Vviewpoints

something revolutionary for Zambian
society as a whole: “engaging with
each other on the basis of shared inter-
ests instead of traditional identity is an
act of critiquing the traditional status
quo and opens pathways for others to
follow.”
Inevitably these pages evoked a
strong response and Facebook itself was
among those to respond. Linda Waleka
Manda, the moderator of Real Adults
Talk with Waleka, shared her experienc-
es: “I started a page in 2010 and I would
openly talk about sex, but then certain
people found it offensive for a woman
openly discussing sexual issues in pub-
lic on the Internet, so they reported me
to Facebook and my first account was
closed.” 1 Because several of her pages
were reported to Facebook and she
feared them to be closed again, despite
the fact that these pages did not violate
Facebook’s community standards, Lin-
da started to create secret groups.

It can be argued that Facebook, in giving in to the objectors’ demands, sided with Zambia’s male hegemonic social order and implicitly supported that order’s perspective that women should not have sexual agency. This

SOCIAL NETWORKS LIKE Face- book hold promise for women regarding personal growth and social emanci- pation that physical spaces do not offer, yet virtual and physical spaces are intertwined in intricate ways. Explorations into new forms of selfhood and social life that emerge in and through social networks will be inevitably brought into relationship with traditional dispositions and practices that may be hostile to that change. When online discourses represent a challenge to ‘traditional’ gender relations, the way in which Facebook management mediates online disputes can have profound offline consequences for sexual and social emancipation.

In this regard, the story Kiss Brian Abraham tells about Zambian women creating Facebook groups to initiate conversations about sex is pertinent. 1

Zambia’s culture of male hegemony is
defined by the supremacy of Cisgender
heterosexual masculinity; Christian
principles of women’s chastity have
merged with traditional understand-
ings of women’s submissiveness to
men to frame female sexuality as a
means to satisfying husbands’ needs
and not as a woman’s human right.
Furthermore, in the time that these
Facebook pages in Zambia were creat-
ed (2010–2013), women were attacked
and stripped naked in the streets by
mobs of male assailants who were citing
Christian and cultural principles
whilst claiming that the women were
wearing sexually provocative clothing. 1

In their Facebook groups the Zambian moderators laid down their own cyberspace rules: persons who solicited sex or posted pornography would be deleted, the use of foul and insulting language was forbidden, mindfulness of each other and respect for others’ opinions was encouraged and discriminatory gender norms that aimed to subordinate women were explicitly critiqued. 1 In creating spaces for women to experience and express their sexuality in ways that would not be possible in the traditional private and public sphere, these Facebook pages were therefore nothing short of revolutionary. Abraham asserts that these Facebook pages, apart from being pertinent to gender equality and women empowerment, have done

Global Computing
Online Social Networks and
Global Women’s Empowerment
Mediating social change or reinforcing male hegemony?
DOI: 10.1145/3055275