Data Feminism Session 1 - Data as a Cornerstone for a Feminist Development Cooperation

“Data feminism begins with a belief in gender equality, and a recognition that achieving equality for folks of all genders (and all races, and all sexual orientations, and all locations in the world) requires a commitment to examining the root cause of the inequalities that certain individuals and groups face today” - Catherine D’Ignazio, Lauren Klein: Data Feminism

The future of Development Cooperation is feminist – a commitment to eliminate structural inequalities, unequal treatment, and discrimination. In the light of this tremendous task, more attention needs to be paid to data – to the data gaps which hinder our work with marginalized groups, but also to data as an effective tool for empowerment. But how can we at GIZ leverage data for good? What is gender data? And how can we all become data feminists?

These and more questions are answered in the Data Feminism Event Series, hosted by the GIZ Data Lab and the Data Pop Alliance (DPA). In four separate events under the motto “From Talk to Action”, we invite various experts to explore the role of gender data as a corner stone of a successful feminist development cooperation.

We kicked off the series on Wednesday, 16^th of November with Dr. Dirk Aßmann, Head of Sectoral Department and GIZ Gender Ambassador setting the scene around the meaning of Data Feminism for GIZ. He was followed by our speaker Catherine D’Ignazio, the Head of the Data + Feminism Lab of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and widely known author of the pathbreaking 2020 book Data Feminism.

We asked the audience: What comes to your mind when hearing the term “Data Feminism”?

Our projects must be based on data that go beyond classical gender indicators and have an intersectional point of view.

Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) made a strong commitment to actively address gender inequalities and recognize discriminatory power structures, norms, and role models as the root cause for injustice, following the concept of Feminist Development Cooperation.

Data is at the core of this transformative process. As GIZ, we need to fill existing data gaps to make power relations visible, address all individuals and visualize the realities of the communities we work with. Communities must have the right to have power over their own data, tell their own stories and use both to advocate for themselves – this is what we call a power-critical point of view.  Data can also help change the narrative around women and marginalised groups by acknowledging them as agents of positive change rather than simply beneficiaries of support.

What is Data Feminism and why is it important?

The commitment to intersectional feminism means that we cannot look at one dimension of inequality alone. Besides looking at gender we must look at all oppressive forces, for example racism, white supremacy, colonialism, and ableism. Intersectional feminism is not only about women or gender, but about unequal balances of power and the structural forces behind that.

In the book ‘Data Feminism’, Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren Klein discuss how to approach data science in a feminist way. The seven principles of data feminism encapsulate the most important aspects of feminist theory and relate them to data.

How does Data Feminism apply to feminist development cooperation?

The seven principles of data feminism can be applied to donors and development actors such as the GIZ:

You might start with examining power. Historical inequalities influence and shape the data that gets produced. Every dataset reflects those structural biases. There is no quick fix to de-bias datasets, but you must start with understanding and addressing the groups most affected by the biases. There is also bias in what we do not measure and the data that we do not collect. Missing data on key vulnerable groups (e.g., trans people, undocumented people) reveal who has power and who does not.

Furthermore, with data and data communication we often exclude emotion. This can distance community members and non-expert audiences from the issue. So, we must think of innovative, affective, emotional ways of communicating with data that draw more people in. We must think about data as a campfire that brings people together.

We also need to re-think the gender binary when collecting data – and what harm we are doing when collecting data claiming that women and men are the only genders that exist.

Finally, we need to embrace pluralism. We need an authentic participatory process with communities when collecting and using data - letting the groups who are most affected take the lead.

How can data be an instrument to leverage power and what do we have to watch out for?

Several things come to mind: One is the intersectional focus. Marginalized and intersectional groups (Black women, trans women, etc) are often side-lined in quantitative analysis because they are fewer in the population and yet, as the Combahee River Collective stated, these are the groups that should be centred: “If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression.”  This statement is key: focus on specific groups (who are not the average, not the majority) to liberate all of us!

What a well-resourced organisation can do is to support capacity building and provide technical support to identify issues that could be served by more data. Communities often have a clear vision on how to fix problems, but they are missing the political will of decision-makers to achieve change. Data is one of those areas that is rather ‘locked up’ in terms of needing a degree or advanced technical education. Capacity building and training can help communities to enter the field and create change themselves.  

How can we make Data Feminism a part of our organizational DNA?

You don't often find people who are both proficient in data and in power analysis. Building technical expertise in data is key but also knowing how to execute a power analysis when designing a new project, building on understanding the historical perspectives.

It is important to think about how to avoid the white saviour complex, how to avoid deficit narratives, and how to engage in non-extractive, authentic, deep relationship building with communities. This is essential for large organisations like GIZ. It comes down to being humble and sharing power, and truly believing that the organization has a great deal to learn from the communities it works with.

End of interview.

We asked the audience: How can we as GIZ apply the 7 principles in our work? Here is what they say:

This was the first out of a series of four events on Data Feminism. In our second event on December 5^th, we are excited to have Papa Alioune Seck, Chief of Research and Data at UN Women to deliver a Keynote on Gender Data, the gaps in Gender Data and why they matter for our work. We will not stop at the gaps but also have a look at how Gender Data should be used. For this aspect, we are thrilled to count on the experiences of our colleagues Daniela Torres Mendoza, Mariana Gonzalez Carrillo and Christin Schulze, together with Patricio Aguirre Arauz who will share some insights from their projects and their efforts around using Gender Data and closing Gender Data Gaps. Stay tuned on this blog for a recording of the session as well as summary of the key take aways!