Technology: Friend or Foe for Women of Myanmar
giving women a stronger voice in their communities, their government and at the
global level. There is a growing body of evidence on the benefits of ICTs for women’s
empowerment, through increasing their access to credit, quality healthcare and
education for all, and other human development opportunities, such as women’s fuller
participation in the political process. Recognizing this, the United Nations has put ICTs
at the center of its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - target 5b calls for enhancing
the use of enabling technology, in particular, ICTs to promote the empowerment of
women (UN, 2015).
The evolution of ICTs in the last 25 years has been unprecedented in history. While ICT
may potentially encourage online violence against women in forms such as cyberbullying,
the article about “breaking through the silicon wall” (Huyer & Nuñez, 2022) underlines
the promising paths and opportunities that ICT can provide for women and underrepresented groups to address inequalities and marginalization in some contexts, such
as the use of ICT for increasing productivity, promoting economic independence or for
gender justice. Some promising opportunities have been documented, for instance,
using social media through facilitating women’s collective action during the Arab
Spring (2011); through hashtag activism (2017) #MeToo which calls out for ending
impunity. Recent years have seen digital spaces becoming powerful arenas for feminists
to organize women’s movements and digital advocacy in combating violence against
women (Williams, 2015). ICTs have been used effectively to foster awareness and to
provide positive information, such as GBV helplines and a safe place for survivors to
discuss their experiences or seek help (Clark-Parsons, 2018). ICTs offer the potential
for innovative social interaction and information and communication work, including
peer-to-peer and bottom-up processes undertaken by women to change patriarchal
structures. Feminists and women’s rights organizations have pioneered strategic uses
of ICTs in unprecedented ways for knowledge sharing, networking, movement building,
and strengthening women’s participation in the political process and advocacy.
1.2. What’s happening (to women) in Myanmar?
Since the February 2021 military coup, the military junta-led State Administration
Council (SAC) not only poses direct threats to women’s and girls’ physical safety but
also threatens to roll back hard-won women’s rights and gender equality gains over
the past decade. Despite the risks and constant fear of arrest, women played a leading
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