We must assess place of women creatives in the digital space

Female photographer taking picture from a digital SLR camera. [Courtesy]

As we recently celebrated the International Women’s Day, we must not forget to tackle gender biases that are accelerating and overwhelmingly encroaching on Internet spaces. This is especially so in traditional African parlance, where the woman’s place and position come second; she is to be seen and not heard. The woman’s place in traditional offline settings is being replicated in online spaces, thus amplifying digital gender inequalities, biases, stereotypes, and prejudices, which manifest in ownership of digital devices, access, skills for meaningful participation, and integration in their daily lives.

This critical topic was the focus in a recent 60-minute virtual session dubbed 'Unconventional African Women Creatives in Internet Spaces', hosted and moderated by African School of Internet Governance (Afrisig) fellows Wangari Njathi and Rebeccah Wambui at the Mozilla Festival (MozFest) from March 7-10. MozFest is an annual festival by Mozilla Foundation that brings partnerships – from artists, public-interest technologists, policymakers, and activists – to creatively disrupt the status quo and reimagine the online world.

The session explored the lived experiences of African women creatives in digital platforms and Internet governance processes. It brought together podcasters, illustrators, influencers, and vloggers who are paving their path; creating fierce, fun, meaningful, impactful and whimsical content they needed and wanted but could not sufficiently find online. Such content includes The Legally Clueless podcast by Adelle Onyango, which creates a safe space for herself and others to authentically tell their stories. Muthoni the Drummer Queen makes music that is fresh, thought-provoking, out-of-the-box, fun rap. Swiry Nyar Kano’s educational, and pre-colonial African history on Tik Tok seeks to dismantle myths, and stereotypes about Africans, while Muthoni Gitau’s Do It Yourself (DIY) YouTube channels are expressions of her self-taught building, and design skills, while JustIvy’s content is financial literacy and social issues with her co-hosts of the Over 25 YouTube channel.

This list is inexhaustible, with non-traditional educators, entertainers, and artists leveraging internet technologies to broadcast their work, creativity and build communities. Of utmost recognition are the opportunities of career pursuits that have emerged, full and part-time, painting a picture of the creator economy taking shape in Kenya. Creator economy can be understood as an emerging industry where independent digital entrepreneurs, mainly enterprising content creators, leverage their passion and creativity to build a following and monetise their digital skills.

During the MozFest session, Mike Otieno, a co-founder of Wowzi, a leading influencer platform, pointed out that women creatives in Kenya churn out most of the digital content in comparison to their male peers. However, female dominance in content creation does not mean an equal playing field. If anything, only 22.6 per cent of Africa’s female population is said to be using the Internet compared to 33.8 per cent of the male population, according to the World Bank.

Women online contend with consistent, vicious harassment; body shaming, trolling and cyberbullying weaponised to control and silence them. A case in point is Natali Tewa, a digital creator whose personal identifiable data was leaked online, violating the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act. In other cases, the women whose content is not exclusively feminine; beauty, fashion, family, or wellness, deal with heightened harassment, demanding they remain in “their lane”. Even more frustrating is the attention on their physical appearance rather than their creative expression.

Another scathing issue that disproportionately impacts women creatives is the digital gender pay gap. During the session, Mwende Ngao, a Kenyan digital content creator, and Marion Ijangolet, an illustrator from Uganda, confirmed concerns about unequal pay for their creative work in comparison to their male counterparts. In 2020, the #PayCreativesKe on Twitter exposed instances of harassment, unequal, delayed payments, or promises of “exposure and freebies” in place of a liveable income. Such digital movements, although lacking immediate recourse, give the victims voice and solidarity while keeping perpetrators on their toes. 

In other instances, it is the digital platforms’ infrastructure, economic models, and content regulation policies that impede the creator economy. The use of algorithmic decision-making models adopted by the Big Tech gives them asymmetrical power to prioritise and classify data based on gender, sexual orientation and race. These capitalistic tendencies dictate who gets access to what information, aggravating the digital inequalities of the already marginalised users. 

Although our MozFest session foregrounds the persistent dimensions of gender inequalities, debates, and theories of the emerging creator economy in Africa, these conversations call attention to the gaps this emerging industry is facing. However, there is limited empirical data qualifying (or disqualifying) the potential, drivers, and hindrances of the creator economy in most African countries. The media has the onus to highlight areas of opportunities and challenges in efforts to support multi-stakeholder engagement in legitimising and regulating this teething economy in developing countries contexts.

Wangari is a digital media scholar at North Carolina State University. Rebeccah is an educator, sporadic creative.