The Politics of Information and Communication Technology Use among Latin American Gender Equality Organizations

摘要

The United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, China in September, 1995, sparked Mexican women's organizations' adoption of Information and Communications Technology (ICT). Two years prior to the Conference, the Women's Programme of the international Association for Progressive Communications (APC) initiated a world-wide campaign to prepare local and national women's groups for "virtual" involvement in this transnational event (Banks et al. 2000). The Women's Programme's campaign "marked the point where women's use of ICTs really took off" because organizations were able to download crucial documents, follow debates, and redistribute information to local networks, whether by email or other mass media (Gittler 1999, 94-5). This global effort reshaped Internet use on the local level because national organizers seized the opportunity, educating local groups in the basics of ICT and creating new channels for national communication. Erika Smith, coordinator of the Women's Programme of LaNeta, an APC member in Mexico City, described traveling around Mexico teaching women's organizations how to use email and online fora (interview, Cuernavaca, 06/10/02). Two other Mexican activists who attended the World Conference sent home regular reports via email to a list of contacts in different states, who then distributed them to local groups; these reports became the first feminist electronic bulletin in Mexico (interview with Beatriz Cavazos, Modemmujer, Mexico City, 06/01/02).