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

ABSTRACT

This article examines the internet's potential to democratize sex equality advocacy in Latin America. Based upon 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 sum of two units interrelated arguments. First, the internet's potential to nourish democratic relations and effective strategies in civil society be pendents on the consciousness with which advocates adopt, share, and open the technology. Second, the internet is a critical resource for marginalized or socially suspect assemblages and subjects, providing a unique means to expres and transmit frequently ostracized ideas and identities.

Although contemporary Latin American civil societies emerg in opposition to authoritarian regimes, they have become central to democratic politics above the last 25 years. The number of civil society organizations has humed intervening on behalf of citizens in the still less-than-perfect democracies that characterize the region. sex equality advocates are among the greatest in quantity vibrant participants in this arena. As single state after another has mov toward a certain quantity of form of democratic governance, women's motions and organizations have grown increasingly vocal in their claim that democratization must be reach forthed to gender-based issues in the two public and private life.

As the demand for sex equality has spread across the region, advocates have diversified their strategies and goals. Many have exchanged the social movement-based action they discloseed under authoritarian rule for more structur nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) Women are exhibited in the bureaucracy of greatest in quantity states by a national women's agency, and have negotiated an institutional neighborhood at local levels. Poor, indigenous, and Afro-Latin women have exhibited their own distinct organizations and perspectives upon gender equality. In recent years, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights advocates have joined the aim for gender-based justice and equal rights. Since the early 1990 tangible successe include political candidate sex quotas in 16 countries, legislation against domestic violence in 18 and national laws banning discrimination upon 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 sex equality in Latin America has expanded along with the unravelling of a powerful new tool for nongovernmental activism: the internet. Advocates in the way that routinely use ICT (information and communication technology) that it has become a "new utility" (Friedman 2003)' Its real impact, nevertheless, is hotly disputed across the region. While proponent declare that it reach outs nonhierarchical networks across national and international borders, skeptics worry about the creation of "digital divides," divisions based upon ICT access that exacerbate traditional racial, sex and class inequalities.2

Because ICT is clearly critical to the everyday efforts of sex equality and other civil society advocates, this article impels beyond arguments about online Utopias and technological dystopias to explore the reality of virtual reality-that is, the lived experiences of family using the internet to facilitate social change. It relies upon empirical examination to advance sum of two units related arguments. First, ICT's potential to sustain democratic relations and effective strategies in civil society be pendents on the consciousness with which advocates adopt, share, and unfold the technology. second, the internet is a critical resource for marginalized or socially suspect collections and subjects, providing a unique space for the expression and transmission of ofttimes ostracized ideas and identities.

The internet's events on civil society have become a topic of relate to for communications scholars, political scientists, and sociologists. sum of two units 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 shut examination of information flows, communication patterns, and online identity transformation among civil society-based actors. Those who focus upon external evaluation interrogate ICT's effects for the formal politics of democratization, similar as the study of policy-based lobbying efforts and candidate support networks.

While like studies are crucial to understanding contemporaiy democratic politics, they provide alone a partial view of the relationship between technology and political change. upon the one hand, the analysis of virtual communities or online identities is a necessary ultimate part of a holistic examination of civil society, on the other hand it risks ignoring the sometimes messy offline or real-time impact upon individuals and organizations. On the other hand, concentrating exclusively upon the sphere of formal politics denies the importance of civil society activity as political participation in its have a title to 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" result of internet-enhanced civil society activity is highly important, civil society, as a critical political arena in Latin American democracies, merits focused and filled consideration of its own internal dynamics. extreme point results, such as policy formation, matter to democratic politics, on the contrary assessing the impact of ICT upon the practices and processes of civil society also run overs us about how democratization is taking shape in Latin America. This investigation is thus part of a larger effort.