womensnet launches girlsnet

By Sabine Neidhardt and Zanele Muholi

June 14, 2004: In keeping with the theme of celebrating Youth Day, WomensNet held what it called a Stakeholders Consultation Meeting at the Parktonian Protea Hotel in Braamfontein, in preparation for the launch of its newest development initiative GirlsNet. The new ICT networking support program is designed to enable and empower South African girls and young women between the ages of 10-25 to use the internet and other information technologies as a tool to explore and engage a wide range of needs and issues. The intent is to focus on and prioritize girls from under-serviced areas.

The interactive sites will focus on both negative and positive experiences that make up the fabric of reality for girls and women. They will be able to engage with issues as diverse as HIV/AIDS, physical and sexual abuse, poverty, child-headed households, exclusions based on race, class, or sexuality, spiritual and cultural matters, positive representations of sexualities and sexual pleasures, educational and employment opportunities, and healthy living. The sites are also designed to make government more accessible to young women in order to educate and to allow for constructive interaction of the kinds of politics that matter and affect them.

Present at the brainstorming meeting were gender and social development representatives of the Premiere’s offices of Eastern Cape, Limpopo and Gauteng, Soul City (Soulbuddyz), Behind the Mask (BtM), Forum for the Empowerment of Women (FEW), Agenda, the Youth Development Network (YDN), Planned Parenthood of South Africa (PPASA), Information Society Technologies Centre (CSIR), Technology for Women in Business (TWIB), Universal Service Agency (USA), media specialists, and communications NGOs and businesses dedicated to gender equality and social development. The meeting proved fruitful as the stakeholders shared ideas, expectations, information and a commitment to making GirlsNet a useful and empowering resource. Organizations were also able to network with each other to further the cause of gender mainstreaming and gender equity.

Behind the Mask was there to push the point that sexuality and sex is something experienced by all girls and young women and that it is a central feature of their experiences and identities. An interesting discussion followed the suggestion made by BTM that a site dedicated to young people must create a non-threatening and open space for dialogue that will engage with and include non-heterosexual and transgendered girls. While initially there appeared support for such an initiative, the rumblings of defensive discomfort began with the comment that “gays and lesbians” make up a small portion of society, that their representatives are already “very vocal,” and that their issues should not overshadow issues shared by the vast majority. Moreover, there seemed a decid! ed lack of understanding that transgirls and transwomen cannot be subsumed under the identity of ‘lesbian” as they have their own needs, issues, and sexualities.

Demonstrated here again is that there is a critical need to confront and challenge the dominance of binary heterosexist thinking that positions heterosexuals as the “natural” majority and homosexuality as the “Other” whose voices can never be equally represented. Moreover, the meeting outcome highlighted that as gender activists and community workers, we must be sensitive to the fact that identities such as “girls” and “women” cannot be understood as fixed or unified categories—some of us are black, some of us are Muslim, some of us are lesbian men, some of us are HIV positive or femmes or butches or queer or born with “male” bodies but ‘female” souls and desires. Young women and girls must be allowed creative exploration of themselves and their experiences if they are able to gain meaningful autonomy over their bodies and their lives.