by Claudia C. Lodia

GenderIT.org's recent interview with Anita Gurumurthy gives a strong feeling for the call to continue engaging the work of Heike Jensen in internet governance. Jensen's work urges us to remember that the gender equality agenda is not simply to be a "marginal add-on" to the political field of internet governance but, to be engineered strategically into media and ICT goals.¹Some of the key components of the gender equality agenda include, women's right to respectful representation, women's access to the media and ICTs they wish to use, and true and full participation of women in decision-making positions in the respective business and governmental institutions.² These components have been part of the driving force towards the construction of a global normative framework of women's human rights and gender equality since the UN world conference on women in 1975. By 1995, feminists and gender equality advocates assumed a formal commitment to help implement what materialized as a mandated global strategy of gender mainstreaming. Intended to "make women's as well as men's concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes [sic] in all political, economic and societal spheres," this strategy was to critically consider the inter-national, inter-regional, inter-cultural, and digital differences that run deep between women and men around the globe. Gender mainstreaming did not only set up the ways for institutions - business and state - to oppose gender biases and inequalities by incorporating a gender perspective in all institutional policies. It also helped the women's movement to organize and promote women's participation and empowerment through media and ICT practices from the ground up.

Asia-Pacific Women's Recommendations on Media for Beijing+20

Excerpts from the Civil Society Statement on the Beijing+20 Review
Bangkok, Thailand, 14-16 November 2014
Asia Pacific CSO Steering Committee
Read the complete statement and the final CSO Forum Report.

"The women at the Asia Pacific Beijing+20 Civil Society Forum collectively recognise the following concerns and priorities for women in Asia and the Pacific regarding the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action, the post-2015 development agenda, and beyond.
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Women and the Media

Access to the media must be universal. To address digital and media divides, governments must have the political will to address economic, social-cultural and political divides that perpetuate gender inequality and discrimination against women. There must be increased support by government for women-driven media that reaches different audiences with different needs.