20th April 2018

IAM Weekend 18: Q&A with Charlotte Webb

- words by Laura

You only have to look at the abuse that female politicians, pop stars or public figures of any kind experience every day online to see overt signs that the Internet has a sexism problem. But it’s not just frequent hate speech spat up by online trolls that’s the issue, there are less overt forces at work that can shape and limit our experience of the internet dependent on who we are. The lack of diversity in tech hubs like Silicon Valley (not to mention that over here in the UK only 16% of computer science grads are women), means that apps and other digital products are being built with subtle biases that echo the experience of their creators – and potentially shut others out.

But what can be done? Enter Feminist Internet. Part of UAL Futures (a university-wide initiative inventing the futures of education by connecting students and industry partners, and enabling them to creatively respond to social issues they care about), Feminist Internet is a movement and creative studio that raises awareness of gender equality and the web and collectively works on solutions. Its ‘chief leopard’ Dr. Charlotte Webb (also the Digital Learning Coordinator at University of the Arts London) will be speaking at Barcelona-based internet cultures conference IAM Weekend 18 at the end of the month, alongside some of the world's most innovative researchers, artists and activists.

Ahead of this three-day learning fest, which runs at Barcelona’s Auditori AXA between 27–29 April, we wanted to chat to Charlotte about some of the phenomenal work that she and Feminist Internet is doing.

What will you be speaking about at IAM Weekend 18?  

We’ll be talking about capitalist desire as a virus, via crickets, pharmacopornography, sex work, revenge porn, the power of metaphors and (possibly) deepfakes.

Tell us a little bit about the work you’ve been doing at UAL to imagine and shape the future of education?  

Feminist Internet started as a 10-day educational experience, supported by UAL Futures, where 16 students from a range of creative disciplines worked together on two goals: to collectively create the Feminist Internet Manifesto, and to prototype creative responses to issues of gender inequality and the internet. The educational philosophy of the studio stemmed around the principle of ‘cooperation not competition’, which meant everyone was expected to be responsible for everything and each other. Although we worked on different projects, we functioned as one studio rather than competing groups. This is a principle that moves education away from a focus on individual production towards something more collective, which I think represents a really positive shift.

Tell us about some of the initiatives you have worked on under the Feminist Internet umbrella? 

Since the initial studio, we’ve been focusing on events that try to bring our manifesto and creative research to a wider audience. We ran a Feminist Internet Digital Clinic at Somerset House, which tackled the issue of online abuse and harassment through a series of presentations and a panel discussion with Seyi Akiwowo, Travis Alabanza and Azmina Dhrodia. We framed online abuse as a virus that is infecting the internet, and said that our mission was to transform the audience into antibodies who could fight the infection. We also recently ran a Feminist Internet Geekender at the Photographers’ Gallery, where we ran a series of events for the public including a seminar on ‘Tomorrow’s Nipple’ and a series of workshops. Our ‘Tit Bits Bra Shop’ allowed the public to invent and create the bras of tomorrow, and post them to our Tit Bits Instagram account.

Feminist Internet Digital Clinic

How does the gender inequality existent in the tech industry shape our experience of the Internet? And what wider implications does it have? 

There are many ways in which the tech industry is imbalanced when it comes to gender. For a start, only 20% of the current job force in STEM careers are women. But once they are working in tech, women still face prejudices that seem to be a mix of general misogyny (either conscious or unconscious) and a hangover from the Californian Ideology, which cultivated a kind of ‘bro’ culture that has been quite insidious and difficult to shake off.

This shapes our experiences of the internet in all sorts of ways. For female tech workers, it might play out in terms of abuse experienced within niche online maker communities. Ann-Louise Davidson gives the example of abusive comments she and a fellow 3D printing expert received when trying to resolve technical issues in 3D printing forums: “Your learning curve is quite steep. You should find a guy in your area with electronics knowledge who can help you. Lol!” and “C-nts should not build machines they don’t understand.” It’s easy to see how disheartening this would be and why women often resort to working under pseudonyms in this space.

More broadly, if technologies are built mainly by men for whom diversity and inclusivity are not priorities, they will continue to reproduce forms of prejudice rather than break them down. This is why Feminist Internet is interested in the question of what feminist technologies actually look like, and how they can be made.

How can we challenge the existing dominant narratives in tech? 

I think we have to clearly articulate why it is important that all people are represented in the invention, development and use of technologies. Sometimes gender inequalities and their consequences are invisible to developers and users, which just maintains the status quo. Then we have to shout about all the brilliant women, people of colour, trans, non-binary and disabled people that are pushing forward important agendas in tech. We need to celebrate initiatives like Equitable Internet Initiative (EII) in Detroit, which is building an internet for disadvantaged communities who have terrible internet speeds compared to the rich people in the same area. We can also challenge dominant narratives in all sorts of ways through our day to day use of tech – in what we post, like, buy, share, support, resist and challenge.

Equitable Internet Initiative (EII) in Detroit

How do you think the Internet can empower us to collectively invent better futures? 

The internet holds huge potential to empower people to bring about positive social change, be creative, love each other, learn, make, play, subvert and delight in life. BUT... this will only happen if we resist the ways capital has subsumed social media and created corporate monopolies over platforms and infrastructure. We have to take control of the means of production and subvert forms of oppression reproduced in the internet together – through cooperation, not competition.

Which other speakers are you really looking forward to seeing at IAM Weekend 18 and why? 

I’m blown away by the list of speakers so it’s hard to narrow it down, but I’d say, Audrey Tang, because their story of transitioning is so compelling, and I want to understand the intersections of technology and gender much more deeply. Ingrid LaFleur because Detroit is so interesting and the Afrotopia project is amazing. Francisco Carballo as well, because post-colonialism is very relevant to our demand for an intersectional approach to feminism.

Charlotte is just one of many amazing speakers at this year’s IAM Weekender 18, for the complete speaker line-up and to book tickets click here.