Doing feminism on and off the Internet...

The work..
I am feeling embarrassed. The invitation to the Caribbean Cyberfeminisms Conference says "We have reviewed your relevant work and we find it an experienced voice that will potentially add much to our conversations" The invitation refers to this blog.

I have written  more about dealing with the mental health issues and about food on the blog than about loving women/loving men which is the label I use for writing about gender.

And I have not done much offline for gender justice. 

The writing on the blog is kind of my rambling, a kind of cop out in the recent years as I had to deal with other things and could not deal with organisations, movements or people.   Last Navratra I wrote to my Hindu brothers because in real life, I am not engaged with the Hindu community , especially the men, to challenge the community to overcome sexism.
I also write to food, to the moon and to myself . Writing when you know that no one is really listening.


Caribbean cyberfeminisms
Dr Tonya Haynes explains Caribbean Cyberfeminisms in a detailed essay on Small Axe . 
She is hopeful and says that  "While the perception that Caribbean people are not using online technologies for significant civic participation is one shared by scholars, I seek to challenge such assessments"

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have been promoted as tools for the development of the Caribbean. The development is usually in terms of new businesses, improving government services, access to health and education, etc. The development though is not usually about movement building to transform the structures in the Caribbean which have resulted in messy economies, poor access to health and education and bad governance.
ICTs  are also used to strengthen sexism and to reinforce gender inequalities. The New York Times writes about Digital Tools of Domestic Violence. A study from Jamaica "How do ICTs mediate Gender based violence in Jamaica" relates the experiences, similar to those I have heard in Guyana of how abusers use technology. In Jamaica, the policing of  cyberspace resulted in the harassment of Latoya Nugent, who used Facebook to call out sex abusers and those who defended them.

Participants at the conference discussed their experiences in this series of videos from the Institute of Gender and Development Studies at UWI - St Augustine. The experiences include those about #lifeinleggings, WOMANTRA and Women's Wednesdays Guyana .





"what exactly do you do.."
The woman from the feminist organisation asks in a message and I am not sure what to say.
In 1995 when I got involved, the Internet was still coming to Guyana. Most of the abusive men I knew were older than me and I thought my generation and after would fix it.  Time later and I read in horror as men younger than me are abusing, killing women.. some of them born after 1995. Some women might be leaving abusive relationships earlier.  We now have women and men politicians in power who protect their colleagues who have been open about their contempt for women and colleagues who have been accused of child sexual abuse. And on social media, the politicians have friends and followers and there is no call to accountability.

Nothing has changed.

So I wonder about whether my Internet presence, in the absence of any visible achievement is a kind of fake thing for me, a pretense that I might be doing something real.

Gender justice for me was about volunteering two or three hours a week with Help & Shelter. It was never about  work.  Work was the ICT thing , getting paid for in a certain number of hours per week.
But thanks to the women, many of whom are still not on social media, I learned that gender justice is not work, is a way of life.  I stopped supporting the alcohol industry when I realised how destructive it is.

And sometimes like yoga, trying to be on good terms with people and healthy eating and exercise, and breathing well, the way of life is not consistent.

So sometimes I can cuss a minibus driver to change sexist music or people who share sexist crap on the Internet.. or other times I tune out, or unfollow, hide or unfriend, or I might write a post with some links and so on for the lurkers on the threads.

The Internet brings me outside of the legal channels.. the powerful Hannah Gabsby's Nanette. The platform though has a price, the advertising is about women's bodies. There are advertisements for games - which depict horrible fantasies of subjugating women which are made live through animation.  But I click on the 'skip ad' or the 'x' to move on and to access the content..


The Internet though.. allows questions to come through from people who might not have asked. This is not visible really.  I learn of events around gender justice which I would not have heard about otherwise.  But some of them involve alcohol, or beauty pageants and instead of talking about how alcohol industry is not about equality and progress, and beauty pageants only empower the winners and sustains power structures rather than breaks them up.. I shut up and don't say or do anything.

So then...
The conversation on Caribbean cyberfeminisms was happening at the same time as I eavesdropped on an intense email exchange around feminism and social justice in the Caribbean.  
There are connections between the online and the offline activities to advocate for gender justice.  I wonder though, if in the five hours or so it took me to agonise on this blog, if I had been on the road, doing a Groundings on gender justice.. if that would not have been more effective.

But I guess since I don't have the emotional intelligence at the moment to do the groundings, the blog and clicking and sharing of links and information would have to do.