Digital Forms of Communication: The Feminist View

•Women use social media slightly more than men; however, Pinterest and Instagram users are over 70% women.

•Only 13% of contributions to Wikipedia are women.

•Only 17 women made Britain’s top 100 influential Twitter users in 2013.

•Women still represent under a fifth of IT managers.

•LinkedIn, the network used to reach work-based contacts has more male users than women.

•A network of scholars, artists and students who work on technology, science and feminism in a variety of fields.

•These women write blogs about the structures in place that have kept women from engaging in digital humanities.

•Haraway (1985) wrote a ground-breaking article entitled "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century" in the Socialist Review. 

•Haraway argued that feminists must not be excluded from the technological advances that were taking place and instead, be part of them and inform them.

•Haraway’s manifesto argues that what is considered to be female is socially constructed. She suggests that cyborgs, which are part-machine, part-human entities, might allow people to rise above gender-bound ideas of what it means to be a person.

•In other words, Haraway suggests that technological advances offer the possibility for women to create new forms of identity not bound by traditional ideas or dominant patriarchy. 

•Haraway uses the cyborg idea to explain how problems with feminism and capitalism might be overcome through greater understanding of identity. 

•Haraway is among the first feminists to consider technology to be a way for women to become more empowered offering possibilities beyond those which traditional social life can offer. 

•There are increasing concerns about the exploitation of children through various forms of digital communication. 

•For example, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) in 2012-13 reported that: 790 children were subject to safeguarding or protection as a result of online activity.

•There were 18,887 reports relating to child sexual exploitation. 192 people suspected of online child exploitation were arrested. 

•Physical, sexual, emotional abuse with both short- and long-term effects and implications. 

•Women becoming something to be bought and sold. 

•Women are regarded as objects without feelings due to increased access to images showing them in this way being easily accessed on the internet. 

•Sexualised violent imagery becomes seen as less serious. 

•Viewing violence against women, provides a new form of social control over women, which reflects patriarchy. Few men are ever detected, found responsible or prosecuted. 

•It appears that new forms of digital communication offer new ways in which women, children and other vulnerable groups can be exploited. 

•Feminists also believe sexual exploitation of women happens over the internet with trafficking, paying for sex, prostitution, etc. 

•This emerged between 2000-2010 and is important as it uses technology as a method for communicating and sharing ideas and plans. 

•This has had a significant effect on many women who might previously have been unheard.

•Women in many parts of the world are not allowed to be educated or to express their views, making their thoughts part of a muted group. 

•New forms of digital global communication are being used as tools that are allowing women to build a strong, popular, reactive movement online. 

•This is evidenced at all ages, for example, The Girl Guides organisation introduced a campaigning and activism badge this year and a survey of Mumsnet users found 59% consider themselves feminists, double those who do not (Cochrane, 2013). 

•Ikamara Larasi, 24, started a campaign to address racist and sexist stereotypes in music videos, just as students began banning the hit Blurred Lines on many UK campuses, in response to its sexist lyrics. J

•Bates and Chemaly were among those who set up a campaign against misogynist (sexist) pages on Facebook, convincing the owners of social media to change their moderation policies. 

•The fact that globalisation leads to many different gendered identities being created, it reduces the problem of women being treated a certain way because of their gender.

•Due to globalisation, women and children are more at risk than ever, being bought, sold, and consumed. 

•Women and children throughout history have been in a vulnerable position due to the fact that those who hold the power in terms of government and law-making have not made passing legislation to protect women and children a priority. 

•Most feminists would argue that this is because men largely control governments and legal systems worldwide. 

•The internet has made it easier for these activities to be organised in an unregulated digital world.

•As national boundaries have become less significant, the illegal movement of people has become so much easier to coordinate and as a result, people trafficking has risen.

•Arlaccki (1997) who led the United Nations efforts to fight organised crime, states that exploitation has been one of the most undesirable consequences of globalisation.

•Feminists are critical of globalisation and digital forms of communication as they exploit women – too pessimistic

•New digital communication is simply an extension of older forms of traditional methods which reflect patriarchy – outdated

•Other feminists are optimistic and believe new forms give women a chance to express themselves – conflict within the perspective