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The Internet and Gender Equality Advocacy in Latin America

Posted on: Monday, 3 October 2005, 12:00 CDT

By Friedman, Elisabeth Jay

ABSTRACT

This article examines the internet's potential to democratize gender equality advocacy in Latin America. Based on field research in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, it challenges the assumption that the internet's horizontal organization and widespread dissemination inherently or inevitably lead to greater democratization. It advances two interrelated arguments. First, the internet's potential to foster democratic relations and effective strategies in civil society depends on the consciousness with which advocates adopt, share, and deploy the technology. Second, the internet is a critical resource for marginalized or socially suspect groups and subjects, providing a unique means to express and transmit often ostracized ideas and identities.

Although contemporary Latin American civil societies emerged in opposition to authoritarian regimes, they have become central to democratic politics over the last 25 years. The number of civil society organizations has boomed, intervening on behalf of citizens in the still less-than-perfect democracies that characterize the region. Gender equality advocates are among the most vibrant participants in this arena. As one state after another has moved toward some form of democratic governance, women's movements and organizations have grown increasingly vocal in their claim that democratization must be extended to gender-based issues in both public and private life.

As the demand for gender equality has spread across the region, advocates have diversified their strategies and goals. Many have exchanged the social movement-based action they developed under authoritarian rule for more structured nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Women are represented in the bureaucracy of most states by a national women's agency, and have negotiated an institutional presence at local levels. Poor, indigenous, and Afro-Latin women have developed their own distinct organizations and perspectives on gender equality. In recent years, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights advocates have joined the struggle for gender- based justice and equal rights. Since the early 1990s, tangible successes include political candidate gender quotas in 16 countries, legislation against domestic violence in 18, and national laws banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in 5 (Aimeras et al. 2002; Alnevall et al. 2003; IGLHRC 2003; International Lesbian and Gay Association 1999).

The advocacy of gender equality in Latin America has expanded along with the development of a powerful new tool for nongovernmental activism: the internet. Advocates so routinely use ICT (information and communication technology) that it has become a "new utility" (Friedman 2003).' Its true impact, nevertheless, is hotly disputed across the region. While proponents declare that it extends nonhierarchical networks across national and international borders, skeptics worry about the creation of "digital divides," divisions based on ICT access that exacerbate traditional racial, gender, and class inequalities.2

Because ICT is clearly critical to the everyday efforts of gender equality and other civil society advocates, this article moves beyond arguments about online Utopias and technological dystopias to explore the reality of virtual reality-that is, the lived experiences of people using the internet to facilitate social change. It relies on empirical examination to advance two related arguments. First, ICT's potential to foster democratic relations and effective strategies in civil society depends on the consciousness with which advocates adopt, share, and deploy the technology. second, the internet is a critical resource for marginalized or socially suspect groups and subjects, providing a unique space for the expression and transmission of often ostracized ideas and identities.

The internet's effects on civil society have become a topic of concern for communications scholars, political scientists, and sociologists. Two of the most prominent lines of inquiry address the tool's internal and external impact. Scholars interested in the internal assessment consider the dynamics of the internet itself, including close examination of information flows, communication patterns, and online identity transformation among civil society- based actors. Those who focus on external evaluation interrogate ICT's consequences for the formal politics of democratization, such as the study of policy-based lobbying efforts and candidate support networks.

While such studies are crucial to understanding contemporaiy democratic politics, they provide only a partial view of the relationship between technology and political change. On the one hand, the analysis of virtual communities or online identities is a necessary element of a holistic examination of civil society, but it risks ignoring the sometimes messy offline or real-time impact on individuals and organizations. On the other hand, concentrating exclusively on the sphere of formal politics denies the importance of civil society activity as political participation in its own right, "disregardting] the possibility that nongovernmental or extra- institutional public arenas . . . might be equally essential to the consolidation of meaningful democratic citizenship" (Alvarez et al. 1998, 14). Although the external or perhaps "ultimate" outcome of internet-enhanced civil society activity is highly important, civil society, as a critical political arena in Latin American democracies, merits focused and full consideration of its own internal dynamics. End results, such as policy formation, matter to democratic politics, but assessing the impact of ICT on the practices and processes of civil society also tells us about how democratization is taking shape in Latin America. This study is thus part of a larger effort.

The internet's influence on advocacy communities can best be evaluated by examining two elements: boundaries and structure. The term boundaries refers to questions of inclusion and autonomy in civil society. Structure means the ways advocacy gets done: the forms of organization along with the strategies employed in them. This study focuses on these two elements because both have been the subject of ongoing debates in feminist and women's organizing over the last three decades and are immanent in more general studies of ICT and civil society, making them key empirical indicators in evaluating larger questions of democratic participation and representation. To ground these concepts and issues, this study draws from extensive field research on gender equality organizing in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico. Based on those findings, this article argues that the internet is transforming both the boundaries and the structure of gender equality organizing, definitively enhancing current political vibrancy but adding further challenges to longstanding disputes.

It is undeniable that ICT access reinforces traditional divisions between classes and races, often maintaining, if not constricting, existing boundaries in civil society. In response, some organizations are attempting to bridge digital divides through "chains of access," or by directly teaching ICT skills to those without class, race, or gender privilege. These actions show, ironically, how digital exclusions have encouraged advocates to think "beyond the box" and to work harder to include marginalized groups. At the same time, the internet's relatively low cost has enabled those with socially marginalized perspectives, such as lesbian organizations and grassroots community groups, to disseminate their ideas widely. It also has assured their survival during times of economic crisis. On the surface, then, ICT intensifies conventional divisions between gender equality activists; but a closer look demonstrates that the technology has actually encouraged an existing trend to expand the boundaries of the sector.

The internet is also transforming the structure of gender equality advocacy, if in sometimes contradictory ways. Its facilitation of rapid interaction and information exchange helps to foster feminist ideals of more horizontal relations within organizations while promoting the ever-expanding networks that undergird gender equality advocacy and activism. Yet even as it widens some communities, the internet's extensive transmission of often unverified information multiplies the possibilities of miscommunication, with potentially damaging results. The pressure of incorporating ICT also creates new strains in organizations. Such problems have contributed to animated discussions about how organizations should function and have led to the reaffirmation of the importance of real-time encounters. Many users and scholars celebrate the explosion of easy communication and alternative information made possible by the internet, seeing it as a smooth pathway to enhanced democratic participation. This article shows that both international networks and local groups struggle to cope with the complex results that such "easy" access brings.

This study is grounded in the literature on feminist organizing in Latin America and the experiences of gender equality advocates for several reasons. The vitality of this secto\r across the region and the rich theorizing based on its actions make it an important site for the continued evaluation of new trends in advocacy. There is, moreover, information, admittedly limited and preliminary, suggesting that gender equality advocates have made more effective use of ICT than other sectors (Tavera Fenollosa 2001). Of course, a study that concentrates on one sector is somewhat limited in how much it can be generalized. This focused examination is intended to develop initial theoretical conceptualizations-albeit firmly rooted in empirical observation-rather than to provide a comprehensive guide to internet-enhanced advocacy techniques in the region. As a theory-building exercise, its conclusions about the internet's impact on the boundaries and structure of activism offer insight for civil society as a whole. Interrogating the internet's effects in a particular community (or set of communities) provides a fresh perspective on pivotal questions facing civil society as it assumes an influential role in democratic politics across the region.

THEORIZING FEMINIST ORGANIZING AND ICT IMPACT

Boundaries have long been a central concern of contemporary feminist movements in Latin America.3 Starting in the 1970s from relatively homogeneous beginnings, the field of gender rights advocacy has expanded considerably, though not without contention. Some feminists have objected that the introduction of racial and class-based analysis dilutes their focus on gender oppression and women's liberation. Others across the diverse region have insisted on the need to recognize and address women's-and men's-experiences of subordination in all their variety. "Popular" women, historically marginalized because of their economic, geographic, or ethnic status, have increasingly insisted that middle-class feminist advocates, along with men in popular organizations, should pay heed to the specificities of popular women's material conditions, and have formed their own movements (Stephen 1997). Afro-Latin women have organized nationally and regionally to draw attention to the intersection of the issues of race, class, and gender (Galvan 1995). Regional feminist meetings have illustrated the complexity of incorporating heterogeneous and conflicting interests based on class, ethnicity and race, sexuality, and more recently, age and physical ability while trying to maintain some common political or ideological ground (Alvarez et al. 2002). However fierce the debates and however imperfect the outcome, the commitment to the inclusion of women from all backgrounds has become nearly an article of faith among feminists.

Another primary goal of feminist action has been to nurture distinct political identities, most visibly expressed in conflicts over autonomy. The history of women's movements over the last 30 years can be seen as a series of struggles around political independence, whether from leftist movements, political parties, or the state (Alvarez et al. 2002). Although political allegiance and the accompanying possibility of cooptation have always been one element in the struggle over autonomy, material resources have become another crucial arena of conflict (Alvarez 1999). The fierce disagreements of the 1990s over whether close linkage to democratic governments and international foundations would divert or even pervert activism have subsided, but feminist advocates remain disquieted by the influence of external actors and resources (Malclonaclo and Liclid 1996; Shumaher and Vargas 1997). Disputes over "discursive autonomy"-the ability to frame topics, such as violence against women or women's economic rights, according to local or national realities, as opposed to transnational or international concepts-illustrate the extent of this concern.

The internet's potential impact on this sector of advocacy may be inferred from the more general literature. Many analysts who have documented how NGOs and social movements use ICT in local, national, and global arenas see it creating an "internet commons," an alternative public sphere of interaction and influence (Lon et al. 2001; Norris 2002; Dilevko 2002; Warkentin 2001; Hammon and Lash 2000; Saco 2002). In this model, civil society actors benefit from the internet's openness as a space for political exchange. Once organizations invest in set-up costs, ICT becomes an inexpensive, horizontal (nonhierarchical) organizing tool with international reach. Its ability to connect actors who cannot easily meet face-to- face extends communities. The speed with which advocates can disseminate self-generated information promotes rapid replication of efforts and helps to widen dialogue (Hajnal 2002). ICT may be of particular importance to small or marginal groups with limited finances or expectations of mainstream support for their views. Thus, many observers believe that the internet can be an inclusive arena for action and expression, making it a potentially valuable site for gender equality advocacy.

Still, the tool may be more effectively exploited by well-funded and well-networked organizations (Bimber 2003). Indeed, a number of scholars have found that politics online is "politics as usual"; their evidence demonstrates that political veterans are employing the technology to advocate for traditional goals (Margolis 2000; Norris 2001). Its skewed distribution has resulted in familiar exclusions along the lines of gender, race, and class. Analysts have documented the growth of a digital divide between internet haves and have-nots, especially in the developing world, where only a small percentage of the population benefits from both access and the all- important "digital literacy" (Ebo 1998; Schultz 2001; Nulens et al. 2002; Buyer and Sikoska 2003; Warschauer 2003, 196). In addition, the loosely regulated privatization of telecommunications throughout the developing world threatens to exacerbate the existing concentration of coverage and services. Thus, substantial obstacles remain in achieving the internet's promise of inclusion and autonomous action.

These boundary considerations are inextricably tied to matters of structure, or how gender equality advocates do their work. Feminist movements have wrestled with the question of which organizational structure is best suited for promoting gender equality goals, which range from diverse representation to consciousness raising to ending legal discrimination (Friedman 2000). Current gender equality efforts rely on expanding networks of advocates in civil society, the state, and political parties. Such networks sustain a common organizational strategy that helps to bridge heterogeneous organizations and locations: coalition building. Coalitions have been effective in many countries, bringing together those of differing political views and social positions (Alvarez 1990; Gonzalez and Kampwirth 2001; Baldez 2002). They facilitate temporary alliances to achieve specific goals without requiring ongoing negotiation over the vast differences that can separate advocates.

These differences have become evident during the democratization process of the last few decades. Many advocates have left movement tactics behind and founded or joined more professionalized NGOs (Alvarez 1999; Franceschet 2003). They have done so to become valid interlocutors in a democratic political sphere purportedly open to citizen-based lobbying. They have also clone so to capture resources from foundations or international institutions that require routinized practices, such as a regular staff, formal project proposals, and evaluation procedures, in order to grant support. Such organizational development has provoked debate. Some activists who have chosen, often for reasons of autonomy, to eschew "NGOization" have accused others of becoming "institutionalized," adapted to the hierarchical framework, if not agendas, of patriarchal institutions (Alvarez et al. 2002). These self- identified "autonomous feminists" point out that such institutionalization can restrict participation to those who are deemed qualified by the government and external funders. They prefer to promote nonhierarchical interaction and self-reliance to avoid the cooptation of feminist ideals and transformative action.

What unites the multiple strategies of feminist action is a common desire to oppose worldviews that privilege traditional conceptions of gender relations. Whether consulting with a state agency, mobilizing women in a peripheral neighborhood, or coordinating a regionwide coalition, advocates seek to present information that is not in general circulation. They succeed by exchanging and distributing information, which implies that a capacity to produce and receive a steady flow of alternative information is critical to their success.

Can the internet enhance the ways gender equality advocates work? Certain "cyberfeminists" theorize that the medium may be inherently suited to promoting women's activism because it encourages nonhierarchical, even nonlinear types of interaction (Plant 1995; Sampaio and Aragon 1997). The potential for horizontal communication can democratize interactions within and across a wide variety of organizations. Internet-based networking has formed an electronic architecture for national or transnational movements (Garrido and Halavais 2003). The heterarchically organized global social justice mobilizations, in which scattered local and national nodes exploit the internet to coordinate protests across the world, vividly illustrate this benefit. ICT is also a factor in the development of "postbureaucratic" forms of interest representation that are independent of substantial material or human resources, formally structured organizations, or static interests (Bimber 2003). The potential even of small groups to act as sources of nonmainstream, often self-generated information is a key element of these changing structures.

New challenges to organizingemerge with the adoption of ICT, however. Some observers warn against "essentialist stances which posit that technologies must be based on universal feminine attributes and values" (Shade 2002, 83). Others have found that the openness and lack of hierarchy can be counterproductive (APC Women 1997; Danitz and Strobel 1999; Huyer 1999; Liberty 1999). In particular, the rapid and widespread transmission of information can have negative consequences. Verifying information can be difficult, while information overload and pressure to develop websites places new burdens on often underfunded organizations (Ayers 1999; Bach and Stark 2002). ICT does not guarantee the quality of the information transmitted; for example, Latin American women's electronic distribution lists have been seen as repetitive, somewhat parochial, and lacking in political prioritization (Bonder 2002). Because electronic communication may not facilitate the trust necessary to establish consensus or ensure ongoing alliances (Bach and Stark 2002; Gurak and Logic 2003), many advocates insist on the ongoing importance of face-to-face interactions, or strategies that involve internet communications as only one facet of advocacy (Lebert 2003; Hajnal 2002).

Who participates in these communications and how they do have significant implications for Latin American gender equality advocacy. ICT's "social embeddedness" (Warschauer 2003) makes the context in which it is employed a salient factor in its results (Youngs 1999; Lon et al. 2001). The following study of gender equality organizing in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico respects ICT's social embeddedness while building a theoretical framework centered on boundaries and structure.

THE ENCOUNTER Is RICHER THAN THE EMAIL

Most of the scholarship on civil society ICT usage has been speculative, theoretical, or anecdotal. Although empirical research is growing, much of it studies global trends or the developed world (Norris 2001; Pickerill 2001; Drost and Jorna 2000; Levine 2001; Warkentin 2001) or examines movements opposing political regimes (Danitz 1999; Knudson 1998; Ronfeldt et al. 1998; Garrido and Halavais 2003). The existing research, moreover, often depends on single case studies or online sources, such as websites and electronic surveys (Shade 2002; Lins Ribeiro 1998; Garrido and Halavais 2003; Dilevko 2002). Limited cases do not allow for more generalizable conclusions, and online sources may not reveal the texture and complexities of ICT usage in organizations or people's various experiences with it.

Interviewees affirmed the need to go beyond analyzing websites and sending email questionnaires. As the coordinators of IndesoMujer, in Rosario, Argentina, explained,

"The meeting and in-person discussion are much richer. If not, why did you come to see us, if you could've sent this [questionnaire] in an email?"

"The encounter is richer than contact by email."

"Yes, always. The personal exchange develops creativity more, [and] thought."

"Look, if you had sent all of this by email! One of us would have had to answer it!"

"And we'd be annoyed, because we don't like to answer them!"

"And also this way there is a give and take: we also learn . . . it's a [different] thing!" (Chiarotti et al. 2002)

They were not alone in their insistence that there was only so much a researcher could expect to learn online, particularly if relying on the kindness of "virtual" strangers.

This article's empirical evidence comes from a field research- based study of ICT usage among one hundred gender equality organizations in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, carried out in 2001- 2.4 These were the three countries with the greatest numbers of internet users in the region during that period (International Telecommunication Union 2003); they boast the largest numbers of hosts with specific country suffixes in Latin America and the greatest regional bandwith, or capacity for internet traffic (TeleGeography 2003). These are, moreover, countries where long histories of gender-based discrimination have inspired civil societybased gender equality advocacy efforts, especially in the context of democratization (Feijoo 1998; Alvarez 1990, 2000; Lamas 2001).

In these three countries, the field research covered an extremely diverse sample, with organizations that varied in geographic location, longevity, scope, resources, and purpose. This diversity was a deliberate attempt to be responsive to the reality of the sector; gender equality advocates work in small villages as well as capital cities, with and without external funding, and deal with many different manifestations of gender inequality. Precisely because of the sector's diverse makeup, capturing its heterogeneity is essential to evaluating how successfully it enacts democratic participation and representation. These issues cannot be accurately assessed by relying on only a few central groups.

The sample of interviews was divided into a third per country: 32 in Mexico and 34 each in Argentina and Brazil. Ninety-three of the interviews were carried out in person, one by telephone, and six via email; several follow-up interviews were carried out via email and others in person.5 All interviews were based on a questionnaire with survey and open-ended questions. Representing 21 cities, the sample contains a fair amount of intracountry diversity. The interviews are divided between the major cities (Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, So Paulo) and smaller cities or towns (such as Comitan, Jujuy, and Olinda) in each country.

Besides intracountry diversity, the sample offers variety in the age, size, funding, and focus of the organizations. Forty percent have been active for 10 years or less; 49 percent between 11 and 20 years, 11 percent between 21 and 40 years. Fifty-five percent of the organizations have fewer than 10 staff members; 22 percent between 11 and 20; and 12 percent between 21 and 50. Three groups have between 64 and 400 members. In addition, 7 networks bring together between 8 and 215 groups.

Forty-two of the groups receive financial support from their own governments and 6 from other national funders; 41 from U.S. foundations and 12 from U.S. nonprofits; 34 from European governments and organizations; 13 from U.N.-related organizations or agencies; and 6 from the Inter-American Development Bank.6 Eleven have no funding at all, and only two receive membership dues. Other sources of income include payments for services or publications and personal resources (that is, salaries from other employment).

While the organizations' objectives vary enormously, all focus in some way on gender equality. Of course, this is quite a broad category. It includes, among other subjects, women's rights and leadership; reproductive and sexual health and rights; violence against women and within families; women's access to microcredit and small business development; feminist communications, feminist theory, and cyberfeminism; Afro-Brazilian women, indigenous women, and racism; lesbianism, homosexuality, and sexuality; and paternity, masculinity, and sexism. To achieve their goals, the groups carry out a wide variety of activities, ranging from consciousness raising to consulting to advocacy. They run bookstores, community centers, and archives, and provide services, training, and evaluation. They also develop and distribute research and analysis in print and electronic form. The organizations work at various levels: 23 percent identify as local, 15 percent as functioning at the state level, 16 percent at the national level, 16 percent at both local and national levels, 21 percent at national and international levels, and 9 percent at all three.

This wide-ranging survey of organizations offers substantial evidence of ICT's effects on gender equality communities. A brief history of ICT usage among advocates helps to illuminate the findings. ICT usage expanded rapidly with the spread of the commercial internet in the mid-1990s, though many users went online earlier, with the help of what Csar Coria of the Mexico City-based Men's Collective for Egalitarian Relations evocatively termed "civil servers" (servidores civiles) (Coria 2002). In the late 1980s, these organizations became the first internet service providers (ISPs) for social movements and civil society organizations throughout Latin America. Although at first they were a key source of access, commercial competition has since made them reevaluate their ongoing role, and many are shifting their emphasis from service provision to individual services, such as web design and information management training.

As it did in other world regions, the 1995 U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women played a catalytic role in getting Latin American women's organizations online. Although the conference took place as the internet became commercially available, increasing access took deliberate work. The Women's Programme of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC, the most prominent transnational organization promoting civil society ICT usage) engaged in proactive organizing that ranged from ensuring access at the conference itself to coordinating internet workshops both on and off site (Boix et al. 2001; Lon et al. 2001; Stienstra 2002; Farwell et al. 1999; Shade 2002; Banks et al. 2000; Davis 1998).

Despite these early efforts, easy and extensive access was and is far from universal; about a third of the survey sample relies on free providers, few computers, and a single email address. While smaller, underfunded, and grassroots organizations tend not to have a website, the relatively large number of organizations with websites (or plans for them) shows how important this virtual presence has become. Still, most gender equality advocates rely exclusively on email. It is a powerful tool, harnessed not only for communication among organizations but also for receiving information from distribution lists.7 T\he 250-plus lists mentioned by activists help to create and sustain ongoing networking efforts in and between Latin American countries. In descending order of popularity, the five lists that circulate to all three countries are from Uruguay, Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, and Spain. Brazilian lists do not circulate much among groups in Mexico and Argentina, although Brazilians report receiving about a fourth of their lists from other Latin American countries. Thus, besides the facilitation of national information exchange, distribution lists seem to be linking advocates across Latin America, with Spain somewhat represented and Brazil's contributions marginalized outside of Brazil. Although ICT has been seen as a key mechanism to internationalize advocacy, it is firmly rooted in text-based exchange-which means that language, and the boundaries that language creates, have a real effect on ICT's potential. In Latin America, reliance on Spanish and Portuguese reinforces the national and, to an extent, regional nature of email- based interaction.

Although this is not a comprehensive study of Latin American gender equality organizations, the large sample size allows for some generalizations on how this sector is engaged with ICT. Simultaneously, the sample's diversity reveals results limited to particular kinds of organizations. Further work disaggregating effects of elements such as specificcountry is left for future analysis.

"SOCIALIZING THE EMAIL": ICT's EFFECT ON BOUNDARIES

This study reveals several significant consequences for the boundaries of gender equality advocacy. Although a majority of Latin Americans lack access to the internet, several organizations believe that it is central to achieving gender equality and are taking steps to solve its uneven distribution. An even stronger finding is the power that ICT gives small, economically or socially marginalized groups to express their ideas and develop their communication strategies. In Latin American gender equality work, the internet does not always replicate "politics as usual." Instead, it encourages the spread of often radical or nonmainstream political perspectives and facilitates contact among their proponents.

Many of the organizations in this study did not find the internet changing the nature of their audiences but simply making communications easier with existing contacts. Almost a quarter (23 percent), however, responded that their profile had expanded in some way. Five specifically mentioned international contacts; several groups discovered that students and domestic and foreign academics had become frequent "e-correspondents." Others noticed that it was easier to reach specific segments of their domestic audience. After they developed a website, for example, a probreastfeeding organization in Olinda, Brazil, found more middle-class people using their services by participating in an online discussion. The largest AIDS organization in Salvador, Brazil, recruited more educated volunteers through its website.

In other words, the worldwide web is providing an outlet for more privileged classes to participate in progressive causes and is expanding the geographical reach of gender equality NGOs. Yet even as middleclass gender equality advocates and their allies outside of Latin America welcome the internet's ability to facilitate their communication and participation, they do not utilize it in communities where they work. The survey found a substantial digital divide that mirrors class and racial or ethnic cleavages. Not one of the 48 organizations that operate in popular communities, whether squatters in urban Argentina or Afro-Brazilians or indigenous Mexicans in rural areas, contacted these populations via email. Several described how their communications depended instead on regular mail or telephone, in some cases a community telephone or even a community radio. In urban Rio de Janeiro, co-coordinators Lucia Javier and Jurema Werneck of the Afro-Brazilian women's rights group Criola explained that they did their outreach in person (2002). In most marginal urban areas, it seemed too dangerous to install computers: the staff of Indeso-Mujer in Rosario, Argentina, noted that the women's center they helped to coordinate "is in a zone of poor barrios, so there you can't take a computer because it would last two seconds" (Chiarotti et al. 2002).

ICT usage is even more precarious in rural areas. Edelmira Diaz, the coordinator of an Argentine network that supports peasant women, explained, "peasant women do not use computers and many do not know that this technology exists" (2001). Others pointed out that they were active in remote rural communities where "there isn't even electric light"-and "where there is no light, there is no telephone"- making computers and email nearly out of the question. Nimia Ana Apasa, the secretary of law and land for the Council of Aborigines of Jujuy, Argentina, made quite clear that the information available from the internet was not a priority for the indigenous communities where she worked.

When I go to the communities, they are dealing with the emergency that the radio has stopped working, the emergency that a woman in labor had to get to town and there was no ambulance, or there were emergencies in school because the bus broke down and the teachers did not come. . . . Sometimes I want to tell them things that are going on in the rest of America or the world, that come to me via email, and sometimes their necessities and the emergencies take all the time and it is like very distant, very difficult to talk about other things. I take them pictures, newsletters from other indigenous peoples . . . but as you can see all this is very hard. (2002)

If the structural barriers of poverty make ICT access rare in rural Latin America, the same barriers also make it difficult to take advantage of internet-generated information in gender equality organizing with rural women and men. Some interview subjects pointed out that in already established networks, uneven email access can result in new forms of exclusion. As Elba Muler cl Fidel, a regional coordinator and the president of the national project committee of the Argentine Federation of Business and Professional Women explained, with email "the communications are much more fluid, but those who do not have it remain outside of everything. That is the drama. Before, communication was more egalitarian. Now it is not egalitarian" (2002). Despite ICT's horizontal and "fluid" nature, it still allows for hierarchies of communication, in some cases creating them where they did not exist before.

To mitigate these hierarchies, if not dismantle them, several respondents gave examples of how they have created "chains of access" by connecting those who cannot go online regularly to those who can. Sara Llovera, the general coordinator of the news agency Women's Communication and Information (CIMAC) in Mexico City, talked about how CIMAC's service, distributing news with a gender perspective, could help to counter the breach "between marginalization and disinformation and the enormous amount of information available on the technological superhighways" because one person with a telephone and internet access in a small town can spread information through other local means. "The internet and newspapers live together. Maybe that's a feminist perspective, to believe in contacting everyone. In a world of disgraceful contrasts . . . [we need] community radio and videoconferencing at the same time" (2002).

Llovera is not alone in her perspective. A section of Indeso- Mujer's free monthly newspaper called "Socializing the Email" covers events and information received electronically; the group distributes the newspaper in local women's centers in poor areas. Although peasants and those from urban barrios themselves are not online, organizers involved with their communities share information with each other via email. Grassroots groups also seek out the potential benefits of ICT even 'when they lack direct access. Zildete Dos Santos Pereira, president of the grassroots organization Women of Alto das Pombas in Salvador, explained that her organization relied on other people, including her daughter and people at the university, to send and receive email for them (2002). These varied efforts show some ways that activists have begun to bridge their own digital divides, extending information and communication resources beyond those who have physical access to ICT. Those without direct access, however, experience the internet as mediated through others rather than using it to express themselves or mobilize independently.

In an approach that applies Llovera's "feminist perspective" to the question of technological inclusion, several organizations are acting to eliminate digital divides and offer the benefits of direct access to those without it. Five groups have projects to teach computing and email skills in poor, Afro-Brazilian, and indigenous communities and to those suffering from HIV/AIDS. The projects vary from making sporadic computer access available at the organization's offices to running workshops on communications and media training. Luciana Siqueira Peregrino and Denise Arcoverde, the communications and executive coordinators of the Origin Group, an Olinda-based organization focusing on the promotion of breastfeeding and, more recently, computer training, described their digital literacy project to train poor urban residents to operate computers. They - were particularly interested in teaching local breastfeeding promoters how to employ internet tools, including web design, so that they could develop their organizations-earning some income, communicating directly with international networks, and carrying out their own programs (2002).

Nilza Iraci, communications coordinator of Geleds-Institute of Black Women in So Paulo, put together the first ICT and media advoca\cy workshop for Afro-Brazilian women in Salvador in 1999. She described having to win support from flinders who objected that ICT was a luxury for a population lacking basic health care and education (2002). She succeeded, and about 20 women participated in a threemonth training project given at the Federal University, where four AfroBrazilian women trainers taught them basic computer skills in a sophisticated lab. Vilma Reis, a sociologist and black women's movement activist who worked on the project, explained that their goal was to teach women technological skills in order to alter the power relations in their organizations.

When you teach a woman to use internet, use fax, use eveiything . . . when she knows how to produce a document of her own, to print, to make an electronic bulletin, to disseminate ideas from the [perspective] of the women inside the organizations, those organizations take on another meaning...because normally it is those women who sustain the organizations. (Reis 2002)

It was not the technology alone that would make the difference.

The technology in itself is nothing fantastic. Fantastic is you putting content in the use of technology. We thought that we should focus on gender and race, so at the same time that the women were learning the technology they also were introduced to issues like sexism, homophobia, racial oppression, safe sex, and also how to deal with the media. (Reis 2002)

Even if the technology was "nothing fantastic," learning how to use it created a authentic sense of empowerment among the participants. Iraci described how the women "were delirious" when they first started using the computers and sent and received their first email messages. The women left the workshop with a concrete skill. In some cases, they received a computer if their organizations did not have one. In all cases, they designed a communications plan that would enable them to broadcast their own messages or organizational identities.

To be sure, efforts to bridge or even erase the digital divide are not limited to feminists. Digital literacy programs are usually oriented toward basic education or employment opportunities. Although these are important goals, as Reis emphasizes, computer training is not inherently transformative. In contrast, the projects described here have been designed and executed to give marginalized people, and women in particular, the power to take central roles in their organizations, to express their own thoughts, to reach broad audiences, to analyze their socioeconomic and political contexts, and to resist misrepresentation of their identities and communities. Although gender equality is not the projects' only emphasis, low- income and Afro-Brazilian women learn about gender while enhancing their leadership capacities. Thus, the internet augments the expression of, and action based on, a wide range of women's perspectives.

Digital exclusion based on the often overlapping categories of class and race or ethnicity is difficult to overcome. Nevertheless, the internet has become very useful for small groups with few resources to assert their presence and enhance their autonomous action. In a region characterized by economic inequality, it is no surprise that the interviewees in this study frequently cited the low cost of going online as a central benefit of ICT. Twenty-six of the 56 groups that answered the question about costs found the internet inexpensive (less than 5 percent of their budgets). Others indicated that their expenses came from telephone charges or computer purchases rather than direct charges for the internet. Moreover, groups could afford this cost on their own: those that reported no external funding paid for access out of their own pockets and used the resource for a range of activities, from establishing free accounts at cybercafes to creating elaborate websites.

Even economic crisis does not necessarily impede the use of ICT. Visits to Argentina in October 2001 and a year later-immediately before and then during Argentina's second "Great Depression"-made it possible to observe the changes during that year. Of the 28 groups that responded to the survey question about changes in usage, many attested to a significant alteration.8 As poverty spread, several noted that the internet was harder to rely on. Yet there was more evidence that it helped to maintain communications during this difficult period, especially among small NGOs doing grassroots organizing. Four interviewees said the crisis had had no impact on their internet usage. Seven others explained that they had depended more heavily on internet resources, including upgrading to cable modems and webcams and enetworking across the region. Some organizations reported using email more during the crisis because it was cheaper than telephone calls or regular mail, whose costs multiplied markedly. Mabel Felippini of Buenos Aires described how the internet had literally kept the Ecumenical Center of Solidary Action, a progressive faith-based organization devoted to community organizing in poor urban neighborhoods, from disappearing.

For purely economic reasons we closed our office last October and we have organized a virtual network with the computers and the email addresses of four staff members. In this way we only have a face-to- face meeting once a week and we don't have to spend money for rent or trips from our houses to an office. And we stay in communication. (2002)

Alicia Soldevilla of Cordoba's Popular Action Service, another project of community organizing with marginal populations, described how the group had operated for a year with no funding at all, a situation that had resulted in the disconnection of one telephone line and the obsolescence of one computer and had made all but local travel prohibitively expensive. But even if the staff could no longer afford to go to provincial or national meetings, she explained, at least they could participate via email, depending on it to let people know that they were "still surviving" (2002). Adriana Rossi of Rosario's Southern Action, a group that studies how the drug economy exploits poor women and children, said that members were trying hard to limit their telephone costs. But, she explained, they could not do without the internet. "Sincerely, it would be like exiling ourselves. Sincerely-no, no, no" (2002). From expressing their anger at the government's mismanagement of the economy to letting the outside world know that their work continued despite enormous obstacles, these Argentine organizations relied on email both to assert their particular viewpoints and to continue expanding the boundaries of gender equality efforts.

The implications of the internet's relatively low costs extend beyond situations of economic crisis. With few resources, nonmainstream groups can establish a virtual presence, communicate internationally, and distribute information from their own perspective. These abilities matter most to such groups, which tend to be quite concerned with maintaining ideological or political independence in what they say and do. As a central example, ICT has emerged as a crucial resource for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. An autonomous lesbian feminist group in Mexico City, Lesbians in Collective, has received only sporadic project-based funding and has been subject to what members believe is government intervention in its email account because of their support of student strikes and peasant organizing. Yet despite its precarious existence, the collective distributes information to 150 contacts, half in Mexico and half international, via a free account. It has employed email to help coordinate national protests against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and to solicit international solidarity (Corona Tinoco 2002). Similarly, Mariana Ferez Ocana, the editorial and design director of LeS VOZ, the lesbian rights NGO and magazine, also based in Mexico City, described how the group's website helped it reach a large audience for little cost and avoid censorship.

It's very good, because we've really developed, lots of people know us, the magnificent thing of having a permanent page there, it's a communications medium that everyone can access, that is very economical, whereas other media are very expensive or even blocked. But it's always there! So for us it's magnificent, and we can put [on it] whatever we want. Nobody's going to censor us, to tell us what we can and can't put on it. There it is, because we want it. (2002)

For lesbian groups, which find visibility a constant and sometimes dangerous struggle, the worldwide web provides an alternative space to assert their identity and enhance their autonomy. With little to no dependence on mainstream media outlets or other organizations, they are free to advance their particular goals for gender equality or transformation.

ICT also helps these groups find each other. Some lesbian organizations received more contacts by email than by regular mail. Email allows those who are wary of revealing their identities to remain anonymous when making contact and facilitates the sharing of crucial information, such as the location of local lesbian organizations or the legal status of lesbian mothers. Norma Mongrovejo, coordinator of the Historical Lesbian Archives of Mexico "Nancy Cardenas," reported receiving regular queries from lesbians outside of Mexico City looking for some way to relieve their isolation (2002). Rosa Marinho, coordinator of planning for the Support Group for the Prevention of AIDS in Salvador, confirmed that email was a frequent source of requests for information on AIDS, and Javier Angonoa, project coordinator for the Gay Group of Bahia, mentioned that the group conducted Yahoo internet groups on AIDS, transvestism, and lesbianism for its members (2002). The internet is a means for communicating a potent mix of inac\cessible information and identity development to marginalized populations. In these cases, ICT can often equal autonomy.

Despite the internet's low access cost and ease of use, however, it does not inherently solve conflicts over autonomy. Its potential to ease organizations' dependence on external financing, if not liberate them from conditions imposed by funding sources, is significant in a social context where the search for external funding is an ongoing, often debilitating source of competition and controversy. But several of the most sophisticated websites themselves rely on significant European or U.S. funding, possibly making it more difficult for them to maintain a completely independent stance.

Members of the Argentine Autonomous Feminist Lesbian Mothers also warned that the web can provide "false" identities. They talked about groups that were known "in Holland" (that is, by Dutch funders) "that aren't known here. They exist online but don't know people on the next block. [It's] a fantasy image. They can use the web, they can use English, write projects, but they do not exist as groups. Except that they exist on the web, so they exist for the rest of the world" (2001). Funders sometimes strain to understand the political reality of national context; by disguising or overrepresenting the contributions of groups that perform better in cyberspace than in local neighborhoods, virtuality may introduce new inequalities in funding assessments. But as groups' own expectations grow to include more professional use of ICT, such as regular website maintenance and the development of sophisticated web design, the search for external funding is bound to intensify.

Deeply rooted social and economic divisions remain a primary feature of Latin America, slowing the contribution that ICT has made to gender equality advocates' efforts toward greater inclusiveness and autonomy. Nevertheless, even as the wildly uneven distribution of the internet reproduces traditional racial and class-based divisions in society, some organizations have focused on extending either internet-generated information or skills to those currently marginalized from cyberspace, broadening the reach and effectiveness of their advocacy. At a minimum, regular email communication among advocates who work with marginalized people helps to knit together these often far-flung communities and provides a means for sharing successful experiences. By ensuring a capacity for self-expression among smaller and nonmainstream organizations, the internet also enhances autonomous action and includes more voices in the gender equality sector. Still, the dependence on external actors, especially foreign funders, and the growing sense that organizalions need a web presence in order to look professional and attract financial support adds a level of complexity to the question of whether ICT can continue to open the boundaries of gender equality - work.

A "DEMOCRATIC TOOL"? ICT's EFFECT ON STRUCTURE

Questions of boundaries and structure overlap considerably, because advocates and their organizations frequently adjust the way they operate in order to ensure inclusivity or independence. The "boundary" concern of inclusivity and the "structural" concern for promoting extensive networking, for example, are quite similar. This study treats them as separable for analytic reasons without denying their empirical connection.

Looking closely at structure-the ways gender equality advocates carry out their daily actions-reveals several striking developments. ICT's horizontal network organization is quite suited to the heavy emphasis that gender equality advocates have long placed on networking. ICT supports rapid communications among distant correspondents, facilitating the network-based strategy of coalition building around specific events while raising international awareness of local problems. Though these communication advances seem ideal, many organizations find themselves laboring to incorporate the, at times, overwhelming amount of information and to manage their many new contacts. Although the increase in information flows is a boon, the complications such flows bring are considerable.

Certainly, ICT has helped to break down hierarchies in activist communities. Cristina Zurutuza, the head of the Argentine branch of the regionwide Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women's Rights (CLADEM), described how email allows national representatives to consult with their home branches directly during regional meetings. Zurutuza found that the internet reinforces CLADEM's "political, not technological, ideology," a belief in participative, consultative democracy, because it improves the group's ability to make decisions by consensus (2001). Norma Sanchis of the Lola Mora Association, a women's rights organization in Buenos Aires that engages in regional and international collaboration, argued that before the internet, international contacts and even documents were concentrated in a few hands. But the "democratic tool" of the internet "allowed for many more women, many more NGOs to integrate into international and regional spaces, to exchange [information]" (2001). Beside the clear evidence of undemocratic access to ICT is evidence of its ability to democratize relations among advocates who already participate on the national or international level.

The network structure favored by gender equality organizations highlights this point. Because advocates often lack support in their local contexts or concentrate on issues that cross geographical boundaries, multigroup and multisite coordination has proven crucial to their success. The internet's capacity for information distribution and rapid communications dramatically enhances these efforts. Jos Aguilar, the coordinator of the Mexico City-based Democracy and Sexuality Network, which focuses on reproductive rights and sex education, said that an internal evaluation determined that the internet was critical in the development of this national organization of more than 200 NGOs because it "made us feel like a network" (2002). Paula Viana, who coordinates the natural childbirth organization Curumim in Recife, explained that although the 250-person Brazilian network they helped to organize was not created online, the internet sustains it, allowing members to meet face-to-face just once a year and making possible a three- organization managing body representing both northern and southern Brazil (2002). ICT sometimes even creates networks among advocates where none previously existed. As Norma Sanchis put it: "As isolated groups, to integrate into global networks, establish a global identity-this would have been impossible without internet" (2001).

The internet has also helped advocates create specifically targeted coalition endeavors, such as lobbying international conferences to include gendered perspectives. Glaucira Csar de Oliveira of Brasilia's Feminist Center for Studies and Consulting described how feminist organizers discovered that gender had been largely ignored in the initial plans for the first World Social Forum in 2001. Via internet, six organizations demanded a meeting with forum coordinators to discuss how to incorporate feminist analysis. They simultaneously issued a communiqu in three languages to alert the global women's movement about what was going on, and received email support from Canada, India, and several European countries. These timely communications had the desired effect (Csar de Oliveira 2002). Several groups reported using the internet to coordinate World Social Forum participation for members of regional networks, including the fundraising necessary for attendance. In another example, Sonia Corra, sexual and reproductive health and rights research coordinator of Development Alternatives for a New Era in Rio de Janeiro, pointed out that email allowed for a rapid response to governments' promotion of religious and cultural relativism on healthcare at a preparatory meeting for the 2002 U.N. World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa. Well-placed activists pressured government contacts to have the language reworked at the conference itself, while Corra monitored progress and helped plan the on-the-ground lobbying strategy from Rio via email (Corra 2002).

In addition, the internet expands the efficacy and reach of advocacy petitions and urgent action campaigns. Petitions that people mentioned supporting included 6 concerning local issues, 17 on national matters, and 12 on international issues. These campaigns generated support for causes including reproductive rights and health; the rights of women, homosexuals, peasants, and prisoners; ending child abuse; freedom of expression; peace; environmental protection; and economic justice. The petitions illustrate how the internet has expanded the boundaries of gender advocacy and how petitions themselves have become a more frequent strategy. Similarly, some recent urgent action campaigns would have been nearly impossible without ICT. Marta Figueroa of the Women's Group of San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, an area that became a war zone in the mid-1990s, emphasized the decisive difference these campaigns made. "Without the internet many of the urgent actions were impossible. Thanks to it, the big groups, like the international ones, immediately became aware of what was going on. . . . The urgent actions, I don't think it's exaggerating [to say] that they have saved lives" (2002). Email is at least partly responsible for this most concrete of results.

Latin Americans do not simply reach out for transnational support via email; they also provide it. Mary Martinez, the president of the 21st Century Foundation development organization, located in Jujuy, noted that before the internet,

if one wanted to lend support to a cause it was hard to show it. Now you can support something \and sign on and there it is. Like in the case of the [Nigerian] Muslim woman who was going to be killed for adultery. ... To express your opinion . . . it's important. . . . What happens is that suddenly it's become like part of us, something so daily that we perceive it like something normal, that always was there. (2002)

The internet thus helps to expand the horizons of gender equality activists and their sense of what and who is part of them-shrinking the distance between northern Argentina and northern Nigeria. It has the potential of definitive, even lifesaving impact by galvanizing international responses to local violations of women's rights.

Even with the best of intentions, however, this expansion of activist horizons sometimes suffers from the mistranslation that a rapid exchange of information can replicate exponentially. In both May and August 2003, Nigerian activists tried to halt international email petitions circulating throughout the Spanish-speaking world on behalf of the woman Martinez referred to, Amina Lawal, who was found guilty of adultery and sentenced to be stoned to death. As BAOBAB for Women's Human Rights explained, the petitions were both inaccurate and potentially damaging to Lawal's case. They threatened carefully negotiated local strategies and had the potential to create a backlash against what local authorities might well perceive as international meddling (BAOBAB for Women's Human Rights 2003). As this incident illustrates, international petitions cannot substitute for local knowledge, and the ever-growing networks in which such petitions circulate can become a source of dangerous misinformation. While this finding should not be taken as a rejection of valuable transnational advocacy work that has facilitated local or national groups' domestic leverage (Keck and Sikkink 1998), it does emphasize the need for ongoing consultation with local advocates and respect for their leadership. Paradoxically, this global tool may be best suited for domestic activism.

The easy spread of information allowed by email and websites, however, can also create problems at the national level. Several lesbian groups in Mexico described an acrimonious conflict over national political representation that became known throughout Latin America via email circulation. Another acute disagreement between two Mexican activists over the ownership of a set of archives became the subject of a public webpage. While there were supporters and detractors for the use of ICT in both cases, technology both sharpened the debates and made them much more public. Mexican debates had reached Latin American audiences before the advent of the internet, but the rapidity with which news can travel-and the extensive possibilities for expressing opinions-alters the context of local or national exchanges. While some see this as a source of communicative power for groups who might otherwise be ignored at home, others fear that airing "dirty laundry" across cyberspace makes it more difficult for local communities to resolve their own conflicts. ICT offers alternatives for meeting and exchange that are invaluable for those countering gender norms, but these spaces present new challenges to their inhabitants.

The specific dynamics of email have had problematic effects. Ximena Bedregal, the founder of the feminist website/journal Feminist Creativity, has dedicated herself to expanding the perspectives available in cyberspace. Nevertheless, she believes that the anonymity facilitated by email exchange works at cross- purposes with feminist goals.

The web allows you an anonymity and I don't like it. From a feminist perspective. One of the problems with patriarchal femininity is expressing yourself, claiming what you think and feel. To own what you think with all of the risks that implies. And [online] you don't have to claim your thoughts autonomously. The web conspires against this-you can say whatever stupid thing, because you don't have to show yourself, you are not introducing yourself into the world. (Bedregal 2002)

The Indeso-Mujer staff agreed that "the internet also facilitates anonymity and other things. Messages that come and one cannot understand them; people who don't want to show their face and say things for which they do not take responsibility" (2002). Though the internet affords advocates a beneficial forum for exchange and community building, its openness can supply a place to hide and a means for avoiding commitment.

Thus, in a counterintuitive finding, widely shared information and multiple forms of communication create their own problems in national and international networks. They also introduce new concerns for organizations. Although the internet's relative availability and low cost has proven useful to less institutionalized groups, it provides nearly equal incentive for additional professionalization or routinization. Several groups mentioned that the sheer volume of email they received and the need to have a website had spurred them to establish new communications areas. Liliana Rainero, the director of the Southern Cone/ Argentine Center for Research and Services-Women's Studies Group, noted that the internet, and computing in general, has generated its own work ethic : "it ends up being the reference . . . that makes and obliges [us] to look for different ways of managing our work" (2002).

The ability to "manage work"-to handle the daily workload-has changed since the advent of ICT. Asjacira MeIo, a communications specialist, put it, "these tools don't only give more agility, but also demand more agility" (2002). Several interviewees attested to an information overload that made it difficult to sort the valuable or urgent email from everything else that appeared in their inboxes (including spam). Groups from Tepoztln to Buenos Aires underscored the pressure they felt to keep up with an email correspondence that was beyond the capacity of their organizations. Mariana Ferez Ocana noted that the success of LeS VOZ's website had almost doubled the organization's responsibilities, "but with the same people, the same amount of mon

Source: Latin American Politics and Society

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