The Web Women Want - How does tech fuel the feminist discourse worldwide?

Dorothy Gordon, Robert Franken, Japleen Pasricha A broad range from health apps, such as ‘GiftedMom’ from Cameroon and ‘Ask without shame’ from Uganda, mobile educational solutions such as ‘Eneza’ from Kenya and career platforms such as ‘She leads Africa’ provide innovative solutions for women’s economic, social and political empowerment. Others address sexual harassment, such as the worldwide platform ‘Safecity’ and the SMS based reporting system ‘Harrassmap’. On the other hand, we see a gendered divide in terms of access to and use of digital technologies worldwide. Once online, many women suffer from attacks and hate speech and as a result, many of them shy away from participating in controversial online discourses. It sometimes seems as though the Internet reverses the achievements of feminism and female empowerment of the past decades. We want to hear from feminists from all around the world how digital tools help them to make their voices heard and to fight unequal gender relations. What backlashes do they face and what do they do to create safe spaces online? And how can tech promote an inclusive feminist dialogue that involves women and men from different margins of society?