Are the Internet and new technologies revolutionizing women’s rights? Difficult to be exhaustive, since the innovations are numerous. While the uses of artificial intelligence abound in the field of health, some of them hold promise for improving women’s health. This is the case of advances in the early detection of cancers, particularly those of the breast.
More recently, many startups have entered the “FemTech” (short for “women” and “technology”) niche. These technological solutions aim to cover the different aspects of women’s health, some of which are still too taboo: menopause, reproductive health, well-being and sexual health, postpartum… In France, 81 startups are identified in this field, according to the first mapping carried out at the end of 2022 by the Femtech France association.
Censorship and exploitation of personal data
So cheer up? Not so fast. Recent cases involving tech giants show that women’s rights, online and offline, are still widely violated.
While the United States has revoked the right to abortion, a 17-year-old American woman was prosecuted last August for terminating her pregnancy in Nebraska after 23 weeks. These charges were presented after the examination of her private conversations transmitted by Facebook to the authorities.
Also in August, the social network also limited access to a Michigan Planned Parenthood post. He criticized the promotion of abortion pills while abortion remains legal in this state. While Google announced last July the removal of abortion-related search and location data, new analysis in December showed that the search engine still stores this data to a large extent.
In France, Facebook also allowed the distribution of hundreds of anti-abortion ads from the IVG.net platform, for several tens of thousands of euros.
The design of the technology, still far from parity
The social network, regularly criticized on the subject, assumes a moderation policy with variable geometry. In 2019, Facebook censored an Australian breast cancer campaign for “nudity.”
Moderation, largely automated among the tech giants, refers to the different biases of algorithms and other artificial intelligence systems… And therefore those who think and design them. Technology design is still a man’s affair. As of June 30, 2022, only 37% of employees were women at Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, according to its latest annual financial results.
The same observation at Google, which has succeeded in imposing its products on most – from its search engine to its YouTube video platform – and, therefore, shapes the use of the Internet. Just 37.5% of employees were women, according to its 2022 Gender and Diversity Report.
The digital, a tool for the emancipation of feminist causes?
“For more than a decade, the web has become a breeding ground for the explosion of feminisms belonging to various currents,” writes the sociologist Josiane Jouët in her book “Numuelle, féminisme et société” published in 2022. She has studied in particular the dynamic activist on major platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube) between fall 2017 and fall 2021.
In particular, there was a before and after #MeToo. Appearing on the Internet in 2017, this hashtag follows the revelations of the Harvey Weinstein case, a director accused of sexual harassment and assault by several actresses.
Source: BFM TV
