A Women's Commons?
Bear with me. I'm working out an idea for an article for genderIT based on the discussions held at the recent Asia Commons Conference.
In a prolonged " glossary break" with jhybeturtle, where we worked out everything that was unclear to us during the conference (like, what the hell is the difference between the Commons and Public Domain? and how is it that John Stewart Mill's political theory about "the commons" is less "western" than the ones being used to back up the current IPR regime?), we started to discuss gender and the commons. OK, this was largely because we had to prepare for the following day's small group discussion on "gender and the 'commons'", which The Turtle was leading. We wanted to explore if there were gender issues within the 'commons' beyond that of (assumed and probably true) unequal participation between men and women, beyond the framework of wanting more women in power and decision-making spaces within this so-called 'commons'.
Given that there's a 95% chance that this emerging political arena called the 'commons' will probably reflect existing divides between male and female participation in ICT and its arenas as well as bigger development divides between men and women, is there another way of looking at the 'commons' in a different way? Is there a way that the idea of the 'commons' would be empowering and enabling for women? Or more specifically, how can this 'commons' be good for women beyond a "if it's good for all, it will be good for women, too" sort of way?
So ideas were thrown about, backwards and forwards. Then a brain fart: how about a women's commons?
A community, a social contract between women and women's groups / networks to share and pool content and other creative products towards women's empowerment. Lots of bullshit words there, I admit, but bear with me, I'm working out an idea and sometimes that requires falling back into old familiar words that have been waved about as if they explained everything.
In my head, "intellectual property" of content / ideas / creative products / material / information is most meaningful in these aspects:
If women are able to come together to agree to use / access each other's information about women, to appropriate this information according to agreed Feminist principles of empowerment, and to form a space where decisions can be made regarding how women's information / content can be used and appropriate, and to mediate issues that crop up, then a women's commons is possible, useful and good.
The idea of contributing to each other's information and content is assumed in this 'commons'. What is still unclear to me at this point (and which I will have to think about in writing that article) includes:
In a prolonged " glossary break" with jhybeturtle, where we worked out everything that was unclear to us during the conference (like, what the hell is the difference between the Commons and Public Domain? and how is it that John Stewart Mill's political theory about "the commons" is less "western" than the ones being used to back up the current IPR regime?), we started to discuss gender and the commons. OK, this was largely because we had to prepare for the following day's small group discussion on "gender and the 'commons'", which The Turtle was leading. We wanted to explore if there were gender issues within the 'commons' beyond that of (assumed and probably true) unequal participation between men and women, beyond the framework of wanting more women in power and decision-making spaces within this so-called 'commons'.
Given that there's a 95% chance that this emerging political arena called the 'commons' will probably reflect existing divides between male and female participation in ICT and its arenas as well as bigger development divides between men and women, is there another way of looking at the 'commons' in a different way? Is there a way that the idea of the 'commons' would be empowering and enabling for women? Or more specifically, how can this 'commons' be good for women beyond a "if it's good for all, it will be good for women, too" sort of way?
So ideas were thrown about, backwards and forwards. Then a brain fart: how about a women's commons?
A community, a social contract between women and women's groups / networks to share and pool content and other creative products towards women's empowerment. Lots of bullshit words there, I admit, but bear with me, I'm working out an idea and sometimes that requires falling back into old familiar words that have been waved about as if they explained everything.
In my head, "intellectual property" of content / ideas / creative products / material / information is most meaningful in these aspects:
- who can use / access it?
- how it can be used?
- who has a say in who can and how it can be used?
If women are able to come together to agree to use / access each other's information about women, to appropriate this information according to agreed Feminist principles of empowerment, and to form a space where decisions can be made regarding how women's information / content can be used and appropriate, and to mediate issues that crop up, then a women's commons is possible, useful and good.
The idea of contributing to each other's information and content is assumed in this 'commons'. What is still unclear to me at this point (and which I will have to think about in writing that article) includes:
- participation -- is this all women? all women's organisations? or just those that agree to it? will it be open to men? what are the terms of participation in this commons?
- women's content -- is this information about women? from women? created by women?
- other resource networks -- how different is it from other existing (or ex-existing) women's resource networks?
- participation in the bigger 'commons' -- how will this enable more women to have stronger voices in the larger 'commons' debate?
- platform -- where will this happen? what technology will be used? whose technology will be used?
- leadership -- who will lead this? who will coordinate?