[governance] GENDER PERIPHERIES OF THE 2011 INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM

Wed Oct 19 06:45:24 EDT 2011

Hi all

Here is APC's edition of GenderIT.org focused on the Nairobi IGF. We
would be really keen to get feedback. We are actually really excited
about this IGF. The women's rights activists who came really 'gets' why
internet governance is important and why they should become more
involved. Having a pre-IGF workshop on women's rights and internet
governance made a huge difference.

We have not finalised the results of the 'gender report card' we did on
this year's IGF but share some broad reflections in this edition of
GenderIT.org.

I have to commend Bill Drake on this score.. every workshop or main
session he moderates has majority female panels. The challenge however
is not so much in gender balance among speakers...

>From GenderIT.org on the results of the report card:

"Although....there is a relatively small gender gap between male and
female presenters, this did not translate into actual inclusion of
gendered perspectives and analysis in the content of the discussion or
presentations. This led us to assess that no direct link can be made
between numbers and gender inclusion, which is an important learning for
the organisers of IGF and IGF workshops.....

If there is serious commitment to uphold the multistakeholder principles
and to ensure diversity of concerns and knowledge, this means critical
inclusion of gendered analysis and perspectives. There is a need to go
beyond numbers and move from gender parity to inclusion. Some
recommendations to this end includes specific consideration of the
gendered dimension of thematic areas, and identifying speakers who can
enrich the dialogue on internet governance by bringing in a women's
rightsi and gendered analysis. "

Best

Anriette

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*GENDER CENTRED: A GenderIT.org thematic bulletin*
APC WNSP - GenderIT.org, 18 October 2011
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I. THOUGHTS AROUND...Scoring participation
II. NEW ARTICLES
III. FEATURED RESOURCES
IV. FEMINIST TALKS

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Year after year the Internet Governance Forum renews expectations and
opportunities of gender advocates to find innovative solutions to
enhance women's rights online and offline. After 6 years of activism,
this space still seems to be resistant to the inclusion of gender
perspectives and activists arefaced with more questions than answers.
Where are women's rights on the internet governance agenda? How to get
the women's movements more involved within this new arena of public
policy? How to replace the protectionist approach that traditionally
surrounds women's rights defence with one that is rights-based? Along
with Jennifer Radloff who introduces this edition we believe it is a
responsibility of all stakeholders to make women's rights relevant and
visible in the IGF debates, and to do so gender analysis and women's
participation needs to be much more institusionalised in the planning of
the next IGF.

Looking forward to your comments, insights and submissions, Katerina and
Flavia from GenderIT.org!

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I. THOUGHTS AROUND...
*Scoring participation – how does change happen for women in the IGF*
by Jennifer Radloff, a South African feminist activist and the APC
senior coordinator

During the years of my school and university studies, report cards
caused me high levels of anxiety but accompanied by some underlying
optimism. Report cards assumed all-knowing experts were making decisions
around my abilities and progress. It would invariably be a measure of
success or failure and would expose my weak points and (hopefully)
highlight my positive traits. But they always had a judgmental and
antagonistic picture in my mind.
My position has now shifted since seeing how report cards can gather
useful evidence and potentially affect change. The IGF Gender Report
Card initiative proposed by the APC was a first and small but revealing
step in measuring representation, visibility, content and contributions
from a gender perspective. The Gender Report Card looks at how many
women are participating in each IGF session, how many speakers of each
IGF session are men or women and to what extent each session does or
does not incorporate a gendered analysis...
Read the full editorial at:
http://www.genderit.org/node/3487

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II. NEW ARTICLES

*Stripping the IGF bare: where are women´s rights?*
GenderIT.org's editors, Flavia Fascendini and Katerina Fialova, speak
with the APC WNSP members who took part at the Sixth Internet Governance
Forum that took place in Nairobi, Kenya from 27-30 September 2011. In
the interview, Chat García Ramilo, Dafne Sabanes Plou, Jac sm Kee, Jan
Moolman, and Jennifer Radloff from the APC Women´s Programme offer their
insights regarding gender balance and the presence of women's rights in
the 2011 IGF agenda.
http://www.genderit.org/node/3486

*Women activists and internet governance: let's open the debate*
Dafne Plou reports on the workshop of about 20 women's rights advocates
from different countries and backgrounds who met late September 2011, in
Nairobi, Kenya, just before the 6th Internet Governance Forum to share
their experiences in policy advocacy and to discuss internet governance
and its linkage to women’s rights agendas. The workshop was organised by
the APC Women's Networking Support Programme (APC WNSP).
http://www.genderit.org/node/3483

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III. FEATURED RESOURCES

*6th UN IGF: Statement by the Gender Dynamic Coalition*
The Gender Dynamic Coalition statement issued during the 6th UN Internet
Governance Forum in September 2011, in Kenya, criticises the continued
gender imbalance in both participation (as speakers and participants of
workshops and sessions) and substance of the discussions at IGF. It also
supports the call to make human rights the IGF 2012 theme and requests
that equal attention be paid to women's rights, emphasising the need of
a rights-based approach instead of protectionist solutions.
http://www.genderit.org/node/3480

*Human rights online: new issues and threats*
This policy issue paper from the Association for Progressive
Communications (APC) outlines the state of human rights online and the
major challenges facing activists and human rights defenders. As levels
of censorship and surveillance are increasing worldwide, even in
democratic countries, which threatens the work -- and the lives -- of
human rights defenders, APC calls for the theme of the 2012 IGF to focus
exclusively on human rights.
http://www.apc.org/en/system/files/IRHRPolicyBrief_EN.pdf

*APC Priorities for the Sixth Internet Governance Forum*
The 13-page brief by APC reminds UN conference-goers of critical issues
facing the freedom of the internet today including affordability,
openness and network neutrality in the mobile internet and online
violence against women.
http://www.apc.org/en/system/files/APCIGFBrief2011.pdf

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IV. FEATURED FEMINIST TALKS

*Why women's movements should take a deep breath…*
Aisha Lee Shaheed was one of the participants of the two-day workshop
“Women’s Rights and Internet Governance” convened by the APC WNSP late
September 2011, in Nairobi, Kenya, just prior to the 6th Annual Internet
Governance Forum. In her blog post, Aisha recounts how the workshop
shifted her perspective on internet governance and why she as a women
human rights defender should care about it.
http://www.genderit.org/node/3484

*IGF Gender Report Cards*
APC WNSP is sharing some preliminary results of the gender report cards
initiate. This was a pilot initiative put forward by the Association for
Progressive Communications to monitor and assess the level of gender
parity and inclusion at this year's Internet Governance Forum (IGF).
Although the numbers of sessions monitored were relatively small, and
that a deeper analysis is needed, the statistics generated and first
impressions can give us an idea of the role that women and gender issues
played in this IGF's debates.
http://www.genderit.org/node/3489

To read more Feminist Talk's posts and debates visit:
http://www.genderit.org/feminist-talk

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*2011 APC Women's Networking Support Programme (APC WNSP). Except where
otherwise noted, content in this newsletter is published by
GenderIT.org, a project of the APC WNSP, and licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You
are free to share, republish or remix so long as you attribute
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