Reconstructing gendered narratives through digital platforms and inclusive chatbots

Abstract

This article examines how women in the Global South are (re)imagining, challenging and reconstructing gendered narratives through digital platforms and meaningful access through inclusive chatbots. While technologies have historically been biased in their design, creation and access, this article argues that technology and gender are mutually constitutive and draws from recent research and related literature intersecting gender, technology, power and language to discuss gendered narratives and agency of women as technology drivers in the Global South. The article further discusses gender obscurities and invisibilities in Global South media. It draws from examples of mobile technological innovations to illustrate how women in the Global South are appropriating social media and mobile technologies to create visibility through reframing and disrupting gender normativity. It discusses how despite technologies being Anglocentric and patriarchal, women are increasingly drivers of technologies even in cases where their labour remains hidden, such as the case of Kenyan women subjected to precarious working conditions to filter out harmful content from ChatGPT.