The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in João Pessoa, Brazil, from 10 to 13 November 2015. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> MODERATOR: Thank you. It is working. Yeah.
Good morning, everybody. And sorry for the delay. We've all been stuck outside in the long cue trying to get through security, and there is still actually a couple of speakers, as well as people who are coming to the session who are still stuck in the cue. So maybe give us another couple of minutes, yeah, and then we can start. It's 3 after 9:00, so let's say we start at 5 after 9:00.
I'm going to invite Lisa Garcia to come join me here so we can co-moderate this session, and once we start, we can introduce ourselves and tell you what we have in mind, et cetera.
(Applause)
>> MODERATOR: Okay. I think we are ready to start. So thank you one again for being here and for your patience.
Let me just introduce myself, and then Lisa will introduce
herself.
My name is Basha (Indiscernible), and I work with a company called Point of View, and I'm one of the Gender Dynamic Coalition or the Dynamic Coalition on Internet Governance, as it is known formally. I am one of the moderators for this year.
>> LISA GARCIA: Yes, good morning everyone. My name is Lisa Garcia, and I'm with the Foundation of Media Alternatives, and it is based in the Philippines, and, yes, we're also part of the Gender Dynamic Coalition.
>> MODERATOR: So, as a first step I just wanted to ask people how many people in the room, can you put up your hand if you have been to a gender dynamic coalition meeting before at any of the IGFs. So a few and then many people still -- so I think a good thing would be to talk a little bit about what is the dynamic coalition on gender and Internet Governance and what we intend to do in this kind of meeting, right. And I will start off, but I'm also going to invite Jack Ezemski from APC to talk a little bit about the past years because you've been moderating. Jack. Just informally, not -- so maybe what I can do is just talk a little bit.
I think it started in 2008.
>> (Inaudible).
>> MODERATOR: Please. Yeah.
So if you talk a little bit, then I'll talk about objectives and all of that.
>> LISA GARCIA: I don't remember when it started. It might have started in the first IGF but I was especially only involved in 2008 under Gender Dynamic Coalition base. Should I go? Yeah.
So it has really been a space for different stakeholder groups to come together to really sort of look at some of the pry or the issues around gender and Internet Governance and what we want to do together as community that follows the IGF process in order to direct the work.
So, in different years it has different kinds of participation, but in general we have really tried to identify some core activities that we can do, as a dynamic coalition to focus on this issue, and one of the primary activities that we have undergone is to formalize a gender report cut as a way to kind of monitor participation of women in the space as well as in terms of who are the speakers, and panelists, and the content and how the content has actually integrated gender or not.
It has obviously changed quite a lot since 2008 until today to the
session now, but we've really tried to use that space to either talk about key issues or to sort of strategize and plan together or to also think about what other things we might want to do together as a community.
>> MODERATOR: Great. Thank you.
So what I'm going to do actually is readout. There was in 2008 at the IGF there was a Gender Dynamic Coalition statement, and I'm just going to readout a couple of sentences to give you a sense of what is the kind of lengths of thinking that this dynamic coalition springs from, and also to clarify for people who have not been to a dynamic coalition meeting before, the reason for the term dynamic coalition is because it's not a fixed membership kind of coalition. It is really a coalition, all the dynamic coalitions have basically dynamic membership, which means you can, you know, participate one year, you may not participate another year, you may participate in the IGF, you may participate online. So there are many different ways of participating, and that's the reason it is called a dynamic coalition.
Having said that, we of course hope that the people who are in this room will actually consider being part of the dynamic coalition for this year so that we can actually plan things that we can do together in the course of the year.
Let me give you a little bit of a taste of what we mean when we talk about gender and Internet Governance.
So, the thinking that it springs from is really that, two things, one is that access to the Internet is critical for women to facilitate the full realization of their rights. So that is sort of going to the thinking around the digital divide, et cetera. But more importantly, when we think about the Gender Dynamic Coalition as it relates to Internet Governance, there are two things that we are thinking about. One is that it is very, very important for internet governance discussions, meetings, et cetera, to be people'd by men, women and transpersons so that the governance agenda is shaped by different genders is defined by gender, different genders, and articulated by different genders.
One of the ways in which that is ensured at the IGF meetings is through the gender report cards that Jack briefly mentioned, and we will have a presentation on the gender report cards shortly.
The other very important aspect of gender and Internet Governance is to ensure that gendered perspectives, realities and concerns inform the agenda of Internet Governance so that if the Internet Governance is not sort of devoid of gender in a sense, right.
So these are some of the concrete issues that we can raise in the -- yeah, Gender Dynamic Coalition.
So one of the first things is that in this particular meeting, rather than do too many presentations, et cetera, we would like to do a couple of trigger presentations, and we would really like to ask people who are present in this room what we should be doing in the year ahead. So we've already received some comments online. Suggestions for what the Gender Dynamic Coalition can do in the year ahead, but this is what where we would really rather than discuss sort of gender as an issue, per se, we would really like to take this time to focus on how can we use the -- how can we be part of the Gender Dynamic Coalition to infuse governance more strongly with gender realities and concerns and to achieve gender parity.
So that is sort of what we're looking at.
So first before we move forward, would anybody like to comment on the objectives, the two that we spoke about. One is to ensure that there is gender parity, meaning that men, women and transpeople are all included and that's monitored through the report cards, and the second is to ensure that gender as a concern or as a reality or as an experience is voiced much more and informs the IGF agenda.
Any thoughts, comments, thinking you think is missing?
Okay. Why don't we do this. Let me ask Daphne to come up. And, Ida, can we invite you to come up, as well, because both of you are going to be making trigger presentations.
>> Yes.
>> Okay. So we have here -- Daphne will be talking to us about the gender report cards. So, aside from the Global IGF last year there were already initiatives to do regional gender report cards also in the regional IGFs that were held in Asia-Pacific, in the Latin American region and as well as in Africa, and Daphne will be talking with us today.
Daphne.
>> DAPHNE: Well, thank you. Do I need a pointer?
Last year we had our gender report card in 2014 for these Global IGF, but then we also decided to have regional report cards for each of the regional IGFs that took place, so it was interesting because before each of the regional IGFs, APC women rights program had a special workshop on Internet Governance where women participated actively learning more and sharing more about what Internet Governance meant, how ITC policies were sort of challenging the women movement and women themselves, so we decided to have these activities that were very well attended and then give the opportunity to these participants to participate also in the IGFs in the regional IGFs. So perhaps these regional IGFs had good women's participation at least in the sessions because of these initiatives. But I would like you to look a bit at what happened in 2014 in the IGF.
So, we were able to monitor 88 sessions and in that monitoring -- sorry.
So we were able to monitor 88 sessions and of course we did that considering the different sub-themes within the IGF. So here you have a list of the different sub-themes and you can see a number of workshops according to each sub theme. This is so you can have a general vision of how the IGF went last year.
Then we decided to look at the number of moderators by gender, segregated by gender by sub theme and you see in the last column that we have the total of moderators and in the first column we have the total of female moderators according to each sub theme. And we see that, perhaps it's not that easy because it is a long table, but we see that most women moderators were there in the Internet and human right sub theme and also in what had to do with -- yeah, Internet as an engine for growth and development. Those were the two sub-themes where women were more present as moderators.
Then we see there were some issues where there was no women moderator on critic Internet issues, only one women moderator and also understanding IGF in the context of -- in context settings who had no women moderators there either.
So we see that the issue of Internet and human rights was the main sub theme where women participated and where they're as moderators. So I think that is an interesting issue to have in mind. Where women participated more in IGF themes.
Then we have the ratio of male/female panelists by sub theme and we see that in some of the themes there were very few women participating in the panels, like in emerging issues we had only nine women against 36 men, but, again, if we go and look at the Internet and human rights issues, we find there that there are 54 women there as panelists against 57 men, so the ratio is almost parity, we can say, in that issue.
And we also see quite a few women in the IGF and the future of the Internet. We have 55 women there, but the ratio is not that high as in the Internet and human rights sub theme.
So we see that, again, women with were there present as moderators in those two main sub-themes, and here again they're present as panelists.
So, it is good to see where women's interests are, no.
Then we also monitored the relevance of gender by sub theme and, again, we find that as a main issue gender was there in the Internet and human rights sub theme and also in the IGF and the future discussions.
And then we see that it was irrelevant in most of the workshops. In 52 of the workshops the issue of gender was totally irrelevant, but it was very important, of course, for those where gender was one of the main issues and then important also in five other workshops. And it was mentioned in only 15 other workshops.
So we see that we still have a long way to go, but if -- I'm looking forward to this year's gender report card because I've seen that gender has come up in many of the debates and also in many of the workshops that were organized. So I hope we get better figures next time.
So here we have the mean number of participants by gender relevance of the session. So where gender was the main issue, we have a ratio of 57 participants. Where it was important we have a ratio of 77, and then when it was only mentioned 49 and irrelevant 71, so we still see that women tried to go to the panels where their issues are being discussed, so I think this is also something important to highlight.
Now we have the regional IGFs, you know, that we had regional IGFs in Africa, Asia and Latin America and coming up, summing up all the activities there, we had 46 sessions there.
But then we see that women were less than half of the participants in almost half of the workshops, no, so we see that women were not attending that well these regional IGFs. And only in two workshops we have women were almost all the participants.
We can then have a look at the moderator and panelist profiles and also in the regional IGFs we see that women moderators, we had a maximum of two in different sessions and men moderators the ratio was 0.7 and in the panelists we had a maximum of 7 women panelists there. Sorry. 4 women panelists. So we see that a little more than half. So we didn't do that bad in the regional IGFs.
Then how we perceive the relevance of gender equality in gender -- in
this regional IGFs, and the issue was not seen as related to the theme and was not raised in 30 of the activities, it was mentioned in the presentation and discussions in only one, and it was raised when one or more speakers as an important aspect of the session's theme in ten of the workshops. And it was a session focused on women only one session in all the different regional IGFs. So we see that still in the regional IGFs gender was not considered as a theme to be discussed. Gender and ICTs or Internet Governance, nothing came out as special theme there, but we see that the issue was raised by some of the speakers and also by some of the speakers from the floor, so at least questions were coming up, how are women doing in this environment.
So some conclusions for the IGFs, half of the workshops were given assistance but less than half were women with very few women participants. Only six sessions and workshops where it says more than half of the participants being women. So it is still there is a lot to do regarding regional IGFs to have women present there with debate and with their ideas. Both the maximum and mean for men moderators exceeds comp women moderators. This confirms the overall dominance of men versus women moderators. In Latin America I was very happy to see all men were moderators. I think there was only one women in all the sessions and workshops. This is still a dominance of men.
Then the mean number of women panelists is far less than half the number of total panelists. Again showing gender bias in favor of men.
And last, of the 42 workshop and sessions, gender equality was not seen as related to the theme and was not raised in 30 of these workshop and sessions, however internet workshops gender equality was raised by one or more speakers as an important aspect of the theme.
So, you know, it's interesting to see that women are there, women are starting to participate but still in regional IGFs they're half the number of people attending and they're also not taking into account, not invited to moderate nor as panelists. So I think we still have a lot to do and to work, especially at regional level, because I believe that's where, perhaps, more women can go to these IGFs because they are in the region, they're nearer, it's perhaps more affordable to be there, but still we see a lack of women's presence in those activities.
And then regarding last year's IGF we can see that still Internet rights is the main issue that is of the interest of women, so I think it's very good to see that we can have more panelists there, more main presentations and more women participating in the sessions. So that would be the general conclusion.
Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Daphne, for that presentation. It really gives us an idea of women's participation in all the spaces that we have, whether it is regional or global.
So, as Daphne mentioned, gender is not really -- well, it's already being discussed, but the parity of participation, in terms of the number of participants, the number of themes that really cover gender issues, the number of moderators, and speakers, as well, could not match up to that of men.
And that is something that we should look at.
We know that in these spaces there are many women participants, but how are they really participating in the spaces. So I think that is something that we should look at, how should women participate and how can their voices be heard in the sessions even if they are not even speakers or moderators. But, of course, we have to work at that.
I'm not sure if -- how many here have already participated in at least given reports on the -- in each session? We have this among the coalition members actually. We report in each session that we attend the number of female participants, the speakers, et cetera, the topics that are discussed. We do that. But I don't know if it would be good also to include the others if they can also do a reporting of that in the sessions that you attend. So we would have an idea if -- because we may not be able to cover all the sessions.
>> So I think Jack and Daphne, maybe you can clarify this. As far as I know, this is the first time I've organized a session at an IGF, so I'm not very clear about the reporting requirements myself, but as far as I know, each workshop has to report back on these criteria, right.
Jenn, you're nodding your head, right?
>> (Inaudible).
>> Yes. Each workshop organizer is asked to report on most of the elements of the report card. What we also try to do is to get people attending workshops, to also fill in the report cards. There is also a kind of try angulation that happens, because you will see some of the questions are quite broad, but yes, each workshop organizer already complete some of this information.
>> MODERATOR: So I guess the good thing is that it is mandatory for each and every workshop to report on the gender diversity aspects, and that is how the data is collected.
>> Yes. Actually, we would also like to get suggestions from the floor if there are ideas, if you think that there should be refinements and then the questions that are being asked. Because, like, as Daphne presented, we're getting the numbers, number of moderators -- the moderator, whether it is male or female, the speakers, the participants, the issues that are being -- the themes that are being discussed where women are present or not. But we would like to get suggestions from you on how we can improve the participation of women and how we can also improve the gender report card if you have suggestions for that.
Yes, Erica.
>> ERICA: So much faster.
Sorry. I think one of the things that was different in the Latin American one, other than the fact that there were so many mail moderators, was that it was just one session. There wasn't split out groups.
So the numbers you see of the overall group that was present was always going to be more men than women because it was the same group the entire time.
So those are kind of differences that I don't know how much these skewed numbers, I'm not suggesting that, but I think the autonomous process involved changes different aspects of how to do the counting. That is one.
And although there were women presenting in many different issues, yes, the moderation was overwhelmingly male, what caught my eye were two things. One of the things in the regional IGF in Latin America was that when it talked about Internet Governance coordination, not just human rights, then it was all women. Everyone was doing all of the legwork around the regional conferences, then it was all common. So I think I'm interested to know how much a lot of the regional strategizing and organizing and the ad minute work of those processes is on women's shoulders and I think it is interesting, then, that when it is time to carry out the program, they're not necessarily the ones who are in the foreground because they've been doing all the organizing.
Second, surprise, surprise. The second one that was fantastic and I think it was relevant and it could be a way to do more analysis, more filtered analysis, very difficult, when because it is supposed to be a multistakeholder process, and I say that because there are so few Governments, at least from some countries here, I think it is also interesting to begin to look at which stakeholders are present and are they women and men.
I think that we can hold our Governments and we're working on diversity in the private sector. There is a push to have more transparency about their numbers, so I think this could support that as well. And that might be a way to improve the report card in that sense.
One of the most exciting moments was when it was an all male panel, one women, the tech on the table was her.
>> MODERATOR: Yes. Any other suggestion?
Daphne, would you like to comment?
>> DAPHNE: Yes, thank you Erica. I think it is interesting also,
perhaps, to think of this, because from the floor, because I remember that especially in Latin America we had many women intervening from the floor and some of them even challenging the panel, no. So I find that also quite interesting to see, because it also can measure women's participation when you are there from your organization and you really intervene with interesting positions or with interesting facts and also with questions to the panel. So perhaps we could take note of that, too.
>> I would like to point out that last year in the regions what we did was to conduct gender and Internet Governance and exchanges in all the regions, and we invited women to participate in that, and it really prepared them for their engagement in the IC process and that was good because they understood what the space was all about.
Because of the workshop that they attended, they started questioning during the different workshops that were held. So, at the same time, since there was a workshop, a gender Internet Governance and exchange process that transpired before prior to the regional spaces, then you're assured of, well, women participants were there who understood the process. So that was additional number of women as well in the IG spaces.
>> Can I ask a couple of questions related to the gender report cards.
>> MODERATOR: You know one of the things is the Gender Dynamic Coalition also gets comments on a review document that it puts up just before the IGF, which is up on review.inc.forum.org. So some of the questions that came up also relate to the report card so I think one of the issues is, Erica, if I read what you are saying correctly, we could add additional questions, but you're also saying that there is a qualitative element that doesn't get captured by the numbers, right. Like the example that you gave, there was one woman, but she was from the tech community and, therefore, she was from a stakeholder group where women are traditionally underrepresented, right, and that, of course, I think it would be enormously difficult to now have some sort of additional rating system, but maybe we could ask people very explicitly, as you said, to mention the stakeholder group and to point out what's traditional under stakeholder groups, to add some sort of qualitative dimension.
Do you think that would be a good way to go about it? I'm curious, even, what you were saying about the administrators behind the scenes. How would we get that information? Does anybody have any thoughts? Because for the workshops it's related to the workshop reporting. It's tied to that.
Yeah, Jenn, you had your hand up. Yeah.
>> JENN: Yeah. I think there are always limits to collecting this kind of data. So that's the one thing.
So I think we need to be quite clear about what kind of data is useful for what, and what kind of -- yeah, how will we use it to influence what agenda within the IGF. I don't think it is about data for the sake of data.
But the second thing about the behind the scenes admin issues, I think we can definitely get that information from the IGF secretariats, so that won't be difficult to get.
>> MODERATOR: Okay. I'll bring it up again on the same couple of suggestions that came in.
I have a question. Is, Daphne, the Internet and human rights thing. Now we can read that as positive or as negative or as both. If you ask me, honestly, without the data if you had asked me to guess which is the one theme in which women are likely to be most represented out of all the sub themes, I would have immediately said Internet and human rights, right.
But the thing is, and the data shows that. And that is for obvious reasons, in a sense.
But the question is, is that what we want? Do we want gender to sort of become a silo, in a sense, where it is only in the more in the Internet and human rights sessions, and that could be, like without looking at this data, my interpretation would be that it could be a combination of invitation and interest.
So on the one hand it may be that women are interested, it may also be that more women are invited as speakers or as moderators, et cetera, you know, in these sessions. And, then, as we know sometimes we go to sessions out of solidarity with our friends, et cetera, et cetera.
So there could be a mix of reasons. The question is how do we raise the gender parity in the other sub-themes so that gender doesn't become a silo.
So if anybody has any thoughts around that, it will be enormously helpful.
Please. Yeah.
>> AUDIENCE: Hi. My is name is Corvila. I haven't attended any regional IGFs. I'm from Zimbabwe. What I found -- I'm a media professional.
What I found training women and trying to integrate women into different kinds of training. You need to ensure that there is in every session a specific deliberate effort to have a gender element to it.
For instance, if you are going to talk about cybersecurity and you are going to have panelists there, you actually have to emphasize or ensure that you do have someone who speaks to issues of cybersecurity in relation to gender.
I think also there might be challenges to do with capacity, and it might be need for us to look at the regional IGFs and ensure that you do have specific training on the categories of Internet Governance in relation to gender so you can build capacity around them so that by the time Global IGF you do have a semblance of representation on the issues, out you've your stock take and you know the people that are going to be representing you have been actually capacitated to do so effectively.
>> Yes, thank you. Another suggestion here.
>> AUDIENCE: Hello. My name is Jorge Gancia. I work for the Swiss Government. I was wondering whether in the report cards there is mention or analysis of the outcomes.
I know that the outcomes until now have been rather sparse, but at least some of the regional IGFs and international IGFs have entered into dynamic messages after the meeting, like the European IGF or the Swiss IGF, perhaps it would be good to make an analysis whether gender issues are addressed in those.
And also we know that in all this discussion on the extension of the mandate of the Global IGF the issue of outcomes is really key and that in this IGF here, there has been an effort, especially with the, I think, the topic of policies for access of the next billion to have an outcome document of the IGF. So, perhaps, could be something to include.
Thank you.
>> Great. Okay.
Yes, is it true that most IGFs don't have any outcome document, but I think your idea is welcome, because we also need to know what is coming out of each of the regional or national IGFs that do produce their outcomes.
So thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Okay. Is there any other suggestion?
Yes, Zoya.
>> ZOYA: Hi. I've mentioned this before, I think. Before the next access I think there need to be a gender access there as well.
Secondly, I attended a session, the right to be forgotten, and the case law of the right to be forgotten and obviously the premise of that right itself so I think that gender element needs to be there as well.
>> MODERATOR: Yeah. Yeah, definitely there is a need for the inclusion of gender in all these discussions that you have, yes.
>> Just as an afterthought I also feel that maybe we need to go through a process of identifying what we feel under each pneumatic area will be critical to focus on relation to gender. Because, for me, this being my first coalition meeting is the sort of feeling that it's more about numbers, but sometimes you find you have very few women but contributing significantly to a specific issue. So I think we need to go through a process of cutting up Internet Governance and then identifying beforehand what we feel the most critical areas within the thematic areas are and then identifying within, you know, the regional IGFs who from the representative women who have been attending IGFs based on their profiles, because I think a number of us have attended a number of workshops, then see how we can carry it forward. So have a database of the issues first.
>> DAPHNE: Yes. Thank you for that great suggestion.
There is also a suggestion that we received before with regards to the report cards, that if it could be further refined to include percentages, like if there is a minority there is half and there has to be a majority. If we can also start recording the gender mentions and of course all the themes and genders in the report cards. That is one of the suggestions that came up as well.
Of course, the issue of fellowships of women participants to the IGFs to ensure that they are not under represented. So that was something that came up as well, but of course there should be mechanism on how we increase this participation.
Of course we agree with you that it should be more the numbers, it should be the quantity, how meaningful is the participation of the women in all these sessions.
>> MODERATOR: Okay. So if we, if there are no more questions/suggestions from the floor, thank you very much, Daphne for giving us a glimpse of how it for the gender report card for last year's regional IGF, Global IGF and the regional IGF's.
Can we give Daphne a round of applause, please.
(Applause).
>> MODERATOR: Okay. So, moving beyond the numbers as somebody point out, first of all thanks a lot, because I think this discussion will help us refine the gender report cards as well as add qualitative elements.
The second thing that we really want to raise for the floor's consideration is how do we understand gender. When in 2008 when the first statement of the dynamic coalition on gender and Internet Governance was drafted, the mention was only of women. Which I think was very appropriate for that particular period of time.
This is now we're looking at maybe seven or eight years later. Do we want to -- do we think of gender currently as women, do we think of gender as women other gender I densities such as trans individuals, et cetera. It would be great to get some response from the floor, and also if I might ask a related question without, again, necessarily making it a numbers game. If we were to think that, you know, gender diversity would also include other genders, the how question again. How do we actually make this a reality?
So any thoughts from the floor?
First, let's, you know, what I would say is can we -- if people feel that we should expand the definition of gender to include other gender Identities, can you put up your hand. Okay.
Would anybody who put up their hand say why. Just generally. We want to get a feel of the room. Why do you think it is important, too.
Okay. Yeah.
>> AUDIENCE: I think sort of categorizing gender for these report
cards is going to be very difficult, which is why, perhaps, we should make it more qualitative and stick to issues where we see representations rather than, you know, sort of just have numbers based on, you know, like gender I densities.
Secondly, again, adding to this point with gender identities, I think class is another issue that we really need to look into, because the report card that was just presented, you know when we look at how many women are coming from Asia or how many people are coming from Africa, it can't just be restricted to that. And even, for instance, how many people are coming from India or Pakistan because we don't represent our Country in that sensor the issues in our Country.
>> MODERATOR: Okay. So Zoya that is a great suggestion. Can I just respond to one thing.
The question of should we include gender identities is not about the report cards, it is about the understanding of gender within the dynamic coalition.
I don't necessarily -- I personally feel it would be too formulaic to now have one more category saying trans ask then we do numbers, right. But there are many other ways we can achieve this, so the question we were asking is broader than the gender report cards. Like you do feel that in the Gender Dynamic Coalition when we speak of gender we mean not just women.
So, yeah, that's just to clarify that.
Related to that, the other -- I think there are several people who seem to feel that that -- is there anyone who feels that it has a strong objection, because honestly this, is a working meeting of the coalition and as we know, decision making and governance, all of it happens better when we get diversity of views and we can sort of, you know, thrash out any discomforts, differences.
So anybody who feels strongly that this category should be retained to women, this is your chance to tell us.
Okay. Yeah. The other -- was there someone who wanted to speak?
Did you raise your hand.
Yeah. Sorry. Please.
>> AUDIENCE: Hi. My name is Vivian. I am from the UB Secretary, the women here in the IGF, and in my low experience of (Indiscernible) I have met some trans women and here in Brazil we have a term called hard fem, that is regional feminist that biology they think that transwomen are not trans because they don't -- they don't grow as women, they don't have that prejudice that women, they don't -- were raised right like women. But in my opinion, because we have these different kinds of feminism and the feminists that I believe in, the term of gender that I believe, I think that we have to include the trans because they can be not born as women in the biological way, but they don't feel the prejudice as women as we when we were young but they feel other kind of prejudice. The prejudice of the main -- they born in the body of a man but discover gender of a women, and this is hard. They were built as women, they are -- their female it tee was always denied by the others, by society, and I think that we have to give the hands to these women because the term of biological women is something that I think that's wrong. It like to give the idea of ma cheese mow that they think women are.
In my opinion, to be women is not to be women in, like, organs. It is women in your heart, in your brain, your idea, because women is attained a dispute in so it is construction disputing by the time without the prejudice, without the fight, without the things that women do that we are here to fight for our rights.
So in my opinion, trans has to be included in the gender idea. Why to pick numbers? We have to give them more space in the Internet for them to express themselves like women and we have to pertain in a movement in a database, because I think that trans are not trans. They're women. Trans are (Indiscernible). We have to stop with this idea. Women is women of what barrier you are born. I think that's it.
>> MODERATOR: That's fantastic.
(Applause).
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much for that very strong endorsement, and really beautifully put. And I think this is very important, because one of the things I would like to tell the Gender Dynamic Coalition is this year for the first time at the Internet Governance Forum there will be a meeting in the main hall, the big hall this afternoon from 4:30 to 6 o'clock and again tomorrow morning from 9:00 to 10:30 of all the dynamic coalitions. There are about ten active dynamic coalitions, Net neutrality, core Internet principles. Number of things. Ours is one of them.
One of the proposals we would like to make at this main session is that we now expand the definition of gender beyond women. So that's why it was very important to actually get this feedback from the coalition.
Now another small proposal about the trans question is that at this stage rather than putting more numbers into the gender report cards, one possibility is you know when we all register for the IGF, we all have to fill in our gender. We could ask the IGF in that particular registration to include a category. So it could be men, women, trans and the reason, and again I would like response press the floor. The reason we are -- this could be a possibility is we know in several countries, including mine in India, we now have government documents that allow you to identify yourself not just within men and women, but as trans. So people who apply for a passport, you know, in India, can now write down.
So we don't want the Internet Governance Forum to lag behind global governance. So do we feel that that is something that could be meaningful where we basically just put it as a category and, you know, when we register for the IGF. Does anybody have any thoughts either way?
Yeah.
>> AUDIENCE: Is it on?
>> MODERATOR: Yes.
>> AUDIENCE: I was going to just point out of something Vivian is space. My name is Ed Muson. Can you hear it?
There is one issue I found on her speech is she did not include trans men. They really need feminism to their lives, you know. I'm part of the LGBT group, I'm gay, but I think the trans men, they very, very excluded from everything.
>> MODERATOR: Yeah.
>> AUDIENCE: You can see that transwomen are included and trans men
are not. They were born as people say, as women, but they identify themselves as men.
>> MODERATOR: Yeah.
>> AUDIENCE. So that is very important to point out here.
>> MODERATOR: Fantastic.
>> AUDIENCE: Transgender includes also trans men who are very excluded from society.
Now, to answer your question, moving on. I think it is very important to include a new category because it's all about self-identification. We're not -- we're humans. We cannot just define ourselves in binary group of men and women, male or female. People identify themself, there are trans men, transwomen and they're just trans. They don't identify themselves into any of these two categories.
And that's it.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you again for a fantastic intervention and I think what you said is absolutely right. We tend to orient towards women each when we talk about trans and it is absolutely critical, yeah, that we include this very consciously.
Yeah. There was somebody else. Yeah.
>> AUDIENCE: My name is Gutama. In this conversation here I strongly argue against including a category of trans on such forums.
I also strongly argue against having just male and female categories, but I would also strongly support what you just said I'm sorry I didn't hear your name. It is about self identification so we should not, in my point of view make mistakes that other people have made to open up third categories which are defined by third parties for other people and -- we should rather join in supporting self-identification and I don't know if the UN's regulations are really strong against this. I assume so, but that is the stance I would take. Have an open text field. Open.
>> MODERATOR: Which basically means if I hear you correctly you're saying have a question saying like how do you -- with what gender do you identify?
>> Yes.
>> MODERATOR: Or how do you identify yourself along the gender continuum, something like that, right, so that somebody can put down man, somebody can put down women, somebody can put transman, transwomen, somebody can say intersects. Whatever we want. You're saying rather than have boxes.
>> AUDIENCE: Yes.
>> MODERATOR: : How do people feel about that proposal? Have a more open -- yes.
Did you put your thumbs up. >> AUDIENCE: Yes.
>> MODERATOR: Sorry. Great. I didn't tell you if wanted to speak or were doing a thumbs up.
Okay. Fantastic. Any other comments. Yeah.
>> AUDIENCE: Yeah. My name is Dankin. I'm from Kenya.
On the question of opening or leaving the field open as an open textbook, it might prove a statistical challenge.
>> MODERATOR: Okay.
>> Audience: Because we all come with 20, 30, 40 different ways of describing ourselves. How does that work for stats?
>> MODERATOR: Okay. I can try and respond. I think it is a good question. You're asking a very practical thing. For the IGF I assume it is important to know the breakdown of participants by gender, so maybe this is a question we can put to the IGF.
Jack, yeah.
>> Jack: It's not really up to the IGF. It is for us. So the thing is that we are the ones traditionally we are the gender (Indiscernible) have been the ones analyzing the statistics. But what he pointed out is absolutely correct. We always have this issue. We would like to leave it open. Of course it's a political issue, right. You should self-identify. But sometimes politics and stats don't clash. So at the end of the day I guess it is also important to ask ourselves what do we want to measure? What do we want to measure the changes of through the years? And we're not bound by it. We are always free to change it but this will work in the way that is also effective for us to try to do some kind of assessment and monitoring.
>> MODERATOR: Okay. So I think this -- sorry.
>> AUDIENCE: Another last point.
It is also for us to advocate to the IGF. We need to use these findings of the monitoring to report also as an advocacy to say, hey, look, we've started measuring this, this is the findings that we have, I think IGF should do this as the cross cut, not just by the gender, just do it throughout, and then for the IGF to advocate and go hey, if IGF can do it, why can't you do it. That kind of a thing.
>> MODERATOR: So this is something I think would be useful for us to bring up the whole conversation about the strong endorsement of other gender identities, the possibility of boxes, the possibility of open and the sort of complexity of politics and statistics in the main gender -- in the main dynamic coalition session this afternoon. I think that would really add to that and then let's see how we can prove this forward.
Unless anyone has anything to say about the gender identities issue, I think we --
You wanted to say something?
Please.
>> AUDIENCE: Hello. Yanace, from Finland.
As a mathematician, I would just like to point out that having an open field statistically it's not a problem. It's a challenge, but it is not a problem.
Also, if you do some prioritization, very often I run into the situation that whenever someone asks for a gender it's not really that necessary. So there is really this sort of balancing between do we really need this information and between having very perfect statistics in a way. Usually the situation can be solved by simply saying do we really need this information and if it is really that hard and if people answer what they would like to answer, I think it is more important to respect them and their own identification or their own identity than just try to push them into some category.
Okay. I do get it that it is important for tracking some
developments, but again, I really, for this coming from profession, I really don't think it is a problem, it's simply a challenge.
And even if we don't manage to get it somehow perfectly, you know, the data collection and its analysis, we'll still get -- we will totally get enough information to do some kind of tracking to see if there is positive or negative development. But, yeah, sure I can discuss this with any other data analysis if someone wants to.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much. That was really useful. Yeah.
Okay. We will move on to the -- there is one more comment.
Yeah.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you. I didn't remember your name, but I'm really sorry for not point out what you say in my speech. I totally forgot about trans men. It is my fault. I understand this.
And I think it's a problem of gender because trans men don't have to support of the society as transwomen because they have kind of an association with women because it's the society that it is wrong to someone that was born as a man as a superior being to wants to become -- sorry, I forgot this -- it's wrong to someone that was born as women wants to become a man, who wants to be a man. It's like you want to grow in the organization of society, like that, you want to become a revolution. Like oh my God, you're inferior and now you want to be superior. Please, stay in your place. Don't. Be quiet there. And the case of transwomen is kind of different because we have the men, the being that was born as a man wants to become a woman and inferior. You are superior and want to be inferior. What the hell is that. Are you a man, you have to be a man.
You have to be strong, you have to be masculine. You can't be women. That is wrong. So unfortunately this is the society here that is inferior and I think that is right to include the trans men and the transwomen in that kind of gender because it's a problem with gender because of the association with women. Men wants to become women and we have want to become, they already have. Sorry. And we are -- women that wants to be a man in the view of society. So it's idea that we have to break if you want to evolution of thought and discussion and I this I that's it. Sorry.
>> MODERATOR: Great. Okay. Okay. Thank you for that.
So now we move on to the next part of the discussion. I would like to introduce to you, Ms. Ida M., from the One World Platform. It is based in Bosnia and Urzogoina. He is a part of the multi stake advisory group.
Personally I feel that it should be raised. This is about coming up with the possibility of having a sexual harassment policy in this -- in spaces like this. So, Ida.
>> IDA: Thank you very much, Lisa. I hope everybody can hear me.
Basically I was invited here, and I'm very thankful for that, to bring you a couple of cases from the field. I've been involved in Internet Governance, different Internet Governance spaces for around four years now, and only in June this year when a couple of young women we gathered in one of the European Internet Governance space, we started talking about something that is happening, one of the girls pointed out. So I'm really sorry I'm seeing very little men here, colleagues, men, because I wanted to start this by asking them how many times have they been invited to a panel by a man approaching them and caressing their face.
So maybe if you want to answer that. Okay. I'm very happy to see you're confused faces because you should be confused.
On the other hand, we have cases of women's pictures being downloaded and done in a really weird way cut and exposed in other naked bodies and then we have a situation of a girl who is 22 years old in one of spaces she was knocked on her hotel doors by an older man and this is really one point go out this is because I keep hearing for four years that women should be empowered in these spaces, they should be invited in these spaces and once they are here they're experiencing this and they're never coming back.
So this is why in -- well I normally don't like to talk in the name of anyone else, but I was allowed in this case by these women, and this is why I would like to hear from you if and whether even though it should be common sense, but obviously it is not f there is a need to develop a sexual harassment policy in Internet Governance Forum or other Internet Governance spaces.
So I will just keep it short. I hope I gave you some bad food for thoughts.
>> MODERATOR: Yes, Ida gave us just a few cases, a few glimpse of incidents of sexual harassment happening in similar spaces.
So I would like to know is there anybody here who has experienced something similar to that, what you can call a harassment?
>> IDA: It is also very understandable if you don't want to raise your hand in this case. These cases were managed in a really private space. Yeah.
>> MODERATOR: So I think the bigger question is really, is this
something that we as the Gender Dynamic Coalition should start to think about? And I think, again, like the trans question earlier, it is useful if we get comments from people who either feel strongly in favor, feel strongly against it or just have questions, like, you know, to raise. Because it would really help us understand how people see this issue.
As far as I know, this is probably one of the first times this is being raised in a session at the IGF, right. Yeah. So we really need to get a sense of what people in the room feel about this.
>> AUDIENCE: Just a clarification first. Are we -- kind of yes. No.
So are we talking about harassment within the tech community or are we talking about online harassment? Sorry, I didn't get that.
>> IDA: I was especially talking about off-line harassment, even though as I said it has some kind of relation with someone seeing you in these kind of spaces and going to your profiles and taking down your pictures and sending them in a weird way. But it is normally in the off line spaces where women are invited to talk and then they are encounter cases like this.
>> AUDIENCE: Okay, I mean --
>> MODERATOR: : Let me just add one thing, because this relates to gender and Internet Governance and it is a little bit different about sessions where we talk about online and off line abuse which is gendered, I think it is important that we define it within governance spaces. So at this particular meeting the Gender Dynamic Coalition can think about is there gender based harassment, including sexual harassment within Internet Governance settings. Whether it is regional, national, local, global.
Yeah. Off line or on online.
>> AUDIENCE: This is definitely a problem in Pakistan. We have had events in relation to Internet Governance or the social media where something like as in this has happened in the past and this sort of became this bigger thing.
As far as the tech community, as far as the digital rights is concerned in Pakistan, harassment is most definitely an issue, even though there are barely any organizations in Pakistan.
There is a lot of covering up, there are a lot of confusion as to what is, like, you know, what is happening within these communities, and I think even, like, people at the managerial levels, people dealing with projects are unclear as to what they should do. So that in terms of policy, a clear cut policy as to what, perhaps, employees should do and what the managerial staff should do in that situation would be important. But this is --
>> MODERATOR: : Can I ask you a clarifying question?
>> Audience: Go ahead.
>> MODERATOR: When you say staff, do you mean IGF staff or do you mean like organizations?
>> AUDIENCE: No. No.
>> MODERATOR: For their organizations?
>> AUDIENCE: Yes.
>> MODERATOR: Can I give you my personal reaction and this is from a discussion oriented discussion.
One of the things we do for example, I'll give you an example. I'm part of the Wikipedia community. One of the things we have, we have an annual conference every year called Wickimania, which is again about 1,000 people, so it is quite large, and it is people from all over the world. At the Wickimania conference we have a policy which is called the friendly space policy. The friendly space policy is not explicitly gendered at the highest doe mean, right, friendly space, but within it it contains the seeds of things that make people of different genders uncomfortable, et cetera, et cetera, and all those are specified, including, for example, at Wickimania there was a case a couple of years ago where somebody was trying to do a presentation and talk about a case of harassment and he or she ended up showing some images which we would classify as not safe for work. Right.
Now what happened was that the people who were in the room were not prepared mentally to see these images because it had not been flagged up front that you were suddenly going to see these images and some of them were sexually explicit, et cetera, so people did feel uncomfortable. And, you know, women in the room felt particularly uncomfortable and then this was raised as an issue and then, again, you know in the conference setting it was discussed and there was a consensus that doing this without flagging it, et cetera, et cetera is a violation of the friendly space policy.
What I'm trying to say is that I think we can, as the Gender Dynamic
Coalition, recommend policies for the governance space.
I don't think we -- it is within our gamut to recommend policies that organizations can use within their own spaces. We can indirectly influence that through leadership, which means we say, hey, this is what we're doing at the IGF or in our governance spaces therefore organizations that come to these spaces and maybe influenced and say these are good policies, maybe we need to put them in our own -- but that is a two-step process.
>> AUDIENCE: My only point was, and I understand what you're saying, a lot of the people representing their various countries, their organizations happen to be huge players in the Internet Governance field, and for them to know that these policies matter and for them to think that, perhaps, they could be seen as repercussions. Even online backlash, that is also, I think, important.
>> MODERATOR: So we lead by doing it in this space and sort of like a role modeling type, of right.
>> Yes. Yes. Uh-huh.
>> AUDIENCE: I was saying I understand if this is done, and done well, this is a great precedent we can use it to push that precedent actively as this is a multistakeholder space, as we know what type of spaces in different, not just technical communities, and especially at not just here at global levels, but regional and national levels where there is a lot more, perhaps, there is a lot more possibility for power control plays, et cetera.
Perhaps I'm mistaken. I think it can happen anywhere. But I think in the national and regional realm there is a lot more vulnerabilities. I think a sexual harassment policy we need to be careful in the wording and understand gender as we have been talking about.
>> AUDIENCE: Just one quick answer to Ida's question. I think it is very important to have that sexual harassment policy in the IGF space. Because we do see cases of that, you know, like if some of you remember last year, it was, like, right after the gender -- the dynamic coalition on gender that one of the participants were, you know, receiving sexual harassment from one of the participants, which unfortunately came from one of the government delegates. So I think it is very important.
But one of the things also that also important is not just the sexual harassment, but I think any conduct or act that degrading women or putting women as an object, again, some of you might remember from IGF two years ago where the organizers were parade go women as Ms. Internet. I think that kind of thing have to be put into account when we try to push this sexual harassment or whatever, you know, policy in relation to that.
Thanks?
>> AUDIENCE: I actually have a question about how is it going to -- how the approach is going to be to the poor communities. To people who are not very informed about -- I mean women who are not very informed about their rights and what is going on during IGF. Okay. They have access to Internet, but they don't know if they deserve to be there because in their -- in some societies where they're made a rule they say that they don't have the right and they keep getting harassment in the Internet and they think they don't have the right combat it, to fight for your rights in the Internet.
I just want to, I don't know, it is my question. How is it going to be approached for people who don't really know what goes on during IGFs about the Internet rights.
>> Jack: I think if there is a way we want to do it as a matter policy there is a few different ways that we can approach it.
One is for the Global IGF anyway there is a published code of conduct that every person is supposed to sign up to and agree to. So if we have something that is quite clear that we can include in the code of conduct to say any form of sexual harassment will not be tolerated as well as blah-blah-blah, as well as other public things and no protest, et cetera, et cetera. We can add something quite meaningful into that process. That is just one level, which is just to formally say that it is an issue.
The other level is, of course, what you are talking about also, which is then how do people -- how are people actually aware that this is one of the things. And I guess that we'll have to be A, tested, and B, what can the dynamic coalition then do as a way to also publicize and raise awareness around this issue. For example we can have a friendly policy digital and for the next IGF we can print it out and distribute it and at least people are aware and thinking about it. That is one.
But for regional and national IGFs which sort of run autonomously on their own hopefully this can be a best practice that they will take into consideration as well. And I'm sure there is also some of us in the room who are also active in different regional processes and national processes which we can then bring to those spaces and also encourage the organizers of those spaces to take on.
But I really do support this. I think it is a really fantastic idea and it is about bloody time.
(Applause).
>> MODERATOR: Thank you for that very good suggestion, Jack.
Ida, would you like to add to it.
>> IDA: I totally agree with Jack. It just, actually, just this morning I received an Email from a friend who was harassed before that case before I mentioned that last night at a party I believe many of you were there, where we were all supposed to be relaxed, right, after these long days of being here. There was a person who was taking really close photos, like zooms of women's body, so, yeah, this is kind of space that we live in.
>> AUDIENCE: Sorry. It got me to thinking, Ida.
So yes, we have cases like this, so I don't know if there should be such a mechanism on how we can also report these cases so that we can -- or discussion ourselves. So we can prevent such occurrences happening.
>> MODERATOR: So we have just five minutes left.
Just to summarize, I am definitely using what is a crucial issue and which hopefully the Gender Dynamic Coalition can sort of take the lead on and maybe work with some of the other dynamic coalitions and really see how we can.
So just to wrap up and say how do we actually move forward on some of the excellent suggestions that have come up, right. One minute. Let me find my notes.
So one of the things that is being emphasized in this IGF is the possibility of doing what is called Intercessional work which means that we don't wait till the next IGF to actually talk about gender and Internet Governance or some of the key issues, but that we keep this alive throughout the year, either through the regional IGFs or maybe drafting something like a round policies, et cetera, that can be circulated, can
find consensus, et cetera.
Now we did know doing something like a friendly space policy or something around seconds usual harassment that is going to take more time than we can just put in now so the question I wanted to ask are there people in this room who would be interested in being part of a small group that would actually look at the code of conduct of the IGF. Let me look at, you know, sexual harassment or friendly space policies of maybe some of the bigger platforms, et cetera, et cetera, and try and really develop something which would be meaningful in the Internet Governance context.
So if there is anybody who would be interested in working on this, can you just put up your hand. Because then we can sort of contact you after, you know, we can exchange information and make sure take we can including you in any such process. Because it would be great, actually, to have a multistakeholder group evolving this kind of policy.
Yeah. Okay. So we have one hand up. So Nads. Where are you? Thank you.
Will you just do one thing, because, you know, till we get the list up and going, until we put them on the list, I want to make sure we don't lose the names of the people. So if we can just get a sheet of paper and if you could just put down any contact information that you're comfortable sharing, whether it is facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, E mail, whatever you feel comfortable sharing, we can then approach you threw this.
Yeah. The other thing that I was going to talk about is that, you know, we -- I think we've really looked at the big things, the three big things today. One is looking at how we can refine the report cards, how we can move beyond numbers to more qualitative indicators.
The whole issue of gender identity is it just women or all gender identities. The question of how can we, you know, look at data that is sort of meaningful to -- from a gender identity politics perspective as well as from a statistical perspective and finally the whole sexual harassment policy or looking at friendly space policies, et cetera.
So I think we've done an enormous amount of work in one-and-a-half hours, and we will present some of these back at the session on the main dynamic coalitions today at 4:30 as well as tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock. All the dynamic coalitions will present their plans for the year ahead.
The last thing that I would like to close on before thanking all of you is that we do have a gender DC list and if people are interested, they could be subscribed to this list. There have been questions in the past about whether it is only women or all genders and I think we've said categorically that it is all genders. So Nads, Jack, how do we -- information on the list I don't seem to have.
So how do we, you know, in our last minute, figure out a way for people to subscribe to the list? And the link is from the dynamic coalitions.
Okay. So basically on the Internet Governance Forum platform, which is called int.gov.forum. On the bar there is a thing that says dynamic coalitions. If you go to the dynamic coalitions and click on it you will find that there is a list of all the dynamic coalitions below. And the gender and Internet Governance is mentioned as one of those. So if you are interested in participating further or continuing this conversation over
the year raising other issues, whatever, we would actually love it if we could have people from all the genders or as many genders as we could have, you know, as are presents here and if you can tell people, as well.
So in conclusion I would like to thank Lisa Garcia for helping me very much, and co-moderating this session at very short session. Jack, I notice you have your hand up and want to say something. Yeah.
>> JACK: (Inaudible).
>> MODERATOR: And we are hoping to actually do some online campaigns and some things around gender and Internet Governance because I think for many people it is a black box, what the hell does it mean, gender and Internet Governance, so how do we open that up, as well.
So we would love participation.
Thank you very much. It has been a fantastic discussion.
Thank you again.
(Session concluded 10:32)