This article was published as part of the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) Think Piece Series, From Disruption to Transformation? Linking Technology and Human Rights for Sustainable Development, launched to coincide with the 37th Session of the UN Human Rights Council and the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In this series, experts from academia, think tanks and civil society engage with the topic of linking technology and human rights, and share their experience at the front lines of policy-driven research and advocacy aimed at leaving no one behind in an increasingly digital, automated world.
In today’s increasingly digital, networked society, there is a pressing need for a feminist interrogation of the melding of new technology with personal, social, cultural, economic and political life, and the power structures that are reproduced and redefined in the process. In particular, this Think Piece points a critical lens at questions of autonomy on the internet and in an age of big data, asking how these technologies can empower women and queer persons to fully exercise and enjoy their rights, both on- and offline.
Jac sm Kee is a feminist activist, writer and researcher from Malaysia. She leads the Women’s Rights Programme at the Association for Progressive Communications, which works to prevent online violence against women, encourages web-based gender research and facilitates network and movement building on feminism and technology.
Read the article on the UNRISD website here.