gisw13_chapters

academic groundwork is needed, both in termsof top-down projections of how certain decisionsmight impact different groups of women and men,as well as bottom-up analyses of good-practice examplesand prognoses of which groups of womenwould require which kinds of internet governancepolicies to remedy which forms of discriminationagainst them.Even under these adverse conditions, however,some feminists and their associations do find itworthwhile to engage in internet governance scenarios,and we will now turn to the strategies weemploy and the limits and problems we encounterwith them.Demands for normative commitmentsAt the normative level, we lobby for a reaffirmationof non-discrimination, gender equality andwomen’s empowerment as guiding principles.Concurrently, we seek a reaffirmation of the historicallegacy of gender politics as such. We thereforelobby for the inclusion of references to the agreedconclusions of the world conferences on womenand the outcomes of their review process, CEDAW,and any other relevant precedents. We also callfor a reaffirmation of the strategy of gender mainstreaming,which, when successful, leads to theparadox of a policy document that demands gendermainstreaming while not having itself beenindebted to it.The strategy of reiteration and reaffirmationis chosen because feminists have so far not experiencedany significant trickle-down effects ofpreviously successful interventions. We have thereforenot been able to directly build on the gainsachieved in any previous forum and political process.Instead, we seem to have to engage in thesame kinds of lobbying and advocacy in each newsetting and process.Demands for the collection of genderdisaggregateddataGender mainstreaming requires the collection ofgender-disaggregated data, and this is a crucialfeminist demand because it constitutes the basisfor any meaningful policy interventions. This demandis not only ideologically contentious frommainstream perspectives, because it makes injusticesvisible; it also involves a fight over budgets,because data collections require substantial monetaryand labour resources. At issue here is thecollection and analysis of rough demographic dataas well as the creation of indicators that will lead toqualitative and quantitative data of sufficient qualityand granularity.Erasure of “bad” languagePolitical negotiations not only revolve around conceptsbut also around their wording. In certaincontexts, it may be as important for feminists toachieve the erasure of specific concepts, phrasesor conjunctions as it may be to achieve the inclusionof items. If successful, this can only be seenwhen examining the history of the negotiations, as,for instance, preserved in draft documents, while itcannot be gleaned from the text of the agreed conclusions.In gender politics, what many feministsseek to avoid at all costs is a conflation of womenwith other marginalised groups such as children,differently abled people, or people living in landlockedcountries.Engaging with mainstream,gender-blindly worded issue politicsOf course, we also seek to influence the negotiationsaround specific internet governance issues,such as those concerning internet censorship anddigital surveillance, free and open source software(FOSS), or intellectual property rights. Given the absenceof gender mainstreaming when these issuesarrived on the political agenda, this means that genderanalyses often have to be commissioned andconducted “on the fly”, while the larger political deliberationsare already in full swing. Concurrently,there is often not a lot of time left to develop a feministconsensus on the policy positions that shouldbe developed accordingly. This is not only an analyticand intellectual problem, because it also leaveslittle room for strategic considerations, bargainingand coalition building.Advocating special measures for girlsand womenThese analytic and strategic concerns also affectanother crucial type of feminist policy input: thedemands for special measures on behalf of girlsand women. The rationale behind such demandsis that unjust structures, institutions, practices andresource allocations that disadvantage many girlsand women vis-à-vis many boys and men need tobe fought by strengthening those that are discriminatedagainst. However, in otherwise gender-blindpolitical processes, all that can be achieved in thisregard is that some of this feminist input is takenup selectively. The result can be problematic on accountof the following issues.57 / Global Information Society Watch