Michaela Svatosova is a Czech expert on gender and technology issues, who is now participating as a Fulbright Exchange Visitor in the Take Back the Tech! campaign team. APCNews interviewed her to know more about her expectations and the results of her research on online violence against women.
APCNews: How did you find about APC? What made you feel attracted to it?
Michaela Svatosova: The first time I heard about APC was through a very old colleague of mine, Lenka Simerska. She promoted the Take Back the Tech! campaign in the Czech Republic together with Katerina Fialova in 2006/2007. I did not pay much attention to it until a few years back, when I started building my expertise in the gender and ICT field and that was the time when I started reading APC articles and following APC projects. I also started thinking about joining the APC network. However, it took me quite a while to get in touch and introduce myself and my projects. There is not a similar organisation to APC as far as I know, and I just admire the work you do and your feminist approach and attitudes. I feel like there is a lot to learn from you.
APCNews: Can you tell us a bit about your Fulbright Fellowship? What are your expectations? How do you expect it to feed into your local work, if that’s the case?
MS: My Fulbright project is all based on TBTT and its extension to Europe. My goal is to build some EU partnerships and promote TBTT among activists and organisations who are an active part of the women’s movement. The issue of digital-based violence related to adults and especially to women is very new in my country. It was only three years ago when I started my first project and started to raise public awareness in this field. There is still a lot of work ahead of us. I consider campaigning as one of the tools for combating violence against women (VAW). We already have the data, the problem has been described, and it is time to move on and take action.
APCNews: You did quite extensive local research on trends in technology-related VAW. Can you share a bit about it? Where do you see the links/parallels between the situation in the Czech Republic and the rest of the world? Are there any specificities you identified in your country when it comes to tech-related VAW?
MS: I have just finished my second big research project, using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. The first research on digital VAW was a pilot, as we had not had any data relevant to this issue until now. The problem is that the majority of research work focuses on children only. The first research findings show how adults (women and men) use the internet, what the most common activities for women and men are, and what their knowledge about violence and their experience with it are. My colleague and I were trying to explore people’s sensitivity to digital violence and their responses to it. The main findings are:
1. Violence is a culturally determined issue; sensitivity to violence is individual, according to what individuals considered humourous or fun. Our tolerance to violence is very high.
2. Most men (in this research) do not recognise digital violence as problematic in the first place. Many men feel that using the term violence to apply to digital spaces is inappropriate.In many cases described in the research, violence happened unintentionally – people like to share videos/photos they think are funny and do not realise they can cause harm. Entertainment is also an excuse, “come on it was just fun and you are making a big deal out of it” is the sort of attitude very often seen among boys. Most male respondents do not find any risks in virtual communications, although they are concerned about online fraud. For those men who had experienced some form of violence and were willing to label it violence, it was easier to handle the whole situation individually with almost no support in comparison with women respondents. Gender stereotypes and cultural context play a significant role; among our respondents there were traditional assumptions of victims (women) and aggressors (men), where men were portrayed as strong, independent and confident and, most of all, violence-resistant. This is how they were seen by the majority of respondents.Whereas female respondents talked about feeling more vulnerable, experienced violence more often and needed help from others to find solutions. The most interesting finding is men’s behaviour on the internet. They come to cyberspace with strong and sometimes aggressive attitudes that put them into risky situations. The feeling of protection and safety online was commonly shared among male participants. “Nothing can happen to me online, and even if it did, I can handle it myself.” Such attitudes made men vulnerable in some cases.
3. Women expressed being careful about what they do online and who they trust, but many shared that cautiousness has its limitations when using the internet, and is insufficient to avoid violence.
4. Digital violence is intangible, people tend not to react to it until something happens to them or somebody they know.
5. Women especially do not report their stories; rather they speak to their close friends.
6. Anonymity and insufficient help were described as the biggest problems for survivors. Anonymity was described ambivalently, anonymity of survivors is seen as desired but the anonymity of aggressors is an issue for victims and for those who are in charge of investigating serious violence cases.
The second research contains three parts: gender-based violence in cyberspace and survivor strategies; research among public enforcement agencies, crisis centres, NGOs, experts on cyber crime, etc.; and legislation analysis. There is another qualitative analysis of the correlation between activism and online active engagement and violence. All parts of the research are based on gender. The main findings are, first, in the Czech Republic there is a lack of gender and cyber violence awareness among the middle-aged generation, a very vague vision of digital violence stemming from insufficient digital literacy (also a very gendered phenomenon). There is a public debate focusing only on children, and the majority of information comes from NGOs and institutions, not from the government. Second, prevention and education of adults are very much needed, as well as awareness-raising campaigns promoting the issue free of stereotypical perceptions of gender roles. Third, women are exposed to violence more often than men, but there is a large number of men who never reported their cases (the same applies to women). And fourth, the police struggle with a number of barriers, such as the fact that there are very few specialised police departments for digital VAW; there is a strong argument against precautions, saying the more we educate people the more they know and we won’t be able to solve the problems; digital violence is simplified and put aside as there are bigger problems than cyber stalking; among others.
As far as the qualitative research focusing on the link between violence and active engagement, the hypothesis was not proved. However, there are important findings coming from the survey as well. The first part of the research brought the very same data as the first pilot research. The most common problems our respondents had to face were gossip, defamation, texting, identity theft, threatening texts and emails. What is also important is that violence usually happens between people who know each other: intimate partnership violence, in the family, school, etc. This is a strong argument that challenges especially the media discourse, which has a negative influence on the perception of violence. Similar to APC findings, the larger numbers of victims are 1) someone in an intimate relationship, or 2) a professional with a public profile involved in public communication (e.g. writers, researchers, activists).
APCNews: Is the discourse around feminism in tech any different in the United States (where you are developing your Fellowship) and what you find in your home country? How?
MS: The whole feminist discourse is different here from in my country, not just the tech-related one. Feminism is for many a swear word [in my country], thus I need to either avoid the terminology or use more accepted words like gender equality, etc. Both of my projects would not be possible to run in the EU rhetoric; the gender dimension was one of the requirements. Feminism seems to be omnipresent in the United States (at least in New York). People proclaim themselves as feminists out loud; in random discussions people do not question or challenge what I do and how I think. It is a huge relief that I do not need to justify myself and my work all the time. And as far as the issue of violence in the Czech Republic, the biggest difference is in its perception: violence is seen as a girls’ issue and/or women’s issue. Cyber violence is simplified to cyber bullying among children, and adults are excluded from the discourse. As you can see from the research described above, we are a few steps behind in this field. The debate has just started, and that is why there is nothing new or extremely different from your experience.