Filtered by the state, inspired by Gita Sen

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During the AWID Forum in Istanbul, Valentina Pellizzer, the executive directress of the OneWorld Platform for SEE Foundation, writes a daily blog for genderit.org. Following is the second instalment of her blog.

The convention center is big, enormous, 2500 women from all over the world to attend the 12th AWID International Forum on Women’s Rights in Development. It's my first AWID, usually I avoid these overwhelming conventions but this time I couldn't say no. Erika from APC contacted me and proposed to apply for session on Internet and the challenge of privacy. The proposal has been accepted and I am here. And Internet, its relevance as feminist issue is something I advocate.

Professor Gita SenToday Gita Sen said “we are in a fierce vicious unequal new economic world where battlegrounds are many” and few hours later in the session on “Commodification of knowledge: how increasing access and availability of the internet had transformed the way knowledge is produced and shared” a participant made us noticing that “We were being watched." And it's true behind the gorgeous beauty of Istanbul there is a state that filter the access to the net, a state that do not allow sites to be displayed if they use “certain” words or images.

And yes, I know that women has many issues, many fights but internet is not less relevant. It is true, still the majority of the world is excluded from the information society but those are the same women majority that suffer poverty and as Gita Sen said “problem isn't that woman are marginalized from the global economy but that they are included at the bottom”.

Our communication, our knowledge, our strategies and dreams travel in a digitalized form trough the web, via email or mobile phone. We cannot dismiss this! Technology is embedded in our lives, CCTV record each and every corner and person in London, social media own our data and graciously let us using their platform to feed them with our personal preference, relationships, movements but promptly released them to governments upon request.

I feel about internet as the Gita Sen scholar who about the Iranian revolution said – do you not see what is coming, you as a feminist? Never forgotten those words ... (Source: genderit.org)