Reality of Virtual Reality: The Internet and Gender Equality Advocacy in Latin America, The

Latin American Politics and Society, Fall 2005 by Friedman, Elisabeth Jay

ABSTRACT

This article examines the internet's potential to democratize gender equality advocacy in Latin America. Based on field research in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, it challenges the assumption that the internet's horizontal organization and widespread dissemination inherently or inevitably lead to greater democratization. It advances two interrelated arguments. First, the internet's potential to foster democratic relations and effective strategies in civil society depends on the consciousness with which advocates adopt, share, and deploy the technology. Second, the internet is a critical resource for marginalized or socially suspect groups and subjects, providing a unique means to express and transmit often ostracized ideas and identities.

Although contemporary Latin American civil societies emerged in opposition to authoritarian regimes, they have become central to democratic politics over the last 25 years. The number of civil society organizations has boomed, intervening on behalf of citizens in the still less-than-perfect democracies that characterize the region. Gender equality advocates are among the most vibrant participants in this arena. As one state after another has moved toward some form of democratic governance, women's movements and organizations have grown increasingly vocal in their claim that democratization must be extended to gender-based issues in both public and private life.

As the demand for gender equality has spread across the region, advocates have diversified their strategies and goals. Many have exchanged the social movement-based action they developed under authoritarian rule for more structured nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Women are represented in the bureaucracy of most states by a national women's agency, and have negotiated an institutional presence at local levels. Poor, indigenous, and Afro-Latin women have developed their own distinct organizations and perspectives on gender equality. In recent years, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights advocates have joined the struggle for gender-based justice and equal rights. Since the early 1990s, tangible successes include political candidate gender quotas in 16 countries, legislation against domestic violence in 18, and national laws banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in 5 (Aimeras et al. 2002; Alnevall et al. 2003; IGLHRC 2003; International Lesbian and Gay Association 1999).

The advocacy of gender equality in Latin America has expanded along with the development of a powerful new tool for nongovernmental activism: the internet. Advocates so routinely use ICT (information and communication technology) that it has become a "new utility" (Friedman 2003).' Its true impact, nevertheless, is hotly disputed across the region. While proponents declare that it extends nonhierarchical networks across national and international borders, skeptics worry about the creation of "digital divides," divisions based on ICT access that exacerbate traditional racial, gender, and class inequalities.2

Because ICT is clearly critical to the everyday efforts of gender equality and other civil society advocates, this article moves beyond arguments about online Utopias and technological dystopias to explore the reality of virtual reality-that is, the lived experiences of people using the internet to facilitate social change. It relies on empirical examination to advance two related arguments. First, ICT's potential to foster democratic relations and effective strategies in civil society depends on the consciousness with which advocates adopt, share, and deploy the technology. second, the internet is a critical resource for marginalized or socially suspect groups and subjects, providing a unique space for the expression and transmission of often ostracized ideas and identities.

The internet's effects on civil society have become a topic of concern for communications scholars, political scientists, and sociologists. Two of the most prominent lines of inquiry address the tool's internal and external impact. Scholars interested in the internal assessment consider the dynamics of the internet itself, including close examination of information flows, communication patterns, and online identity transformation among civil society-based actors. Those who focus on external evaluation interrogate ICT's consequences for the formal politics of democratization, such as the study of policy-based lobbying efforts and candidate support networks.

While such studies are crucial to understanding contemporaiy democratic politics, they provide only a partial view of the relationship between technology and political change. On the one hand, the analysis of virtual communities or online identities is a necessary element of a holistic examination of civil society, but it risks ignoring the sometimes messy offline or real-time impact on individuals and organizations. On the other hand, concentrating exclusively on the sphere of formal politics denies the importance of civil society activity as political participation in its own right, "disregardting] the possibility that nongovernmental or extra-institutional public arenas . . . might be equally essential to the consolidation of meaningful democratic citizenship" (Alvarez et al. 1998, 14). Although the external or perhaps "ultimate" outcome of internet-enhanced civil society activity is highly important, civil society, as a critical political arena in Latin American democracies, merits focused and full consideration of its own internal dynamics. End results, such as policy formation, matter to democratic politics, but assessing the impact of ICT on the practices and processes of civil society also tells us about how democratization is taking shape in Latin America. This study is thus part of a larger effort.