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Equity and Gender
Diana Daly
Key Points
The chapter lays a crucial foundation by delineating the distinctions between equity and equality, setting the stage for a nuanced exploration of women’s rights activism.
Online movements transcend borders, uniting local and global initiatives against systematic violence, fostering a sense of shared purpose.
Social media serves as a catalyst, amplifying private struggles into public conversations, providing visibility and support for marginalized voices.
Complexities arise from the close coexistence of individuals identifying as “men” and “women,” impacting activism dynamics and communication patterns.
Striking a balance between online privacy and visibility is explored, especially within the LGBTQIA+ community, shedding light on the challenges faced.
Hashtags, exemplified by movements like #SaveDinaAli and #NiUnaMenos, play a pivotal role, fostering connectivity, spreading awareness, and sometimes succumbing to misinformation.
The #MeToo movement, although not initially labeled creative online activism, prompts critical reflection on inclusivity and complexity amid its widespread impact.
This is a chapter devoted to a selection of activist causes to improve the lives of women. We look closely at two online movements outside of the US, one in each hemisphere. Both integrate the global and the local; both work to liberate women from systematic violence. Then we look at a few movements in the US.
Section 1: What is equity? What is gender?
Stated simply, this chapter is about equity for women. Unlike equality, which means treating everyone the same, equity considers the different circumstances that may lead to different support needs, and adjusts support based on need. The concept of equity can be used when considering rights and resource allocation for many types of groups. It is used here, when referring to challenges women face that play out online, because those challenges can be invisible obstacles. What is salient – what stands out – about women’s movements are the ways the internet is used to enable public conversation around topics previously kept private. Social media in particular affords exposure, drawing matters society guards as private into the public sphere.
People who identify as “men” and people who identify as “women” have lived in the same neighborhoods and households across cultures and time periods. This quality makes gender relationships and activism distinct among activist movements. Issues that arise between groups of different ethnicities, races, and classes are often clearly expressed out in the open; but gender issues are not expressed as openly. Because men and women co-exist so closely in every community, issues between people of different gender identities tend to leak out in whispers and remain more hidden.
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