[Chapter-delegates] (no subject)

[Narelle Clark]

I thought this an interesting set of ideas and worth sharing.

Certainly in the context of the increasing request for online surveillance
tools by various governments and government agencies, the concept that
this is another extension of the issues that many women experience is
worth considering.

Indeed one of the questions I was asked in a TV interview this morning was
about the need for online surveillance for effective policing: the
immediate example I thought of where it could (and would) be abused is
where someone has an evil ex-partner wanting to stalk or harass them. The
potential for damage is extremely high here.

Thoughts anyone?


Gender, sexuality and cybersecurity: an online tale
BERNARD KEANE | FEB 15, 2013

An online rights movement that rejects women turns its back on feminism’s
rich tradition of resistance to social control.

“That spirit of performativity you have about your citizenship, now? That
sense that someone’s peering over your shoulder, watching everything you
do and say and think and choose? That feeling of being observed? It’s not
a new facet of life in the twenty-first century. It’s what it feels like
for a girl.” Madeline Ashby

The remorseless growth of surveillance has long attracted analysis of its
gender dimension, both for its innate characteristics and the extent to
which, as a mechanism of social control, it reflects the interests of
those in control. CCTV unquestionably offers a “male gaze” the
male-dominated security industry and law enforcement sectors constantly
monitoring spaces such as shopping precincts and public transport more
likely to be used by women, to say nothing of the use of CCTV for
voyeuristic purposes. A 1990s British study found women were far more
likely to be targeted by CCTV operators for voyeuristic than protective
purposes; there are countless instances of male operators using body
scanners for voyeurism.

As Ashby notes, of course, women have traditionally constantly been under
surveillance whether CCTVs are present or not, their appearance and
clothing assessed against socially determined aesthetic criteria, their
behaviour assessed against appropriate standards, their reproductive
choices monitored and controlled by men.

How much the “male gaze” of CCTV surveillance extends over into online
surveillance is worth teasing out. The two areas are hardly separate, of
course; rather, the surveillance state has expanded into new areas of our
lives as we shift online, and in fact it has become the surveillance
economy as corporations as well as governments compile ever more data on
us, on even the most intimate and private aspects of our lives.

etc at:

http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/02/15/gender-s-xuality-and-cybersecurity-an-online-tale/


-- 


Narelle Clark
President
Internet Society of Australia
ph: 0412 297 043
int ph: +61 412 297 043
president at isoc-au.org.au
www.isoc-au.org.au