds: race, age, class, gender, education, and access. 'We must claim the power of the internet to amplify alternative and diverse narratives of women’s lived realities'. For this reason the feminist principles of the internet cannot turn into an ideology but need to be an open evolving platform. A space of agitation and construction of political practices so that the internet facilitates new forms of citizenship that enable individuals to claim, construct, and express our selves, genders, sexualities.
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And it precisely for this reason that we should not confine ourselves to the use of internet as a tools but must understand, monitor and engage with those who govern the internet. Now the governance of the internet is a very complex universe,: a decentralized and international multistakeholder network of interconnected autonomous groups drawing from civil society, the private sector, governments, the academic and research communities and national and international organizations10. The revolution represented by the emergent information society, the divide between the north and the global south made clear the necessity of a governance framework, and in a long process run from 1998 to 2001 the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the General Assembly of the UN decided to establish a global participatory public process which was the World Summit on the Information Society(WSIS)11. This was held between 2001 and 2005 and set the shared governance12 internet framework: “Internet governance is the development and application by governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the internet”. Despite the formal recognition of an equal participation and relevance of civil society in any of the matter of the internet governance, it is in the definition and attribution of these respective roles13 that the inequality of power appear clearly.
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After ten years of participation in this multistakeholders14 it is evident how governments, private sector and the international organizations mainly run the shows. Still it is the presence of civil society that force the discourse to be public and this continuous monitoring, tracking, claiming generate many acts of resilience, global and local advocacy and counteract the limitation of this hyper-sophisticated English speaking spaces. And is exactly in this dimension that a feminist discourse need to be present.
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In the UN and other policy bodies world of declarations and statements, language assumes an incredible potentially binding relevance to establish principles of rights and grounding demands so  'as feminist activists, we believe in challenging the patriarchal spaces that currently control the internet and putting more feminists and queers LGBTQI people at the decision-making tables. We believe in democratizing the legislation and regulation of the internet as well as diffusing ownership and power of global and local networks.'
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If was not for the endurance of many activists and feminists the internet rights would not have been acknowledged as human rights. Policy spaces were very neutral/male, the path to include gender had not been easy. It was essential to do not limit gender just to a numeric evidence of how many girls/women access and use technology but instead deepen the conversation on technology related violence against women and on the intrinsic connection with privacy, data protection and safety as opposed/alternative to the pervasive and threatening concept of security and surveillance.
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Violence online and tech-related violence are part of the continuum of gender-based violence. The misogynistic attacks, threats, intimidation, and policing experienced by women and queers LGBTQI people is are real, harmful, and alarming. It is our collective responsibility as different internet stakeholders to prevent, respond to, and resist this violence.
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The internet is since its beginning one of our ally for our work of women’s rights activists. We use it to raise awareness, engage in dialogue, create networks across borders, mobilize people and put pressure on decision makers. That's why the internet’s role in enabling access to critical information – including on health, pleasure, and risks – to communities, cultural expression, and conversation is essential, and must be supported and protected.
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Tech-related Violence against women was not an issue until few years ago. Activists made it visible, accumulating stories, data and developing strategies, tools, solidarity. Online violence such as cyber stalking, hate speech and blackmail violates our rights to privacy, work, public participation, freedom from violence and freedom of expression15. What we witness, increasingly is the violence that surround women online, where all the misogynist practices revive and exacerbate.
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Revenge porn is the everyday sexist meme of the internet, enacted by violent intimate partners, who breach into our data, dig, modify and target aggressive campaign against us. The same model is used to threat women and gender rights advocates under the fire of misogynistic hate speech. Womens Human Rights Defenders experience this every day of their life and many of them have become knowledgeable in using technology to protect themselves and their groups. Those strategies are only one part of the solution, there is a need to recognice and develop legal remedies at the local/national as well as the global level. And its is exactly here were the question become even more intricate.
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The patriarchy of the world is constantly awake there is a continuous effort to control the imaginary of the internet to sell products or control people. That's why a feminist internet need to strongly object to the efforts of state and non-state actors to control, regulate and restrict the sexual lives of consenting people and how this is expressed and practiced on the internet... Recognize this as part of the larger political project of moral policing, censorship and hierarchization of citizenship and rights.
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The same internet we use in our lives is largely privately owned or had come under scrutiny and invasive government control after the Arab Spring and as the last few years marked by Manning, and Snowden revelation, we all know that governments are interested in security based on massive data harvesting and mass surveillance. They do this in collaboration with private corporation which not only get billions worth contracts, but has limited interest is resisting to request since their main goal is to maximize profit and open new markets.
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Tech related violence has a very basic paradigm to maximize prevention and develop effective remedies. A safe internet means an internet that recognise privacy by default. An essential human rights based on the consent of individuals to decide when, how, when, and with who each single individual want to share any kind of his/her personal data: text, image, video. The current paradigm is going in the very opposite direction. Surveillance by default is the tool of patriarchy to control and restrict rights both online and offline. The right to privacy and to exercise full control over our own data is a critical principle for a safer, open internet for all. Equal attention needs to be paid to surveillance practices by individuals against each other, as well as the private sector and non-state actors, in addition to the state.
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Which lead to another feminist principle Everyone has the right to be forgotten on the internet. This includes being able to access all our personal data and information online, and to be able to exercise control over, including knowing who has access to them and under what conditions, and being able to delete them forever. However, this right needs to be balanced against the right to access public information, transparency and accountability.
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Feminist, gender and LGBT activist understand the importance of privacy in relation to safety and the importance of consent to define the existence or not existence of violation. Feminist movements have defended women’s right to privacy while also challenging the notion of “private violence”, turning it into a community health problem, a public issue. In the digital world, however, women’s privacy is being threatened and connected to violence in new and chilling ways.16
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The internet had made us thinking, when clicking on the magic box of social networks and other 'free' services, that we have accepted and entered in a consensual pact. This is not true. A pact where one of the part reserve to itself the power to change the rule of the games (Terms of Services) at its exclusive convenience is not an equal pact. A pact that authorize one part to forward our information without informing us is not consensual. A pact that allows one of the part to put a camera in the most intimate and private room of our lives and to spy upon us following the scenario of tech-fantasy movie such as minority report17, to monitor our intention, foreknowledge18to commit a crime, or go against the law is neither equal or just. Is just abusive and violent and need to be disclosed, regulated and sanctioned.
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A feminist perspective on the critical questions of internet is a clear cut against many paternalistic rhetoric of protection. A feminist lens put the finger on and generate practices of resilience that can help to bring a more equal relation among net-citizens, corporations and governments.
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Privacy and digital safety are a humanistic approach to internet freedom and we do not have the luxury to dismiss it. Taking responsibility as feminist and activist of how the internet is designed is crucial and we need to be aware of our powers. Under pressure and due to the wealth of evidence build by activists big companies such as Facebook and Twitter had acknowledge the relevanc eof the issue and start to to deal with violence against women in their Terms of Use and Community Guidelines. Revenge Porn has been recognized by some jurisdiction in north America and Europe. But the majority of the world is not enjoy the internet they should and has no protection or safety when violence happen.
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We cannot be content with this, we need to understand the internet in all its layers and commit our feminism to these arena to defend our right to consent without having it diminished.
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Latest revision as of 10:29, 17 July 2015

The Gender and Technology Institute enabled the creation of a conversation coming from experiences located in 30 different countries about how we could develop practices that enable women, trans* persons and other groups at risk to include privacy and digital security into their lives, and how we could keep on learning while helping others to learn about those concepts, methods and tools once back home. Recurrently, our reduced amount of free time, fragmented and precarious lives and lack of individual and collective self-care cultures were pointed at as major challenges to become trainers on the ground. How can we include and pack those fast evolving privacy and digital security practices into our already very busy lives as human rights defenders and activists? How can we find collective mechanisms of support to keep advancing together and empower each other?

In the following, the focus will be on the three steps that allow to include gender in privacy and digital security practices. The steps include first, the relationship between gender roles and violence against women and technology, second, the reframing from exclusion and discrimination to inclusion and self-inclusion and finally, the intersectional and integrated (holistic) approach to understand gender, privacy and digital security.

First step: Acknowledge gender roles and Violence Against Women along the technological cycle

The following ideas are based on the exchanges maintained during and after the Gender and Technology Institute, and on the great amount of past and current on-going research, experiences, initiatives and policies that are being developed to overcome specific challenges posed by the interactions between gender and technology. Peer-to-peer and group learning processes are derivative of the experience gained by participants through the organization of around 50 local activities targeting women and trans* persons in order to raise their awareness and lift up their practices for integrating privacy and digital security in their work though a gender perspective. In a nutshell, we could say that including gender into privacy and security requires to engage with the diversity of cultures, social status, gender identification, sexual orientations, race, ethnicities and other power structures that create various forms and levels of inequality for individuals and communities into their access to security tools and practices. Enabling enthusiasm for privacy and digital security practices requires an integrated approach linking those to our well-being and physical security as human right defenders and feminist and queer activists. By exposing the many invisible contributions that sustain digital security communities, avoiding frustrated expectations, gaining self confidence and losing fear through do-it-with-others processes, gender and cultural diversity in those fields can be included. Accordingly, adapted, updated and targeted resources and training methodologies focusing on specific threats and strengths is required in order to activate curiosity and better understanding through contextual references.

Gender roles are sets of societal norms dictating what types of behaviors are generally considered acceptable, appropriate or desirable for a person based on their actual or perceived biological sex. These are usually centered around opposing conceptions of femininity and masculinity, although there are myriad exceptions and variations.2 Therefore the first step for including gender consists in acknowledging the gender roles that society attribute to us at birth and during the rest of our lives and that generate stereotypes that can become prejudices. The latter generally results into specific threats and violences against women, queer or non-binary persons along the complete technological cycle. Looking at these threats and exclusion from an intersectional point of view, we can furthermore see that they are often aggravated by other forms of social exclusion such as socio-economic status, place of residence and / or socio-demographic factors such as age, ethnic origin or sexual orientation.

The production of technologies

As Wilding and Fernandez stated in 2002, “We need much more research on the specific impact of ICT on different populations of women whose lives are being profoundly altered by the new technologies, often in ways that lead to extreme physical and mental health problems.”3

Electronics and telecommunication industries are highly dependent on low-wage workers and often operate in special economic zones known for their anti-union measures. In Malaysia, between 70 and 80% of the workforce in this branch are women who are also often immigrants. In Mexico, women are reported to be 70% of the workforce and often face sexual harassment from their direct superiors and are forced to work overtime among other systemic violences. Currently, there is a lack of networks and initiatives that can challenge those conditions and reclaim technologies produced and recycled in fair working and environmental conditions. Including gender requires to take into account this context, as it clearly constitutes a set of structural violences against women.

Access to technologies

The gender gap in relation to access to technologies can be spotted when asking women about their first memory of a technology and how much life distance they traveled until they became active users of Information and Communication Technologies. This amount of years between our first memory and when we started to actively use ICT represents our gender time gap in relation to access to technologies. Moreover, the digital divide is still largely happening between urban and rural areas and it is also strongly gendered as current data estimates that there are 200 million fewer women connected to the internet than men. This lack of access can be caused by a deficient connectivity or inexistent infrastructure or by a lack of inclusiveness and usability in the design of technologies, and it can be also aggravated by discrimination pushing away or forbidding women to access ICT, denying their basic rights to communication, information and knowledge. In this last sense, including gender also requires to understand how different women in different conditions find ways of accessing technologies, even if they are not supposed to or supported in doing so, and how they can protect themselves and others in the process.

Uptake of technologies

When finally uptaking with ICT, we may face violence online because of our gender and/or sexual orientation. As explained by Jeniffer Radloff from the APC women programme: “What is now increasingly obvious is that the Internet and digital tools and spaces have a profound impact on the magnitude of threats and have simultaneously broadened and increased the kinds of surveillance and harassment to which human rights defenders, both men and women, are being subjected. Attacks against women are invariably sexualised and women human rights defenders (WHRDs) are often more at risk online (as they are offline) than their male counterparts. Invariably WHRDs can experience more hostility, and at the same time lower levels of protection, compared to their male colleagues”.4 The problem of online harassment and threats against women and their collaborators, coming from both governments and non-state individuals and groups, has become more visible in the last few years. The internet is not a safe space, and it is all too common to see the work of women and activists being blocked, deleted, (self)censored, and in general, actively prevented from being seen, heard or read. Logically, these trends diminish both the freedom of expression and privacy rights of the people targeted. Including gender requires also to tackle specific gender-based online violence and to build capacity on the ground so that women and minorities can protect and strengthen their freedom of opinion and expression.

Development of technologies

In a 1991 essay, Ellen Spertus examined the influences that discourage women from pursuing a career in a technical field, more specifically in computer sciences. These influential factors range from the different ways in which boys and girls are educated, the stereotypes and subtle biases female engineers face working in predominantly male environments, sexism in language and subconscious behavior that tends to perpetuate the status quo. The lower levels of women in Computer sciences and STEM studies and in related professions within the ICT industry have been intensively studied. There is considerably less literature on the participation of women in “free software” communities and hacking cultures, or on the introduction of women into software and technologies development thanks to informal learning processes in voluntary and/or activists contexts. Besides that, the documentation of women contribution through history to the design and development of technologies is still very scare, anecdotal and often derivative of a negation and invisibility of women roles in those specific histories. This drives in turn to a lack of role models and the impossibility of launching new imaginaries and overcome current stereotypes. Including gender also consists in researching the herstory and making women, trans and queer experiences in the management and development of technologies visible, be those digital ones, or appropriated technologies such as permaculture or health and self-care technologies for instance.

Governance of Internet and ICT

We also must claim the power of the internet to amplify alternative and diverse narratives of women’s lived realities'. For this reason the feminist principles of the internet cannot turn into an ideology but need to be an open evolving platform. A space of agitation and construction of political practices so that the internet facilitates new forms of citizenship that enable individuals to claim, construct, and express their selves, genders, sexualities. And it is precisely for this reason that we should not confine ourselves to the use of internet as a tool but must understand, monitor and engage with those who govern the internet. Now its governance is a very complex universe, a decentralized and international multistakeholder network of interconnected autonomous groups drawing from civil society, the private sector, governments, the academic and research communities and national and international organizations. Besides, it is also important to influence policies within the social media platforms we are actively using to present ourselves online, coordinate and network with our different social networks composed by our families, colleagues, activists friends. Because of this, including gender means also enabling a greater participation of women, trans* and queer into institutions contributing to the governance of Internet inasmuch as inside companies delivering services for supporting our networking and online identity.

The end of life of technologies

Finally, we should not forget about the e-waste dump routes that consist on those areas where electronic waste is shipped, often contradicting the principles settled by the Basel Convention6, and that conclude in their abandonment in developing countries where local communities have to take in charge their recycling, generally under very poor ecological, social and working conditions. Those places represent the end of life of technologies and another problematic aspect of consumerist and fetishistic approaches to ICT.

Second step: From exclusion and discrimination to inclusion and self inclusion processes

This review of the steps composing the technological cycle shows that including gender into privacy and digital security requires first to acknowledge that gender gaps, discrimination and VAW are happening along the process in a structural way and that they influence the conditions of women, trans* persons and at risk minorities in relation to their experience of/with ICT. It also shows that when we use technologies, we should reflect about how those are liberating or alienating for other groups and individuals. Liberating technologies can be defined as appropriated technologies that do not harm, are rooted in the free software and culture principles and are designed by default against gender based violence, surveillance, opacity and programmed obsolescence, and this is one of the first things we should consider when switching from fighting exclusion to focusing on inclusion.

Moving towards inclusion

To stop exclusion is not the same thing as achieving inclusion. Focusing on exclusion might lead us to believe that inclusion is impossible, when there are actually women who include themselves in ICT and digital inclusion actions and policies that have been effective. There is a need to shift the question from why women or trans* persons do not access, use, study or work in ICT to the question of why, where and how we have become involved in ICT and have been welcomed to it. This becomes more consistent with feminisms that consider the experiences of women and trans* persones at the heart and point of departure of our reflections and have brought to light the contributions, uses and desires we make of ICT. With this, role models for many more could be put in the spotlight, as well stereotypes about gender and ICT could be weakened.

The need for women and trans* persons' inclusion in ICT is a question of gender justice and equality. However, there are many other arguments that support an improved inclusion in ICT. Increasing our representation in ICT also increases the pool of skilled IT workers, and privacy and digital security developers and trainers. Moreover, this means to work in sectors with higher pay and prestige and at the cutting edge of current changes. Including women and trans* persons in ICT would also increase the diversity of participant profiles in developing ICT and the information society in general. This would include the voices, perspectives and needs of thousands of potential users, as well as increasing the opportunities for creating new technological products that are more extensive and adaptable to many different profiles while, at the same time, facilitating the development and transformation of the ICT sector itself and society as a whole.

Self-inclusion mechanisms

When referring to self-inclusion of women and trans* persons in ICT we position ourselves as agents conducting our own ICT inclusion and focus on the mechanisms that we activate and/or decide to follow to contribute to and transform ICT. The main self-inclusion mechanism commonly stated consists of learning. However, many women do not learn in formal education nor study engineering, but engage in non-formal, informal learning processes and often volunteer activities. In addition, as in many other sectors, women and trans* persons seek and access ICT jobs and activism to self-include themselves in ICT. However, due to gender stereotypes we find it difficult to engage in self-promotion or in making visible our contributions. When finding barriers in a given context or seeking new opportunities most of the women and trans* persons have opted for mobility, both occupational and geographic. Many of us become entrepreneurs or tech related activists to carry out our ideas and projects, alone or with other partners, to maintain and continue our ICT practices, as well as set several self-regulating practices as another mechanism of self-inclusion, such as establishing certain plans and organizations to follow. Women and trans* persons also build new networks. In relation to that, we have been collaborating and sharing knowledge but also works, codes and resources that could help and be used by others. Through collective participation we learn, interact or even generate new projects as well as new forms of inclusion. In ocassions we create new groups or events that could foster gender and technology at the same time.

Inclusion factors

Previous experiences related to gender inclusion have identified a number of auspicious factors facilitating the entrance and immersion of women and minorized groups in technology.In a nutshell main recommendations for the inclusion of more women into technology and therefore privacy and digital security fields are:

  • Facilitate women and trans* persons' access to ICT. For example: encourage your daughter or student, create pedagogical materials on gender and ICT, share your mouse and tools with her, and collaborate with collectives that work on equality.
  • Make visible, create awareness and recognise women and trans* persons' contributions. For example: Pay attention and visualize their past and present experiences and achievements. Give credit and promote their contributions and their gender diversity.
  • Create gender friendly environments. For example: implement a welcome policy, encourage work-life balance measures, avoid sexist jokes and fight against any type of harassment and violence.
  • Mentor and sponsor: For example: Offer yourself as a mentor and share your collective/company knowledge with her. If an interesting new role is vacant, point to her as a candidate.
  • Practice Feminims, Let us be and transform: Do not expect what has been traditionally there. Be open to non linear trajectories, to new uses of old tools, other and new ways of doing and even other ways of living femininities and masculinities.

Third step: Adopt an intersectional and integrated (holistic) approach

Moreover, our own learning processes and exchanges have also brought deep insights about what stands at the core of a methodological approach for gender inclusion into privacy and digital security making us aware of the importance of adopting an intersectional and feminist approach to technologies, inasmuch as an integrated (holistic) approach to security.

Intersectionality

Intersectionality refers to a corpus of theories and practices that state that oppression within society, such as sexism, racism, biphobia, homophobia, transphobia, and belief-based bigotry, do not act independently of one another. These forms of oppression interrelate, creating a system that reflects the "intersection" of multiple forms of discrimination.7 Intersectionality goes hand by hand with a gender lens because both require to understand ones privileges in any of the different dimensions of our social lives. The women composing this network have indeed many identities that can relate to their ethnic background, age, geographical location, economical situation, political and inner beliefs, sexual orientation, professional status, mobility capacities and a long list of other elements. Accordingly when assessing the risks they are exposed to and the strengths they have, which constitute the basis of any travel journey towards privacy and digital security, they are required to take into account all those dimensions.

Integrated security perspective

Additionally, the integrated (holistic) security perspective seeks to overcome the unhelpful separation between approaches which focus on digital security, personal/organizational security, and psycho-social well-being. This involves recognizing the effect of stress, fatigue and trauma on activists abilities to engage with 'rational' processes of risk analysis, security planning and skill building in digital security; furthermore, it recognises the impact of new technologies on our ability to accurately perceive indicators of danger and take action to stay safe. Many participants felt that an integrated approach to security made more sense with many of the groups that were trained on the ground such as indigenous groups, women in rural and poor areas, LGTBQ, sex and health activists, anti mining and environmental activists, journalists and community champions. An integrated approach enables participants to think about how threats related to each others and which security practices help them to transform their loneliness and individual fears into collective strategies to overcome dangers and creating protection among the members of a connected network.

This manual is divided in two core parts. First, it will explore the questions of and practices surrounding the management of online identities. When wanting to improve ones digital security and privacy practices, it is crucial to understand the threats and challenges we face and are exposed to when living online and the ways in which to protect oneself accordingly. Second, the focus will go over the concept of safe spaces, its importance both online and offline and the ways in which a group or a community can build safe spaces to bring about empowerment, enable resistance when necessary, care for oneself and others, and fostering our community.

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