Interview Segment — August

Here, we reach out to people who will reflect on the theme and share their insights as to how it relates to their lives and work.

This month YFN reached out to Subha Wijesiriwardena, who shared her thoughts on the intersection between Feminism and Technology, in the context of being a feminist activist, how she expresses it and more! Read a short Bio on Subha, after the questions!

• What is the interconnectedness you see between feminism and technology? How does feminist scholarship and activism help us frame our understanding of the tech space?

I think the first response to this question is always about why as feminists, we should be interested in technology, right? Like, I’ve spent a lot of time advocating for feminists, feminist organizations and more of the feminist movement to take technology seriously as a critical feminist issue and to consider it an integral part of their work and their politics and, you know, an important part of their demands as well. I think the reason me and of course, many, many others, alongside me, but also before me have done that is, because we understand that as feminists, we are fundamentally interested in power. And you know, feminism has always been interested in understanding, critiquing, and challenging power and power structures. So when you kind of think about that, it’s almost impossible to not be interested in technology as a domain, because I think as feminists, we understand technology to be a domain in which power operates, in which there is, you know, any inequality of power and in which many kinds of social power imbalances and inequalities are reproduced or take on new meaning, right. So I think fundamentally, because of that, as feminists we should be interested in understanding technology, looking at the technological domain and understanding it as not just as a space but as a domain, as a field of our lives, of society, of how social interactions and power interactions happen. So I would also encourage us to think of technology as more than a tool more than a space. It’s kind of an extension of our society.

• How would you describe the impact of the recent rise in social media activism and awareness-raising by online movements like #MeToo in harnessing feminist leadership and mobilization towards collective action?

I think, of course, like in any aspect of life, the online, and internet based technological tools have been incredibly important for feminist organizing, and, agenda setting, because it has allowed us to challenge these power structures that exist, like I said before, and the online has been a great space of inverting are challenging or disrupting power norms. But of course, as I said before, it is also a space in which very much of the time, norms as they exist do play out and power dynamics as they exist, do play out in pretty much the same way, or they take on a different manifestation, but you know, have the same route. So I think both those things are true of the online space. At the same time, as you have said, in your question, I do think that we’ve seen significant, you know, the way that online activism and discourse setting has shaped the way we do feminist work significantly, right. And that’s true of many kinds of things, not just a feminist work, it’s true of a lot of ways in which we have conversation or engage with each other, and the way that we organize and collectivise.

That said, I do think that what we are seeing in the last couple of years globally, is that we are being reminded that, on the ground, direct action is still really important. It cannot be replaced. We’ve seen in many contexts in many moments, the fact that people still need to take to the streets, and that that’s democracy, right? That it’s it still needs bodies on the street, it still needs people who are willing to put themselves in the line of file to stand up for what is right, and to demand human rights. And, of course, you know, there’s many ways in which that kind of thing is exclusionary, not everybody can participate all the time and physical kind of protests or direct action. For example, you could say that for people with disabilities, that kind of thing can be very challenging. And therefore the online gives people with disabilities a really meaningful way to engage with discourse and with current topics and conversations.

But at the same time, the online is exclusionary in its own way. I mean, we know that there are very big connectivity and data gaps around the world still, you know, even in the so-called developed world, it’s not that everybody has access to the internet in the same way we do. People don’t. And we know that within regions, and within countries and within societies, there are even more gaps in terms of gender, in terms of socioeconomic status, and class, etc. So, you know, data and connectivity gaps are also significant. And they also do leave people out. So I think, all of these things are needed to disrupt the status quo, and I think they will continue to impact and influence and shape each other. But, but certainly, I think they’re all required.

I’d like to make one more point about #metoo and how we think it can harness collective action towards feminist leadership and that part of the question. I also just want to encourage us to think about #metoo, you know, of course, it was a significant catalyst for change. And I do think that that’s true when it has to be observed. And it has to, again, I think we should approach it with curiosity and with interest, it’s certainly something significant that happened in our time, I think, for our generation. But at the same time, I think it has been very limited in its own way. And I don’t think that it sort of applies equally to many women and people around the world, I don’t think that #metoo, has been the same kind of catalyst for very many kinds of people, that it was for some, right. So I think it’s also important not to kind of look at #metoo as a sort of, ‘Oh, we’ve arrived’ kind of thing. I think it’s more like something that happened on this path that we’re on where, technology and social media plays a very big role in our lives and power structures and power relationships that have existed, being challenged. And I’m sure it happens in every generation, that those power relationships get challenged in some way or another continuously. I think it’s just now we can see much more clearly because we have access to you this kind of visible, this kind of visible sharing and stuff in a way that perhaps, individual to individual we didn’t have before. So I think it’s important to observe #metoo try to like look at it with curiosity to try to understand it on on the path, but I also think it’s important not to see it as though this really great universally kind of catalytic change for everyone, which I don’t think it was or is.

• How in your view, can young feminists looking to learn more about the interconnectedness between feminism and technology do so? (suggestions of what to read, who to follow etc.)

First of all, I think it’s really important for feminist movements and feminist organizations, etc, to do a better job in creating these pathways for young feminists who probably many of whom already have questions about, you know, the connections between feminist thinking and technology. And I think it is really up to established feminist organizations, networks, movements, to create those resources to create those pathways to knowledge and information as you are doing right, which is really important. So, I really appreciate that. networks or collectives, like yours are creating these bodies of information and pathways for young feminists to access different ways of thinking about technology as feminists.

So I think first of all, that will always be my first recommendation, I think, is that movements or movement organizations can do a lot better. But, you know, going to where young families can look to at the moment. Personally, for me, my first teachers in this area where the folks in the women’s rights program at the Association for progressive communications, also known as APC, the women’s rights program at APC have for a very long time for decades actually been doing really, you know, they were really pioneering a lot of women’s rights work, that looked at the intersections, you know, looked at the intersection between technology and the Internet, and women’s rights and sexual and gender diversity, and so on and so forth. So I think they have been, to me, very critical. The other people, I would recommend our collective in Berlin, named tactical tech, tactical technology, they do a lot of really interesting research, again, looking at human rights, human rights practitioners and their use of technology, etc, which has been very interesting for me to learn from as well.

There’s the internet democracy project based in Delhi, run by, you know, a brilliant, brilliant feminist, Dr. Anya colebatch. They do a lot of really interesting work that’s very India specific, but it is too good to learn from they do a lot of work that looks at you know, kind of internet freedom, freedom of speech and expression, but through a very feminist and gender kind of justice lens. So they do a lot of really, again, really interesting research and policy reviews and things like that point of view, also based out of India, in Mumbai, I think, again, have done a lot of really interesting work at the intersection of technology, sexuality, disability, etc. Those are personally some of the people that I learned from or that I look to. I mean, there’s many, many other examples. I think, particularly in Latin America, there are a lot of really amazing feminists doing very interesting work with technology. In Mexico, there’s a collective called Luchadoras, again, run by a bunch of really fierce feminists, who are doing a lot of work around feminist technological infrastructure, again, which is very unique and very interesting.

In CREA, where I work we also do an institute for activists and practitioners called “Me, We and the Machine” which looks at gender, sexuality, technology and rights. It’s a global institute where we convene about 30 Global activists or practitioners, researchers, etc, etc, from all over the different parts of the world together. And we have a very intensive seven or eight day full, full time kind of Institute, which, with faculty with really, you know, leaving kind of global thinkers and researchers and teachers to teach kind of people to link theory and practice in their human rights work and giving people new ways to think about gender, sexuality and technology. When we do another “Me, We and the Machine” I will definitely keep you guys posted.

• What is your advice for us in reflecting on this intersection between feminism and technology into our feminist leadership and activism?

I don’t think I have any advice as such. But I think what you’re already doing is really excellent. I would just say, keep an open mind. And just remain curious. And I think that’s really the biggest, most important thing that we can do as feminists, is to remain curious, keep learning, keep wanting to learn and keep that desire to learn fresh, because I think there’s always new things to pick up, to listen to and to learn from. And I think, of course, the domain of technology is so vast, and deeply intertwined with our lives and our social structures now that I, again, I think, you know, we almost don’t have a choice, we shouldn’t look away. I think it’s a really important domain for us to keep working on and keep thinking about and analyzing and critiquing, etc. And, technology is not just the internet, right? It’s not just about internet based tools, or internet based communication technologies also extends out to many other areas and I feel it’s going to have a huge impact on things that impact us all, like climate change, and kind of global social economic inequity, etc. So thinking about all of that, I would just say, you know, to stay curious!

Subha Wijesiriwardena

Subha Kovacs is a Program Manager at CREA, a global feminist human rights organization led by feminists in the global South, where she supports the development of CREA’s global institutes: on sexuality, gender and rights (SGRI), and sexuality, gender, technology and rights (Me, We and the Machine). In addition, she supports international-level advocacy and communications.

She has a degree in Communication and Media Studies and is a feminist activist and researcher who works on gender, sexuality and digital rights in Sri Lanka and South Asia. Previously, she has led programs in the Gender and Sexuality domain at Women and Media Collective, Sri Lanka’s leading feminist organization. She is the co-founder of A Collective for Feminist Conversations, based out of Colombo; a border-less online/on-ground platform for inter-generational and inter-sectional feminist conversations.

She has co-authored Not Traditionally Technical, Lesbian women and their use of online space in Sri Lanka (WMC, APC) and ‘Acts of Agency: Exploring a Feminist Approach to Abortion in Sri Lanka’ (South Asia Survey, SAGE).Subha currently sits on the inaugural Advisory Committee of Act Together for Inclusion (ACTIF), funded by the Canadian government to promote and protect the human rights of LGBTIQ persons.