Last month, I was at the Women’s Aid National Conference in the UK – a two day event bringing together people from the Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) sector. I was there with two hats on: as a Trustee of Saheli, a non-profit based in Manchester, England, which provides emergency refuge accommodation for women of colour fleeing violence; and representing SUPERRR, curious to hear how technology is showing up for the VAWG sector, and to better understand what questions and needs frontline support staff are hearing.
There were some surprises, and some familiar narratives that are common in other sectors, too. We heard from Jess Asato, Member of Parliament for Lowestoft, who is in the process of suing Elon Musk for the fake sexualised images of her that people used Grok to create. I deeply appreciated her focus on the root causes behind VAWG – patriarchy, manifestations of power, control, silencing and shame, as tools of oppression. She rightly pointed out that for most tech companies, their laser focus on profit above all else means they’re still operating on a ‘move fast and break things’ kind of mentality, instead of taking into account or even proactively planning against the ongoing harms that are happening as a result of their design choices.
Surwat Sohail, the CEO of Roshni Birmingham pointed out the ways in which VAWG is weaponised as an issue to exacerbate anti-migrant sentiments – an example of how successful the right has been at joining up narratives from different spaces.
One framing that I heard over the two days was of Violence Against Women and Girls not as a criminal justice issue, but as an issue of public health. By looking at VAWG as a public health issue, we might think about the systemic factors that allow it to happen. The focus becomes prevention at the root: instead of thinking about individual cases, we would consider instead the multi-factor consequences and causes of patriarchal societies, and consider patriarchy as a serious threat to the health of entire populations. Patriarchal norms hurt everyone – including men, some of whom in turn hurt women. As Seyi Akiwowo said in her keynote, absolutely none of this is an excuse to be violent, but the multi-pronged consequences of harmful stereotypes and patriarchal norms are crucial to acknowledge if we really want to go beyond merely treating the end impact.
The same could be said of violence in the digital realm: yes, design choices within our technologies enable violence to be carried out, but behind each of those instances of digital violence is a person who decides that’s a good use of their time, an action which is worthwhile, and a culture which enables those harms and makes them seem acceptable. Every fake sexualised image of a woman; every piece of hate speech, each instance of cyberbullying – yes, it’s facilitated by technology, but it’s carried out by humans. The conditions under which these people think it’s not only appropriate, but a reasonable way to spend their time – that’s what needs to be addressed if we’re ever to do more than just a game of whack-a-mole to stop people getting harmed.
There are indeed some examples of work like this, like what Work With Perpetrators is doing on Cyber Violence and Perpetrator work. We could also dream much bigger, like what Kids of Colour are doing in Manchester. Their work goes far beyond harm mitigation, to actually celebrating young people, challenging racism, building community so that young people can feel supported, to create spaces where young people are “seen, heard and validated” – all things that proactively counter the harmful impacts of the patriarchy and of racism and anti-Blackness within our society.
What I heard over and over across the two days was that technology was a tool and space in which women didn’t feel safe, in which people were cautious and worried about themselves and about their children, and in which they don’t feel any agency. And that, while not surprising given the current state of things, is also worrying on a broader narrative level: women deserve to enjoy the myriad benefits that technology allows, and the digital world is absolutely a space we deserve to all participate in.
Interestingly, when I brought up the question of how people might be able to see themselves thriving alongside technology, the main use case that came up was of technology being used to tell positive stories, ie. as a communications tool. But through my work at Saheli, I’ve seen many examples of how technology can and has played an absolutely vital tool in providing information to women in need of help; in helping women* reach out for help to external service providers; in keeping in touch and building community, and much more.
But here’s the thing: women in this sector have deep expertise on technology. They’re the ones who have experienced the sharpest edges and the worst harms of technology, and I kept wondering what these platforms would look like if they were the ones in charge of designing and governing them. What might it look for tech policy to centre that expertise, instead of considering women who have experienced harms (online or off) merely as a group to consult with?
And, of course, there remain a number of frictions in this space. Perspectives on tech policy approaches like the proposed social media ban in the UK, were quite mixed – some feeling like it was a fantastic solution, others worrying that it absolves tech companies of responsibility to fix the harms that affect not only children, but all of us. If that’s something you’re interested in learning more about, watch this space: we’ll have more work coming out about this topic very soon!
+++
Image credits: Women's Aid