In today's world, women are asserting their rights not only in public but also in digital spaces, demanding equality across all aspects of life
Women were the original "computers." Back in the day, in the late 1800s, these women computers worked in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, manually crunching large amounts of data through tedious computations, a task often deemed too trivial for male scientists. Somewhere between then and today, not only has our role as being seen as the backbone of STEM research diminished, but we have also lost an equal stake in the development of modern technologies.
Today, women around us actively demand equality in all aspects of life, including the digital space. Innumerable women-led protests have driven change around the world and have taken over digital spaces as well. However, relics of historical marginalisation have crept into our virtual spaces and settled as obstacles for women in their paths to achieving digital equity, as a result of which they face biases, are actively silenced, and are subject to abuse.
Recently, I visited Warsaw to attend the Vital Voices Global Action Summit, which focussed on women for rights and democracy, where I witnessed a convergence of voices of women across countries and spheres of work - activism, policy, and politics.
The convergence of these voices was not limited to advocating for increased women's representation and highlighting how women are fighting back for stronger democracies as their rights form the bedrock of democratic countries; but also on how women have unequal access to technology, how tech creates a skewed idea of democracy by actively invisibilising and silencing women, how social media algorithms are not addressing the challenges women face on various platforms that "promote the idea of free speech" and how that very "free speech" is used as a tool by bullies and autocrats with no definitive action against trolling. These challenges are globally acknowledged, and all countries are committed to addressing them through ideas of rights and democracy.
In India, the most significant obstacle has been the lack of access to mobile phones and the Internet.
According to the latest NFHS survey, only one-third of our female population between the ages of 15 and 49 have ever used the Internet, compared to more than half of the male population in the same age group. The digital divide worsens with factors like an increase in women's age, a decrease in their family incomes, and for those women belonging to marginalised communities and living in rural areas. Additionally, women often lack ownership of mobile phones, with their devices shared or monitored by other family members, further hindering their digital participation.
For those women who manage to overcome these access barriers, the next challenge emerges - an alarmingly high rate of cybercrimes comprising threats, violence, pornography, stalking, and more. This poses a double-edged sword, with Indian courts reportedly taking cases of sexual harassment and other forms of online bullying less seriously than offences committed in the physical world. Together, the two sides create a chilling effect and inhibit women from being vocal on social media platforms and taking up roles that bring them to the digital limelight, including politics. Moreover, Indian female politicians face significantly more trolling than those in the US or UK, with those from minority groups and those challenging societal norms and male political leaders facing more vicious attacks of hate campaigns. The Bulli Bai and Sulli Deals scandals should serve as reminders of the severity of threats and bullying that target women in order to silence them - a case which remained unaddressed by the central government for long. It was the Mumbai Police, under the Maha Vikas Aghadi government led by Uddhav Thackeray, which had cracked the case and brought the accused to book after the victims' relentless hopes that the central government would step in and take it up with the social media platforms.
The third obstacle is strange and ever-evolving: the social media algorithm. Despite its perceived progressiveness, this algorithm seems to propagate long-held biases that we have been trying to eliminate from society. Artificial intelligence technologies came with promises to improve user experiences and make social media platforms safer for all its users. However, these promises seem to have been limited to certain sections of society. Human biases have translated into AI biases and reflect sexist and racist tendencies. For instance, photographs of men and women in similar contexts are judged differently by AI technologies. Images of women in sportswear or lingerie have been scored much higher in AI's 'racy' scale compared to comparable photos of men. Avatar-generating AI apps have demonstrated similar patterns, with AI seeing men as astronauts, warriors, or on music album covers and women's avatars being mostly nude and over-sexualised versions of themselves. The AI's bias becomes more evident when female faces are labelled male and the avatars turn into more assertive-looking and fully-clothed characters.
The problem with the algorithm hurdle extends beyond individual images. The technology behind these tools is clearly flawed, yet the same is being used to control what comes in our social media feeds. Depending on how 'racy' AI rates an image, it is suppressed from reaching its audiences without the creator being aware. Similar kinds of censorship have been noted on posts containing political messages. In different instances, algorithms have rapidly amplified misogynistic content, particularly to younger audiences, with increased content on anger and blame directed at women, indicating clear issues with the algorithm disparately affecting women.
It is unfortunately left up to women to find ways to beat the algorithm and find creative ways to fight these biases as they remain severely underrepresented in the technology sector. Even at the 20 largest global technology companies, women comprise 33% of the workforce and only 25% hold leadership positions as of 2022.
The challenges of policy and representation put India at an opportunity to pave the way to attain digital equity. With the world's highest number of STEM graduates- 40% of whom are women- a large fraction of the female population can be included in developing future technologies. Yet, despite these numbers, the representation of Indian women in the tech workforce remains disproportionately low.
As India positions itself as a global leader in STEM, harnessing its untapped pool of female talent through targeted policies could drive systematic change, advancing both digital and physical equity for women worldwide. Our policies need to reflect this and should become the facilitators to have more women in workplaces, that encourage having women techpreneurs, pushing industries to bring in more equity, dealing with online harassment with an iron fist and, more importantly, focussing on tech access, consequently making India a role model for the world to follow. By including more girls and women, particularly from diverse backgrounds, on technical and scientific teams, we can ensure that the development of new technologies addresses women's unique challenges around access, digital literacy, and online abuse. Training women not only for technical roles but also for leadership positions will allow them to shape tech-related policies and decisions, ultimately leading to safer, more inclusive digital spaces.
(The writer is a Shiv Sena -UBT, Rajya Sabha MP; views are personal)
