The United Nations International Women's Day Theme for 2023 is 'DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality'. The importance of this theme being the necessity for women to not only get on the internet but to move beyond participation to designing our new digital future. As the UN points out the move to digital technologies in the workplace, to AI and all that means will require an adequately prepared workforce. However, there is reticence to living and working in online spaces since, as the UN reports, 38% of women experience violence online. That violence and abuse extends to the 'what about the men?' comments and the backlash women face online on this very day. Yet it is not just violence online it also extends to mis-representation; where the hijacking of International Women's Day itself by interlopers marketing annual themes in vacuous, innocuous fun fests where we all pose for a selfie. The report points to how Aurora marketing describes how it supports the International Women's Day website and associated marketing and promotional materials yet we know nothing of the owners of this website, their ethos, values or reasoning the be the hub of International Women's Day! There is no real embrace equity (their slogan) to see here.
So how do we combat this? How do we get women onto the internet, into tech to take up space, to elbow out the interlopers? Where Digital is for #DigitALL?
This week (March 9th 2023) sees the official publication of our chapter
'Feminist Online Communities: The Story of the Women in Academia Support Network (WIASN) – a Tale of Resistance and Online Activism. In the chapter we point to the problem of digital online spaces created by and for patriarchy, where women are excluded and subjected to violence and abuse. But we also point to how digital spaces are being populated with women as community leaders of Facebook groups. Leaders who are shaping their local community services, developing entrepreneurial opportunities and digital technical marketing skills. The NYU Power of Virtual Communities report described such communities and the learning that goes on there.
In 2021 WIASN was delighted to have been named as one of only 9 UK communities selected for a prestigious Facebook Accelerator Programme, where we were trained in digital community building, sat Community Manager exams and developed projects to grow services that would better serve the 14K women in our online network. As a Facebook community of significance we also get invited to special Facebook groups and events where our expertise contributes to the development of Metaverse services and products. So whilst the statistics say that women are not involved in tech, yet again we see a very skewed view of what that means for digital technology. A view that only takes account of the infrastructure, engineering and building - that whilst important, plays down the human centred aspect where women are working significantly (although often voluntarily) in developing the human skills required to actually use digital tech and products. As we write in our chapter, it is all too easy to take for granted the care, convening and other work that is more often associated to women and to dismiss it as not important and not contributing when women are significantly contributing in many, varied and valuable ways. As the NYU report points out, online communities are now some of the most significant ways in which we interact as humans - and women are at the forefront of this. With this in mind we also want to give a shout out to wonderful women Community Managers, business and charity owners who we shared the accelerator journey with.
Muslim Mammas shaping government policy and providing support for Muslim mums through online advice, webinars and training events. Nafisa worked incredibly hard to develop their services. They've had a phenomenal reception to their podcast series. Check it out.
Get your Belly out support network for people with Crohns disease and ulcerative colitis. Victoria works with researchers and the medical community to further understanding from a treatment and patient positions of lived experience. There is also the famous annual GYBO ball!
Newbold Hope is a support network that also offers training for parents f children demonstrating challenging and violent behaviours. Founder Yvonne speaks from personal experience and years of building expertise. Her recent Ted Talk was named in the top 10 global talks in February.
Food Teachers Centre provides training for food technology teachers across the UK centring the importance of balanced nutrition and developing the culinary skills of our young people. In 2022: The Food Teachers Centre volunteer team ran over 50 events with 4,628 teachers and support staff attending. Louise, founder of Food Teachers was also a guest speaker on developing digital education services at our 2021 International Conference 'Virtually undisciplined', which was lived streamed to our 14k members and an additional 400 ticket holders.
Women's Van Life Collective admin Jo is supporting a community of 40k women who are living vanlife and working remotely on the road or aspiring to in the future. This really keys into the opportunities of new digital ways of working and being. Supporting women's vanlife and nomadic working/entrepreneurship with jobs advice and jobs boards, blogs and a lively Facebook community.
Black Owned Economy kicked off during covid. With over 150K members! they support business development and entrepreneurship at scale! with advice, training and events such as their hugely successful Start Up summit. Justice and the team have created an amazing space where black business leads the way.
Family Lowdown is another covid phenomenon that grew to 1.2 million members and partnering with brands such a TUI. The community offers tips and advice to parents as a one stop shop for your parenting and child needs. Claire also published a book of lockdown parenting tips based on the learning in the community.
So when we think of #DigitALL women really are leading the way in finding opportunities to support, grow businesses and leverage digital online communities. We are on the internet, we are shaping experiences and lives. But yes, lets also get more women building the technology infrastructure so it works better for our needs. This kind of work needs researchers. Which takes us back to our own digital space. WIASN strongly believe that women must be integral (at all levels) in research and innovation in order to have a driving seat designing the new digital world. This is why we developed the book 'ResearcHER: The power and potential of research careers for women'; not only to showcase the phenomenal work of women researchers in our digital network but to also open up research to those marginalised and under-represented.
So far we have delivered £16000 worth of the book via a network of universities, charities and research institutions across the UK, Ireland, Australia and Africa. We also have a ResearcHER fundraiser to get even more books to those who would benefit.
So if you want to contribute more than an embrace for equity and affect real change in gender equity then please consider donating here
WIASN is an intersectional community.
No woman is free until all women are free. Trans lives matter.
With thanks to partners who made the book publication and distribution possible
Meta / Facebook
Emerald Global Publishing
The Institute of Physics
Arden University
De Montfort University
Trinity College Dublin
Griffith University Gold Coast Australia
Oxford Brooks
Sheffield University
University of Lancaster
University of Birmingham
Swansea University
University of Exeter
University of Plymouth
Manchester Metropolitan University