Declaration against cyberattacks and sexist violence against women working in science and education

MANIFESTO. DECLARATION AGAINST CYBERATTACKS AND SEXIST VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN WORKERS IN SCIENCE AND EDUCATION: WOMEN, LESBIANS, GAYS, BISEXUALS, TRANSVESTITES, TRANS, NON-BINARY, AMONG OTHERS.

#WeWillNotBeSilent #GenderIdeology #cyberattack #GenderViolence #queer
Thank you for your international solidarity, comrades!
Not one step back!

We express our condemnation of the violent and misogynistic remarks made against our colleagues and workers in science and education, Karina Bidaseca and Lucía Nuñez Lodwick—teachers and researchers at CONICET/NuSUR-IDAES/UNSAM and the CLACSO Working Groups Epistemologies of the South and Afro-descendants and counter-hegemonic proposals– and of the colleagues present, within the framework of a scientific event at the presentation of the article «Ilse Fusková. Body, aesthetics and queer memory» published in the #RevistaLaManzanadelaDiscordia of #Univalle, Colombia on March 24, 2021.

The violent comments also occurred on a date of special significance for Argentina: March 24th, the Day of Remembrance, when we commemorate the 30.400 comrades disappeared during the last coup d'état. With this article, we aim to contribute to making visible the struggles and activism of those subjects erased from the grand narratives of heteronormative history. The appropriation of the names of the disappeared by trolls to perpetrate this violence reinforces the gravity of the situation.

Hate is becoming normalized against us in cyberattacks targeting roundtables, panels, and book presentations on feminist and queer theory, which have intensified since the pandemic transformed us into distance educators and all academic events went virtual. While the virtual context disrupts physical spaces, it is important to note that our countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have been experiencing sustained advances in fascism and homophobic, lesbophobic, and transphobic religious groups in recent years, which are taking over public forums and the streets.

The expression “gender ideology”—especially in Colombia, though not exclusively—has been widely used by conservative groups as a mechanism to stigmatize discourses and practices that challenge historical gender inequalities and advocate for the rights of women and gender minorities. “Gender ideology” transcends the religious sphere in its connection to politics. It has become a way to neutralize activism and artivism within global and regional conservative discourses and activist networks, working against the achievements and gains of the rights of women, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transvestites, trans people, non-binary people, and others.

The public arena and right-wing marches, the discourses of “life,” serve as a foundation for a world in which the authoritarianism of fear seeks to censor, silence, and intimidate us. In Colombia, among other places, two episodes reveal the reach and strategies of conservative religious and political activism through the discourse of “gender ideology”: the protests against the educational materials designed by the Ministry of Education to combat homophobia and transphobia in schools; and the victory of the “No” vote in the popular referendum on the peace agreement between the government and the FARC-EP guerrillas.

In Brazil: 120 women are victims of cyberbullying every day. It is estimated that 1 percent of gender-based violence occurs online. 120 women are attacked and harassed online every day. The issue has even warranted a study by the United Nations (UN), and rightly so. Of every 10 women who use the internet, seven continue to suffer from having been exposed to some form of online violence. If every two seconds, according to the violence clock of the Maria da Penha Institute, a woman is a victim of physical or verbal violence in Brazil, it is almost obvious to experts in gender studies that this violence also exists in the digital world. “The internet is the new street,” says Carolina Ferraz, a law professor at the Catholic University of Pernambuco (Unicap) and coordinator of the Frida Gender and Diversity group. For her, “cyberspace is our home, our neighborhood. It's not as if you can see it as separate from our reality.” And it allows "the continuation of the systematic machismo, through the culture of trivializing gender violence, which views women as objects," says Débora Torri, content manager of the feminist NGO Olga.

The cyberattacks that we have been constantly experiencing since the pandemic, on Zoom and other various platforms when we had to isolate ourselves due to the situation of Preventive Social Isolation or Quarantine, are becoming normal and commonplace.

We will not normalize hatred or the forms of violence hidden behind screens, which systematically undermine our forms of public expression, damaging freedom of expression and movement, and intimidating our ability to mobilize in recent years.

The virtual space, like all spaces of social life, is permeated by the struggle for power. We, bodies united and fighting for rights and freedom, also receive here the scourge of sexist, racist, and patriarchal violence. Organized to silence our voices, they forget our histories of collaboration and resistance. Our voices and thoughts will circulate freely through the networks, reaching wherever they are needed, despite attempts to muzzle us with fear. Together we are power.

Even if they try to violate us, even if they try to intimidate us, they will not silence our voices again, we will not be silent anymore.

The master's house is not dismantled with the master's tools, Audre Lorde taught us.

#wewillnotbesilent
#30400
https://twitter.com/karinabidaseca/status/1374882631943348230?s=24

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26 of March 2021
CLACSO Working Groups
Epistemologies of the South
Afro-descendants and counter-hegemonic proposals
Feminisms, resistance and emancipation

This statement expresses the position of the aforementioned Working Groups and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.