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Cultivating violence through technology: Exploring the connections between Internet communication technologies (ICTs) and violence against women
2005, Jac sm Kee, APC WNSP issue paper
This article analyses the complex ways in which ICTs have impacted on violence against women, both to enable and further institutionalise gender-based violence as well as to connect women's rights activists to mobilise support around survivors and end such violence. Thus it is argued that the relationship between ICTs and violence against women is significantly affected by existing social hierarchies. Furthermore the capacity of ICTs to reproduce and/or resist these power relations depends on the continued monitoring and analysis of their development. It is only through this type of determined analysis that ICTs will be harnessed as tools of empowerment for the feminist/women's rights movement rather than as mechanisms that reinforce structural inequality. In the words of the author - the movement to 'take back the tech' has begun.