Regressive tech bros proof we need International Women’s Day more than ever
Almost two years ago to the day, I started my column rather flippantly with the following statement: “I’m going to be honest here and say that the sooner we abolish International Women’s Day, the better. That might sound a bit radical but why do we need an event specifically dedicated to women in this day and age?”
Needless to say, despite the way I phrased that statement, I was not advocating for the abolition of International Women’s Day. In the very next paragraph I went on to list some of the reasons why we needed the day and why we were in no position to abolish it.
We can all see examples of that in the world around us every day. And some times it feels as if there is a new war on women. Or at least against any notion of women’s roles and rights that veers outside the established norms of the 1950s. It’s as if more and more parts of the male world have decided that the great experiment of enabling women to become educated and to have careers needs to come to an end. That somehow, the male world has given women’s advancement its best shot but now it’s time for women to get back to what they’re best at and leave it to the men to do their thing.
It should be a source of some shame, I think, that the person who has come to symbolise the technology world to the population at large because of his profile should be at the vanguard of this retrenchment. There is no doubt in my mind that the activities and pronouncements of Elon Musk run the risk of turning ‘technology’ into a dirty word for most ordinary people.
Social media has become a powerful weapon in the promulgation and promotion of misogyny around the world. Algorithms have been created that radicalise young men, in particular, with messaging that diminishes and demeans women.
What needs to be highlighted here is that this is a choice. Platforms do not need to amplify misogyny, they do not need to be loudhailers for messages of hatred against women. That they have become so is a feature not a bug. It is no coincidence that the vast majority of social media platforms are owned and run by men.
It should be no surprise that men are incapable of developing and maintaining a platform that is truly equal for men and women. It should not shock anyone that preconceived or unconscious bias are entrenched in the foundations of those platforms. Without the counterbalance of female input into the development and maintenance of those platforms and to the algorithms that govern the content they provide and promote, they are predetermined to deliver a skewed perspective.
That doesn’t mean we should accept it nor should we excuse those who seek to dismiss potential actions to redress the balance as censorship or the stifling of free speech. The fact is that social media shapes and influences the views of many people around the world. If it is doing so in a way that demeans and denigrates women, it needs to be called out and held to account.
In 2023, I wrote: “When I say that the quicker International Women’s Day is abolished the better it’s because, once it ceases to exist, that would mean the world has become a place where every day is women’s day. Just as it is for men. That’s the world we should be living in.”
Here today, we seem a little bit further away from that than we were two years ago. It’s sad that technology has played a role in making it so.
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