Take Back the Tech! grows louder through local campaigns in 2009
Cuernavaca, Mexico, Dic 22
From 25 November to 10 December, the message came across loud and clear – whether it was via audiocast in Malaysia, chat relay in Brazil, protest march in Second Life, song-writing in Pakistan, calendars in Argentina, tweets in Mexico, posters in cybercafes in the Congo, or a mural on the streets of Soweto in South Africa. In over a dozen languages and through all platforms and medium both online and off, people took control of technology to end violence against women during the Take Back the Tech! campaign.
Strategic communication through all platforms
2009 marked the fourth year of the campaign, as well as increased intensity and interest in the creative appropriation of technology by women, girls and men in different parts of the world to raise awareness and take action on one of the most persistent human rights abuses worldwide: violence against women (VAW).
As a collaborative campaign, Take Back the Tech continued to be strengthened by ideas and actions from local campaigners in a myriad of countries, who shaped the campaign to address the harsh realities of VAW in their communities, coupling it with appropriate technology.
For example
Can’t beat a woman! 16 days of activism to end gender violence by sharing this message with family and friends. Wanted: Respect and Rights for Women
was the first of 16 daily SMS sent out by Malaysian campaigners to networks, legislators, and friends. In the Congo and Cambodia, where internet use is still quite low, campaigners went to cybercafes and youth hang-outs to “Take Back the Tech!”, with materials in French and Khmer.
The Women of Uganda Network held a 16-day online exchange, with men and women strategising around VAW and which communications tools and actions can provide the most effective response, especially for women in rural areas who face extreme poverty.
Speaking the same language to end violence
New technologies have also played a role in increasing access to local language materials on VAW. Radio, podcasts, and blogs produced in local languages help unplug the silence around VAW when it is labelled as a private matter, to loudly state the reality of its pandemic proportions. VAW.
When the Centre for Independent Journalism began doing audio workshops with women in villages throughout Malaysia and asked women what they wanted to talk about, the overwhelming answer was violence against women. For this year’s Take Back the Tech!, Malaysian campaigners opened their first blog in Tamil, to provide a space for Tamil-speaking women and young girls to share stories and discuss experiences in their efforts to end VAW.
Bridging spaces
In South Africa, Women’sNet gave girls and young lesbians digital cameras to document their lives via photo essays. Capacity-building workshops with communications practitioners in different methodologies, including digital storytelling, were coupled with a public act on the streets of Soweto. Passersby received leaflets and engaged in conversations about VAW in front of a huge “Take Back the Tech!” mural.
In Argentina, women’s rights activists participated in a Feminist Tech Exchange, learning how to make graphics that they then featured in a 16-day calendar to spotlight actions against VAW. Brazilian feminists debated ideas to address rape, including instruction in self-defense through an open chat. In Mexico, Modemmujer and Laneta created 16 info sheets for women’s organisations with tips and tools to support internal networking, safe online communications, and advocacy. A workshop and discussion on if and why feminists should be using Twitter was also streamed via radio, taking the training from Mexico City to the states of Puebla and Chiapas.
“Take Back the Tech’s” innovative use of technology enabled local activists to raise their concerns around violence against women in tech-friendly spaces. In Cambodia, the daily national television broadcast of CTN spotlighted campaigners from Open Institute on their live morning Internet Assembly broadcast. Take Back the Tech is seen as a campaign for bridging different spaces, where men in media and tech fields began to address VAW for the first time.
In Pakistan, when TBTT campaigner Jehan Ara appeared on web-tv’s In the Line of Wire webcast:
The excitement, the passion, the realisation that there was a problem. Some have stories to share, some have experienced online violence themselves or their friends… as regular users of technology, they needed to do something about it. Bloggers started blogging.We made videos of why the issues were important in Urdu and English, to spread the word…. and make sure that the online space is safe for everyone.
Such was the enthusiasm for Take Back the Tech! in Pakistan that two songs were created and set to music by a community of information rights activists, with lyrics inspired by tweets.
In Second Life, a 3D virtual world, the 16 days of activism against VAW included poetry, sculpture and photography events, as well as discussion around rape in video games, pornography, femicides in Mexico and violence against the transgender community. There is even a feminist ice-skating rink.
Take action!
The global campaign featured a different action for each one of the 16 days, inviting users to explore and play with emerging and existing internet technologies, and use them to think about and take action against VAW. For example on day 3, campaigners were called to browse the internet for useful information on support centres in their locality, and transfer this knowledge through leaving notes in public spaces where women are likely to go. Other actions included calls to campaigners to broaden their search engine experience, explore debate software to air views on pornography, or create a photo mosaic against VAW. When the daily action called for avatars to challenge gender stereotypes, one blogger from the Philippines created an avatar in “narrative form”:
“Baudeicca is a slayer of foul robots, those despicable agents of patriarchal politics, proprietary technology and stupid shampoo commercial hair. Able to install and configure a fully functioning networked computing system, and parse the dense language of geekdom, Baudeicca helps women break on through to the last barrier to using and enjoying information technology.”
The 16 day campaign finalised on December 10, International Human Rights Day, with an action that will run through 2010, encouraging ICT users to connect the dots between women’s right to a violence-free world, human rights, and communication rights using imagery, voice or subtitles.
Throughout the year, Take Back The Tech! will be featuring urgent actions to end violence against women, and call for participation in building collective knowledge on VAW and ICTs.
Take control of technology to end violence against women. Take Back the Tech!
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