Cyber Feminism

Cyber Feminism is a genre of women’s movement which tells us about the relationship between cyberspace, the Internet, and technology. It can be referred to as a philosophy, methodology or community as well. It is a philosophy which accepts the differences on the powers between the women and the men specifically to the digital discourses and the cyber feminist is the one who wants to change this situation. 

Over the years, technology has been a male-dominated, and new technologies are still continuing this tradition. In our tradition, the patriarchy has always been present. Men always controlled the content; men earned the profit from it. So, due to this, a gender gap emerged in how women and men accessed the internet: men surfed, hopping from site to site and thus getting more and more information. On the other hand, women went directly to certain sites or searched for information on specific topics they wanted to know about. 

As technology became more advanced, the full societal access to information technology became more widespread, women started becoming independent and are getting free from the traditional patriarchal system that surrounded and engulfed them. In the gender roles, gender identity is gradually breaking down, where our societal notions of being human, feminine, and masculine are in transition and all the genders are being considered equal. This evolution of technology gave women the power to express their ideas to develop new business models which are perfect in all ways to get the things done. 

Cyberfeminism takes feminism as its starting point, and mainly focuses upon advancements of the technologies, surveying the intersection between gender identity, culture, and technology. Sec. 354D of IPC defines and provides punishment for the offence of stalking, includes cyber stalking. Plant (1996) uses the term cyberfeminism to specify an “alliance” or “connection” between a woman and the technology, where “women have always been considered the machine parts for a very much male culture”.  There are so few women in the limelight of leadership in the electronic world, so less women are programmers and hackers, still a tiny minority, and often considered anomalies. Cyberfeminism is also considered to be a struggle to be increasingly aware of the impact of new technologies on the lives of women along with their household chores, and the insidious gendering of techno-culture in everyday life.  The international cyber feminist seeks and urges to bring together women from many different fields of knowledge and interest from around the world to begin to work together on strengthening women’s involvement and visibility in the developing policies and economies of electronic communications technologies and networks. Finally, a cyber feminist must radically expand the critique concerning the media hype about the “techno-world” regarding the women coming into this world. Cyberfeminism links the philosophical practices of feminism to contemporary feminist projects and their networks both on and off the Net, and to the material lives and experiences of a woman in the new world order, however differently they are practiced in different countries, among different classes and races.

Cyber feminism mainly has the following objectives:

• To explore more about translating feminist ideas to the information culture.
• To identify the potential role of cyberfeminism to build individual strengths and confidence among all the women.
• To promote cyberfeminism that can be used by the groups to change gender inequality in the IT sector.

Mainly, there are two major laws in India that address cybercrimes against women– The Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860 and The Information Technology (IT) Act 2000. Sec. 67A of the IT Act defines prohibiting publishing or transmitting or causing to be published or transmitted in the electronic form any material which contains sexually explicit act or conduct, and treats such acts as punishable offences. Trolling, bullying and blackmail are also addressed through the IPC provisions of criminal intimidation under Sec. 503 & 506 IPC which involves threatening another with injury to person, reputation or property, and criminal intimidation by an anonymous communication under Sec. 507, IPC, where the harasser is unknown to the woman.

Saddam Hussain v. State of M.P. – In this case, the accused outraged the modesty of the victim and video recorded the same on his phone and used it to blackmail her. The criminal complaint was lodged under Section 354D IPC (stalking), Sec. 507 IPC (criminal intimidation by an anonymous communication) of the IPC and Sec. 66A of the IT Act (which has subsequently been struck down as unconstitutional in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India). A petition was also filed before the Madhya Pradesh High Court for quashing on the basis of a compromise that was arrived at between the woman and the accused. The High Court denied to quash the proceedings by stating that the offences were against the society at large and a personal compromise between the parties would not affect the continuation of the prosecution. This case indicates that courts treat cyber stalking and cyber bullying as very serious offences.

In 1970, Shulamith Firestone's book: The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution created the foundation for many cyber feminist activities, which explored the possibility of using the technology to eliminate sexism by freeing women from the obligation to do the household chores. Further between 1990 and 2000, several artists like Coco Fusco, Shu Lea Cheang, and Prema Murthy explored various ways that gender and race by combining performance art, video art, and with the emerging technologies of interactive websites, digital graphics, and streaming media. Later in 2003 the feminist anthology “Sisterhood Is Forever: The Women's Anthology for a New Millennium” was published. It included the essay "Cyberfeminism: Networking the Net" by Amy Richards and Marianne Schnall.

These days, although it has faded a little, but people like Radhika Gajjala and Yeon Ju Oh's “Cyberfeminism 2.0” argues that cyberfeminism in the 21st century have moulded itself into new forms and focuses on the different aspects of women's participation through online mode. They find cyber feminists in women's blogging networks and their conferences, in women's gaming, in social media, in online mothers' groups performing pro-breastfeeding activism, and in online spaces developed and populated by marginal networks of women in non-Western countries. Feminist action and activism online is prevalent these days, especially by the women of colour, but has taken on different intersectional terms. 

 

- Isha Mittal

Researchers' Committee

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