It took a couple of Michio Kaku videos on youtube, a full night's rest, ranting to MS, JM, JK, SS, NP and other women, breakfast and a couple of ciggy breaks to finally calm down after watching "The Labyrinth of the Butterfly" last night. I was prepared for it because The Turtle told me about two years ago that the play (and the book that it was based on) totally dissed Michio Kaku.

Now, if you have any clue about me (or had at least traveled with me twice, or asked me about my favourite things in life), you would know that I would lose an arm to be Michio Kaku. And that I absolutely love his work.  I owe this man for bringing physics back to me, who has made me feel less of a Failed Physicist-Wannabe. This man is one of a handful of theoretical physicists who have de-mystified phsyics and quantum mechanics for regular human beings. He is one of the few scientists who actually take a stand against nuclear weapons and war. He is one of the even fewer physicists who write about women physicists and the lack of such women in the world of physics. This is a man who may not necessarily be gender-sensitive or feminist, but is not a sexist.

This is how I've always perceived Michio Kaku, so I was absolutely gutted when last night's play painted him as a sexist loser who designed "Molly" the highly-sexualised female robot straight out of sexist geek fantasy. First things first, Kaku is a theoretical physicist. His life's work is the M-Theory (one of the major strands of the Theory of Everything, whom he also calls "The Mother of All Theories"). He is not an applied physics person. I can't imagine him building a robot at all. I've heard about photos of him and the robot he invented, Molly, who was a mechanical Angelina Jolie of sorts. I have never seen that photo of Molly.

Secondly, here's a clarification of how Kaku wrote about Molly the robot: 2020 Vision (the 4th article on the page). I have to rely on the internet for actual quotes at the moment, I don't have my bookshelf with me (I haven't had it in over a month, in fact). I have read Kaku writing about Molly before, but she had never struck me as a highly-sexualised mechanic representation of the dirtiest male fantasies (of a subservient woman with big tits). It's been a while since I revisited "Visions", Kaku's book around the future of science and tech where he talks about Molly, but I've always thought that Molly was kind of like the voice in your head that reminds you of things and makes your life easier and safer. Not necessarily the sex-bot that was acted out in last night's play. I think our own discomfort at male girl-robot fantasies were assigned to last night's Molly, which resulted in Kaku being totally villified. Which is unfair.

Lastly, I've been thinking about last night's Molly and some of the points that were raised about a year ago when I was doing a gender evaluation training for a software localisation project.

So Nepal, 2007. We were talking about the fact that in text-to-speech software (which was particularly useful for illiterate communities), the male voice was much easier to use. It has to do with the differences in the decibel and frequency ranges of women's and men's voices. According to the geeks, in Asia, we did not have the skills and capacity to work with a female voice in text-to-speech software (the skills are available in the US, they said). This results in the absence of (literally) female voices in software that is localised in Asia.

We, the gender advocates in that meeting, said that it was important for women users (especially those who were dealing with their own fears of tech) to be able to hear voices in their software that they can relate to. Simply put, there must be a way to have female voices in the localised text-to-speech software.

So back to Cape Town 2008. If the premise is that having female voices in technology is empowering to women, why then do we have a problem with female-looking /-sounding robots? Wouldn't such an entity be empowering to women as well? Wouldn't such a creature be something that we can relate to as women (as opposed to a male robot)?

Or is the problem we have with Molly the fact that she was presented as a thing that did household work? That she had big boobs last night? That she was highly-sexualised?

Or is the problem because Michio Kaku is male and he was represented as having created her? Is this a problem even if nothing of Kaku's work point to his sexism?

Would Molly and Michio have been saved from ridicule and mockery if they had switched sexes?

Tags: activist stuff, awid08, awid2008, feminist rambling, geekery, pop culture, reviews of everything, tripping away, women and tech
coordinates: cape town
state of mind: grumpy
background noise: people buzzing at the FTX Hub

Everyone's their own porn  producer / director / cameraman / lead actress these days.

The stories vary.

One story is of girl who gets her dead computer fixed and her files retrieved, which includes racy photos taken at a particular kinky moment between her and her lover. It's Jackpot Day for the pervy computer technicians, who not only view the photos, they put them up on the Web. She becomes a momentary object of fascination and fantasy.

Ditto, a girl who loses her cell phone that has the naked pics she took to MMS to her long-distance boyfriend. The bastard who gets her phone MMS's her photos to his friends and everyone on her contact list.

Another story is of a girl and her boyfriend. They break up. He wants revenge. So he releases their sex videos to their common friends.

The degrees of separation of the girls involved has significantly decreased in the last year. From last year's overheard conversation at a restaurant, to a friend of an acquaintance, to a friend of a friend, to a girl who sometimes parties at my place. It's becoming a regular story -- just another story of a girl who inadvertently became a porn star.

On one hand, I'm all for people being able to make their own porn. With video-enabled cellphones becoming more and more affordable, being one's own porn producer / director / cameraman / lead actress is becoming more and more possible, Besides, if taking a video during sex makes it more exciting, yay! I'm all for better sex for everyone.

And that ambitious little Bolshevik in my head hopes that this would be key in toppling huge Porn Corporations. Who would want porn films of people that are so hard to relate to when you can watch yourself? I know, the Bolshevik is realistic enough to know that's a pipe dream. But it's a nice dream.

What bugs me though is how these private photos and videos are distributed. Often, it's without the consent of the female subject. Her privacy is violated and more often than not, there's a fair bit amount of shame  and blame thrown her way. It's like she's being punished for having great sex.

I reckon there should be a way to avoid all that hassle without giving up all that fun. It would be wonderful if the world doesn't have any malicious lovers or pervy computer technicians. Good luck waiting for that to happen.

And since I'm a nerd, I think the solution has to do with how to use tech securely in your DIY porn:

• After taking a photo or video on your mobile phone, move the file somewhere else (like a portable hard drive or your computer) and delete it from your phone.
• If you're using your computer to store your sexy photos and pics, remember to encrypt your directories. Use something like TrueCrypt.
• When deleting your photos and videos from your computer, make sure it's properly deleted and no traces of it remains. Erase it.
• Keep one copy of your photos and videos. Multiple copies are harder to monitor.
  
• Store your photos in an offline device that only you have access to. Burn them on a CD or DVD and keep it in a place where you store your weed and other illegal substances.

Naive? Perhaps. But that's better than hoping for a world free of malice and perverts.

technorati tags: takebackthetech

Tags: activist stuff, feminist rambling, geekery, life in manila, pop culture, takebackthetech, women and tech
coordinates: manila, philippines
background noise: bjork - army of me

Of course, there are stories. Stories of women being "raped" in Second Life and chat rooms, and how emotionally traumatic it has been for the victims. Stories of Filipinas online automatically being propositioned and harassed the moment they reveal their nationality. Stories of Hot Asian Chicks and how such a label / service / content-type makes for a really special porn site. Stories of women holed up in some secret office in Makati as employees in a virtual prostitution ring. Stories of women whose naked pictures taken in a moment of kinky sex have become the latest office File Attachment (it actually scares me that almost everyone I know in Manila knows someone who has been that).

The thing about these stories is that how true, how serious, how real they are depends on what and whose agenda is on the table.

• Those who deny that there are gender issues in technology will brush these stories aside as some kind of online urban legend -- so utterly improbable that they definitely don't happen in real life.
• Or those who believe that online sexual harrasment is the only gender issue in technology but since there's no real harm done to body, it's not really a serious issue.
• Then there are those who want to have control of the Internet. Those folks use these stories as proof that the Internet is a bad place with bad people that needs Good People to regulate and police it.
• Or those who apply the discourse of Choice to the stories -- if a woman chooses to install the Rape App in her Second Life, then she's asking to be raped, therefore there is no rape.
• Or those silver-lining people who believe that the Hot Asian Women in the World Wide Web of Porn are benefiting financially from their online presence, so it must be an empowering thing.

What bugs me about this is that women are again being sites of debate. Women's experiences online, the content that is generated about them, their further exploitation as a result of everyone being a porn director, these are being used to forward a range of agendas. In the debate about Harmful Content, I'll bet my next salary that someone somewhere will use women's online experience as an ace up their sleeve. And I fear that those who will do that will the be ones who will also call for Censorship and Content Filtering. And the rest, those who disagree with Censorship, will have to take a defensive, dismissive stance against that. The rest will either deny the stories or dismiss their impact on women.

And I will bet my favourite pair of red boots that most of them will be men, and that none of them would be those Hot Asian Chicks that porn sites so love to brag about.

technorati tags: takebackthetech
harmfulcontent

Tags: activist stuff, feminist rambling, takebackthetech
coordinates: london
state of mind: blah

Oh, I can go on and on. Then go on a bit further. Then talk about the problem with huge corporations...

But case in point: A website called Change for Equality, which aims to promote equal rights for women in Iran has been filtered by the government three times in less than two weeks. What this means is that the website (despite numerous domain name changes) has been blocked by the Iranian government -- which further means that ideas about women's equality in Iran are not reaching Iranian people.

For those of you who ever felt like taking a huge bat to their systems administrator for not allowing you to check on your Friendster  account, you know exactly what this is all about. And I hope you can relate with the frustration that government filtering of web content has wrought upon this campaign. So if you have a blog (or two), spend a few minutes cutting and pasting the text below in your respective spaces:

“Change for Equality,” the site of the One Million Signatures Campaign, has been filtered for the third time in less than two weeks. Despite having transferred the contents of our site to yet another domain www.we4change.com, a number of activists involved in the Campaign have decided to support our efforts further, through the establishment of weblogs, aptly titled “Change for Equality” where new articles placed on our site will also be featured.

Along these lines and based on its commitment to the continued dissemination of information about the Campaign, the Media Committee of the Campaign, is requesting all webloggers to assist us. Specifically we are asking that webloggers around the world establish blogs titled “Change for Equality” and post news about the Campaign as well as articles which appear on our site

Through this effort, we can assist in the free flow of information about the Campaign and in so doing we can also collectively object to the practice of filtering in Iran.

Not only is our contact and connection with our readers interrupted each time the site is filtered, but we are forced to expend an enormous amount of energy in reestablishing new sites. The purchase of new domains cost us 10,000 Tomans (roughly $12) each time. As a result, the continued filtering of our sites also puts a financial burden on the Campaign, which relies solely on the voluntary contributions of Campaign members and supporters to cover expenses. As such, any other suggestions for the elimination of the negative impact of filtering are most welcome.

In our initial effort to address the problem of continued filtering of our site, 6 weblogs have been established and launched. These weblogs along with our site will be updated simultaneously. Individuals interested in receiving information on new posts to our site and addresses for unfiltered websites and weblogs disseminating Campaign information should add the following Yahoo ID to their messengers: we4change@yahoo.com.

To share with us the address of new weblogs dedicated to sharing information about the Campaign, you can contact the Media Committee of the Campaign at onlinewechange@gmail.com.

New articles on the Campaign can currently be viewed on the site of the Campaign as well as on the following blogs:

http://we-change1.blogfa.com/

http://wechange1.blogspot.com/

http://wechange.blogfa.com/

http://we4change.blogspot.com/

http://we4change.blogfa.com

http://we-change5.blogfa.com/

Tags: activist stuff, feminist rambling, women and tech
coordinates: manila, philippines
state of mind: blank
background noise: kitty cats fighting over a plastic bag

Well here you go, a woman who is not afraid to speak her mind. Yay. But what to do when her mind goes against what you believe in?

Over at flinkdesign, a blogger called Mir (a technonerd feminist) has a huge entry against the Take Back the Tech campaign, ranting against how the campaign places women once again in a "victim", us-against-them position. This time in relation to tech.

To be honest, a lot of what she says makes sense to me. I myself cringe at the almost knee-jerk strategy of using the victimisation of women to justify calls for women's empowerment. I've always believed that the call for women's empowerment didn't need any justification. Ditto, gender equality. Whenever someone asks me "why focus on gender?", I almost always respond with "why not.".

I also get her point about how women who have never owned Technology can take back the tech. Like how are we supposed to take back something that wasn't even ours to begin with. She's not the first person who has raised that.

But in the same vein, we should recognise that there are cases of "victimisation" of women in relation to technology. How there are very few women on decision-making tables in relation to ICT. How there are gender differences in how men and women have access to technology. How gender-based stereotypes persist in how men and women are represented on the Internet. How techie women are rare and are therefore the exceptions and not the rule.

But I suppose what Mir is really reacting against is the relationship between violence against women and ICTs. That's her main beef with the campaign. She's saying that there is no relation,  that "Take Back the Tech is missing the point by focusing on the gendered/bodified ramifications of techno-society (porn , stalking and rape to name just a few). Violence now is so subtle, so inscribed in the way we think about ourselves and the lives we live, that I would doubt we even consider it violence."

Then she ends with this: "I certainly don't think of myself as committing a violent act every time I return my damaged Ipod and get a shiny new one thanks to my watertight Applecare agreement."

Huh?

How did the point come from how gendered/bodified ramifications of techno-society and conclude with how having a damaged Ipod fixed is not a violent act? Such Straw Man tactics are not nice.

I also don't get how someone who rants against the assumptions the campaign is making about women (as weak, powerless victims of the big bad techie-male) bases her rant on her own assumptions of the women behind the campaign and what the campaign is all about.

I am so tempted to respond point by point to that blog. But what's the point? The lovely thing about being a Pro Heckler is that you can take pithy potshots and critical comments -- and never have to worry about rebuttals. I highly doubt that Mir will be up for a real discussion on what she's said. Heh. How's that for an assumption?

Tags: activist stuff, feminist rambling, takebackthetech, women and tech
coordinates: manila, philippines

It's frustrating chasing Feminists -- to do tech-related things. Frustrating because I know the reason why they're not responding is not a lack of interest or knack for tech-related matters. The reason is that Feminists already have too much on their plates.

I've spent the past week and a half trying to get women to participate in this open source camp. The organisers are aiming to have at least 30% of the participants be women -- in response to the reality that there are not enough women participating in open source initiatives. A reality that women who are in open source are hoping to change. So here's an opportunity for women to attend an open source camp. The organisers want women. But there have been few applications from women. So I've been chasing up just about every woman in Asia Pacific who might be interested and asking them to please, please, please, please with cherry on top, apply for the camp!

On top of that, the past few months have been about encouraging women to participate in the Take Back the Tech campaign. That's been a lot more successful -- perhaps because the campaign is closer to women's realities? Because violence against women (sadly) is a common theme for a lot of women and so the campaign resonates. It makes sense for Feminists to participate in it. So now we've got bloggers and women submitting postcards and linking campaign icons on their site. But at the same time, a lot of the Feminist communities we've approached for collaboration have remained unresponsive.

This has been a chronic reality of my work-life: getting frustrated about getting women to take technology more seriously. It's like chasing after a moving train. Or trying to schedule an appointment with the busiest people on earth.

And I understand. 100%. There are older issues out there. There are enough issues that Feminists and women are dealing with. And the issues are not going to be resolved in one life time, for sure. I understand why many Feminists are not taking technology seriously. I'm sure that once issues like violence against women, illiteracy, unfair gender division of labour, women's human rights, equal political representation, women's health are addressed, technology will be next on the agenda. I understand. I get it.

Which makes my frustration a lot more ...frustrating. Because I get the sinking feeling that it will never be fully on the Feminist table. And I sometimes feel like a brat about wanting tech issues on women's agenda, given that the women's agenda is already full to the brim with other issues.

I also fear that if we don't take hold of technology right now, there will come a time when it will be too late for women to be fully involved in the decision-making, agenda-setting and design aspects of it. That another five years of having only a handful of women and women's groups taking part in the political aspects of technology will mean that by the time other Feminists and women catch on on just how political technology is, it will be too late. Technology would have progressed in a way that it's a huge part of everyone's lives -- and women will be relegated to the role of users and consumers. That's already happening. I'm just hopeful that right now, it's not too late to change it.

technorati tags: takebackthetech

Tags: activist stuff, feminist rambling, takebackthetech, women and tech
coordinates: manila, philippines
background noise: Lucia and Alfonso wrestling somewhere near my feet

I hope so. There are some pretty interesting Ka-BLOGgers out there.

Over at Addicted to Chocolates, there are some pretty interesting statistics on violence against women that's worth checking out.

Over at What's Up with Fi?, she presents an interesting payback to abusers -- tell his parents about it! Brilliant!

For anyone who wants to keep track of the Ka-BLOGgers, go to this address: http://www.takebackthetech.net/blogathon/rss.php.

I am completely addicted to that URL :-)

*****

I know this entry is such a cop out. But today's been extra hectic for me so I've no original thoughts... I'll make up for it tomorrow.

technorati tags: takebackthetech

Tags: activist stuff, feminist rambling, takebackthetech, women and tech
coordinates: manila, philippines

I've long cringed at the the term "cybercrime", more for reasons doing with fashionable semantics. I simply thought that attaching the prefix "cyber" to anything to make sound more modern and in-the-now was kinda corny. Kinda of like "e" is attached to everything that has to do with new technologies. Kind of baduy.

(Yes, I have too much time in my hands and air in my brain that I obsess about these things.)

But the deeper reasons for the inner whince that results from the word "cybercrime" became apparent to me sometime in the middle of some ITU conference on gender and ICTs sometime in October 2001. In that conference, there was a panel on cybercrime and gender. And since most of the participants were government ICT regulators, the conclusions they drew were predictable. Namely, that because cybercrime was bad, especially because they make bigger victims out of women, the Internet and all its cybercrime must be controlled. Of course, by the only institution known to human-kind that knows everything and has the public's (and women's) best interests at heart: The Government.

In my stubborn, borderline purist head, and in my limited experience, everytime the word "cybercrime" is mentioned, the next word would be "censorship". And what pisses me off about it most is that women are being used to justify calls for censorship. And what pisses me off some more is that some women actually think censorship would actually protect them and end the exploitation of women in *ahem* cyberspace.

It bugs the hell out of me because once again, women are placed in a position of needing to protected. That because the Internet has exacerbated ways in which women are being mis-represented, exploited, stereotyped and victimised, women need to have policies in place that will keep them safe from the evils of the Internet. It's hilarious that for all the advances in technologies the world has achieved for itself, the world still generally thinks that women can't do anything for themselves.

OK. Maybe it's hilarious in an I-don't-know-what-else-to-do-but-laugh-my-ass-off kind of way. Pretty frustrating. And cringe-worthy.

(The amount of goosebumps that have taken up residence on my arms at using the term "cyber" way too much in this entry would make any goose envious, by the way.)

*****
And so begins ka-BLOG! The 16-day blogfest for the Take Back the Tech campaign...

technorati tags: takebackthetech

Tags: activist stuff, feminist rambling, takebackthetech, women and tech
coordinates: manila, philippines
state of mind: sleepy
background noise: some tv show my brother's watching

ka-BLOG! TAKE BACK THE TECH!
www.takebackthetech.net
ideas@takebackthetech.net
25 Nov to 10 Dec

Calling all bloggers!

ka-BLOG! We want to take over the blogosphere for 16 days.

ka-BLOG! is a 16-day blog fest for the Take Back the Tech Campaign. It is open to anyone and everyone - girls, boys, everyone beyond and more -- who wants to share their thoughts, write poetry and prose, post graphics / pictures, rant, rave, heckle, make snide remarks, stick their
tongue out at violence against women, and how online communications can exacerbate or help eliminate VAW.


What is the campaign about?

It is simply a call for every person– women and men, who uses online communications (ICTs), e.g. for chatting, emailing, blogging, doing
websites or developing tools, to use ICTs for activism against VAW (violence against women) for 16 days. Primarily, we are asking women and grrls to “Take Back The Tech!” But you don’t have to be female to disagree with violence faced by women and be part of the campaign to transform gender relations. Unequal power relations lie at the heart of VAW, and this is apparent from the streets to online spaces. So we are saying technology should be used for equality, not to perpetuate violence.

How to ka-BLOG?

commit: commit yourself to 16 days of blogging about violence against women and technology. Email ideas@takebackthetech.net if you want to sign up as a Ka-BLOGger :)

identify: make it known by putting a takebackthetech icon on your blog — create your own or grab a few icons from our Campaign Tools and Materials.

post: post something about the how you think violence against women connects with information communications technology? have a story? heard something quirky? snap a picture? think this is serious? doesn't make much sense? anything at all! just post one thing a day from 25 nov to 10 dec on thinking about violence against women

tag it: use "takebackthetech" to tag your posts

link back: send in your bloglinks and and we'll rss your posts to the campaign website throughout the 16 days

expand: widen the campaign to your readers by linking your blog to the campaign site.


What to ka-BLOG! About?

So long as it's about violence against women (well, against) and how it connects to ICTs (and vice versa). So long as it's about gender relations. So long as it's about how women can have more control over technology. So long as it's about women and gender equality.

It does not matter to us if the blog entries come in the form of jokes, limmericks, poetry, short stories, blurbs, graphics, pictures, articles, creative narratives.

We welcome bloggers in different languages!

So ka-BLOG! with us!

For more information on ka-BLOG!, go http://www.takebackthetech.net

[FYI. In Filipino slang, "ka-BLOG" would mean someone you blog with.]

technorati tags: takebackthetech

Tags: activist stuff, feminist rambling, women and tech
coordinates: manila, philippines
background noise: hbo movie on tv

I should have done this sooner. But travelling and a busted wifi card didn't really allow me to.

==================

“Take Back The Tech!” - an online campaign for the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence. http://www.takebackthetech.net

What is the campaign about?

It is simply a call for every person– women and men, who uses online communications (ICTs), e.g. for chatting, emailing, blogging, doing websites or developing tools, to use ICTs for activism against VAW (violence against women) for 16 days.

Primarily, we are asking women and grrls to “Take Back The Tech!” But you don’t have to be female to disagree with violence faced by women and be part of the campaign to transform gender relations. Unequal power relations lie at the heart of VAW, and this is apparent from the streets to online spaces. So we’re now saying technology should be used for equality, not to perpetuate violence.

The question is, how? This is where you come in with what you know and come up with answers.

What can you do?

Right now, we are building the site for this campaign to happen. A working space has been created to list out the different things that are needed, and you will definitely be able to inject stuff you know into it. Some examples are:

• Writing “How To” guides, like how to clear your cache, how to make sure your email communications are secure etc.
• Submit online tools and applications that you came across that mightbe handy on this issue
• Share your story, or something you know happened. E.g. someone who had been cyber-stalked and what she did, the number of unwanted porn spam you get everyday, or a brilliant and creative initiative that works to end VAW online, etc.
• Translate resources and article into your local language.
• Create icons, images and graphics
• Suggest ideas on what can be done for the 16 Days. e.g. change your IM status message for 16 days, or email signature, or googlebombing.
• Think of people or organisations that you know who would like to take up this campaign on their website etc
• Offline things that could happen (uhm. stencil revolution ;))
• Anything else you think is missing!

What Next?

Just go to the working space and register as a user. Then check out the different sections and what is needed for that. Put in what you know, your ideas and your thoughts!

1. Go to: http://www.takebackthetech.net/wiki/tiki-index.php
2. Click on “register” (right hand bar, under “Login”
3. Fill in your information, then click on “register”.
4. Check your email, and click on the link.
5. You are now registered and can submit content on any of the sections!
6. Tell someone you know that might be keen to take this on, and have knowledge, ideas and information that they would like to share.

All the stuff here will be part of the building block for the campaign site, which together, we’ll get to as many ICTs users as we know to “Take Back The Tech!” for 16 Days.

technorati tags: takebackthetech

Tags: activist stuff, feminist rambling, women and tech
coordinates: manila, philippines
state of mind: calm
background noise: sin city on dvd