Fall 97
Winter 98

by Vida Panitch

Let us think back two hundred years. October 1789. Parisian women march to Versaille, forcing Louis XVI to return to Paris and face the Revolution his Monarchy had wrought. Women, concerned with issues of social welfare, join collectively to impact change.

Let us also recall that it was at the time of the French Revolution that the printing press became an important and widely utilized tool. Pamphlets were published and distributed by revolutionaries hoping to incite the third estate, the people, to take up arms against their oppressors, the aristocracy. The printing press and widely available reading material no doubt frightened an overwhelmingly illiterate population. New machinery, providing new information, is a scary thing if you do not have the skills required to make use of it. The only solution was to learn to read.

Here we have arrived at the dawn of a new millennium. Only just over two hundred years since the popularization of the published word, and look where that word has taken us. The millennium would not be what it is for us without having been able to read Nostradamus, the Bible, Orwell’s 1984, and all the literature that has shaped our cultural values.

A new force is being reckoned with at this, our own time in history. A new means of sharing and accessing information has emerged that is already reshaping culture. A new skill is required to allow us to access this information, thereby having a hand in the reshaping of our own values. A new fear has arisen with regards to the attainment of this skill, mingled with a sense of urgency to be included. The Internet, the new information super-highway, has forged its way into our midst. We realize now, however, that the fear surrounding literacy two hundred years ago was much greater than the reality, so let us not fear, but take control of this new skill required of us.

As it is said, history repeats itself. Just as the printing press instigated a new skill and defined a new culture, so does the Internet. And just as women advanced the aims of the Great Revolution, so are they taking the helm of the means of culture redefinition in this new computer era. The Women’s Internet Conference, held in Ottawa from October 18–21, collectivized women from across Canada concerned that their voices be heard as Internet policy is being shaped and defined.

The conference was organized by women’s groups across Canada and co-ordinated by Scarlet Pollock and Jo Sutton. They contend that, “If being online gives access to ideas and information not otherwise available, then being offline means being left behind.” The aims of the conference, therefore, were to ensure that women of all class standings, ethnicities, and sexual orientations have access to Internet information; that women’s groups receive adequate funding to ensure information is available via the Internet for women who seek it out; and that women have easy and welcoming access to computers and the Internet. Of course, there are numerous barriers to the fulfillment of these aims. The members of the conference sought to establish means of eradicating these barriers, thereby producing a Canadian women’s womandate on where government spending towards Internet literacy ought to be spent.

Industry Canada has been assigned the task of allocating $20 million in state funds to increase non-profit organizations’ access to computers and Internet literacy. "They have so far refused to designate any of the money for women’s organizations," muses Michele Landsberg, a Toronto Star writer. "The latter are, they mulishly insist, a ‘special interest group’". The result of this attitude is that Internet accessibility, as with everything else designated by capital-minded delegates of the State, will then reflect only the interests of the status quo white male population. Such ‘accessibility’ will not be designed with regards to women’s concerns, or with the concerns of anyone not of a certain economic position and social standing. It will not take into account that more women live below the poverty line, and thus have less access to computers than men, nor will it regard the fact that fewer women are in the workforce and cannot access the Internet from the office.

The womandate of the conference thus intended to produce a plan of action with regards to making Internet accessibilty sensitive to women’s concerns. These concerns, the conference members insist, comprise the needs and interests of over 50% of the population, thereby nullifying the ‘special interest’ or ‘special focus’ status Industry Canada has shackled women with as means by which to consistently deny us funding, while millions of dollars are being made available to other groups.

The conference was organized into a series of workshops, headed by representatives of women’s organizations and women with specific computer skills. These workshops were held during four one and a half hour sessions on Sunday the 19th and Monday morning of the 20th October. In each time slot, conference participants could choose to attend one of about six or seven possible workshops based on topics ranging from violence against women to the shaping of social policy to how to design your own web page. Conference participants and workshop co-ordinators included representatives of such organizations as the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIAW), the Victoria Women’s Sexual Assault Centre, Women and Rural Economic Development (WRED), DisAbled Women’s Network (DAWN), Réseau national d’action éducation femmes (RNAEF), all concerned with how they can provide the information they have to offer women via the Internet.

The priorities and barriers discussed in each individual workshop were then discussed by the conference members at large, comprising over 200 women, on Monday afternoon. This discussion was then formatted into a plan of action on Tuesday morning before the conference came to a close. Such barriers that were discussed concerned two particular issues: how are women’s organizations to provide information via the Internet, and how are women to get access to this information. The Internet was also discussed as a means by which women and women’s groups could form alliances and make their voices heard.

Barriers for women’s groups being able to provide information are basically those very same ones that bar access for women to receive the information; namely economic and linguistic. Without proper funding, women’s groups cannot themselves become Internet literate, thereby keeping up alliances with similar groups and the women who rely on them. Neither can they sustain a budget that allows for the purchase of more computers and Internet hook-up time. Nor, for that matter, can they then provide adequate Web sites. Without these, they cannot demonstrate to women that information really is available in cyber space. It is also costly to have translated all the information they provide, not only for both anglophone and francophone women, but into the diverse languages of Canada.

The barriers that affect women themselves are also economic and linguistic. Low-income women cannot afford computers; rural women are geographically barred from easy access to local libraries, Internet cafes and women’s centres with computers; women who speak neither French nor English, cannot read the information that is available.

It may seem, as it did to me at the first stages of the conference, that with so many obstacles perhaps the Internet is not in fact a place to offer information to women seeking it. As discussions continued, however, the positive aspects and thus necessity of such accessibility became apparent. With so many diverse issues surrounding women in the 1990s, the Internet is the one forum where they can all converge. Lesbian mothers can seek counsel from the Lesbian Mothers Support Society from Calgary; women farmers can discuss agricultural, local, and personal concerns with one another all across the world; women suffering from domestic violence or sexual assault can seek help from organizations anywhere in the country, or globally for that matter; and the list goes on..

The Internet is also a place where women who wish to remain anonymous can do so. If you do not feel comfortable asking for particular information or admitting to the need for counsel, you are not denied their availability.

Look It Up! The web page for the conference is
www.grannyg.bc.ca/confer
Here are some other sites of interest:
Women’space magazine can be found at
www.womenspace.ca
Studio XX, a Montreal based digital media centre offering ‘Femmes Branches’ bohemian style digital art discussions monthly to all interested and Internet literacy courses
/www.studioxx.org
PAR-L, a feminist research web page with topic headings to direct you to sites that may be of interest, can be found at
/www.unb.ca/PAR-L

And welcome to the Revolution of our own age of enlightenment. This time women aren’t just participating, we are taking control of the means of participation. It’s about equality but it’s also about shaping the direction the world is taking to meet our needs, not conforming our needs to meet the standards set by others. Bread and Roses, my friend, Bread and Roses.

Email: b5n8@musicb.mcgill.ca

Vida Panitch is a third year Philosophy student, and immersed in theatre productions at McGill University, Montreal. She keeps connections over the Internet with friends in Italy, Brazil and Israel.

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