Women experience unequal access to the Internet, which impacts their socio-economic opportunities and health. This digital gender divide transcends all aspects of the online ecosystem, but there has been little exploration of how it manifests in authoritarian states where digital rights are under threat. Digital repression involves controlling, surveying, silencing, and/or punishing certain online narratives deemed a threat to the state. It involves those in power mediating the relationship between citizens and internet technologies and the state using digital tools against their citizens. Across the African continent, digital repression tactics are becoming normalized as part of the autocratic states’ repertoire of ruling, demanding an interrogation of strategies states use to suppress their populace and its consequences. Specifically, it requires an intersectional exploration of the digital gender divide in authoritarian states.
In the GenDR research programme, we seek to answer the question: What digital repression mechanisms are states deploying that create adverse outcomes for women and/or specifically target women? What kinds of women is the government targeting with their digital repression mechanisms? How does this compare to the targeting of men? Do differing groups of women based on age, race/ethnicity, nationality, disability, and religion experience the impact of digital repression differently? In line with these research questions, we have two primary objectives for this research: 1) map mechanisms of digital repression and 2) interrogate the gendered dimensions of the impact of such repression. We will explore how women experience more broad digital repression mechanisms and how certain mechanisms target them. Specifically, we will interrogate the impact of digital repression: What is happening (Objective 1). What women are affected, and how does it impact their lives (Objective 2)? To answer these questions, we will use Ethiopia and Zimbabwe as our case studies, given their prevalence of digital repression mechanisms and autocratic state structures, as well as our previous work history on this topic in these countries during the ConflictNet project.
