Nov 05: Digital backlash, techno-authoritarianism and gender justice
On November 5th, 2026, the Gender, MERL, and AI Learning Group at the MERL Tech CoP will welcome Dr. Becky Faith for a conversation about her new working paper, “Digital Backlash: Manifestations and Resistance”, co-authored with Antea de Jesus Gomes and Raisa Philip.
Exploring how digital systems increasingly entrench and amplify gender inequalities with minimal accountability, the working paper argues that in these same systems gender justice advocates are countering the backlash, showing how it is possible to carve out and create new technological trajectories, rooted in care and inclusive futures.
Situating this analysis in an era of ‘big tech authoritarianism’ marked by the merging of state and technology power, the authors delineate three interlinked shifts in socio-digital realities: the rise of ‘compulsory digitisation’, the persistence of structural gender inequalities in digital access and skills, and the rapid growth of AI, which risks amplifying bias and enabling technology-facilitated gender-based violence at scale.
During this session, we hope to discuss some of the key issues explored in the paper, such as:
- “Compulsory digitisation” and “digital enforcement”, concepts that refer to the increasing trend of having most aspects of people’s lives – from payments to healthcare to social protection – require some kind of digital interface and access, with an accompanying removal of offline alternatives, which can often amplify the gendered disadvantages.
- The rapid growth in the use of AI and the deployment of data-driven predictive technologies has amplified intersectional bias against women across many domains of life. With hegemonic AI often perpetuating violence through datafication, algorithmisation, and automation, for those of working in international development, humanitarian and social impact organisations, what are some of the strategies to stop these biases?
- Discourse capture: With certain actors adopting and promoting “mainstream narratives of AI safety which ignore threats to women”, how can we challenge the mainstream narratives of “AI safety” or “responsible AI” so that they do take into account those threats and risks?
About the guest speaker
Dr. Becky Faith is a Research Fellow at IDS and is also Co-Lead of RT4 of the ESRC Digital Futures at Work Research Centre at the University of Sussex. Becky’s professional experience and research interests encompass gender and technology, mobile communication studies, human-computer interaction and technology for social change. Becky has fifteen years’ strategic and programme experience working in ICT4D and technology for human rights organisations. She started her career in digital start-ups, working on the UK’s first e-commerce platforms in the 1990s. Becky’s PhD focused on the use of mobile phones by young women and she is an international expert in research and strategy on the use of mobile phones in marginalised communities. She has an MSc. in Technology Strategy and Policy Research from the Open University.