Gender bias in AI: “We underestimate the human component of these tools”
Interview by Etienne Meyer-Vacherand, Le Temps (Switzerland) This publication is part of the “Towards Equality” Sparknews-led program, a collaborative alliance of 16 international news outlets highlighting the challenges and solutions to reach gender equality. Unsurprisingly, the new wave of artificial intelligence known as generative AI has demonstrated that cutting-edge algorithms are not immune to gender bias. Whether it’s content hypersexualizing women, replicating stereotypes or reinforcing gender-based discriminations, these so-called revolutionary tools clearly have their limitations and issues. According to Estelle Pannatier, Policy and...
India’s solar power push delivers an unexpected bonus – empowering rural women
By Disha Shetty for The Fuller Project* This publication is part of the “Towards Equality” Sparknews-led program, a collaborative alliance of 16 international news outlets highlighting the challenges and solutions to reach gender equality. It is only 9 a.m., but already the sun is high in the sky and Lad Devi and her co-workers at the Dooni dairy cooperative are hard at it. As milk arrives from the surrounding farms, they work quickly to get it weighed and into the refrigerators without which...
Mother’s Tree
By Ari Hirayama, The Asahi Shimbun (Japan) This publication is part of the “Towards Equality” Sparknews-led program, a collaborative alliance of 16 international news outlets highlighting the challenges and solutions to reach gender equality. To prevent tragedies involving pregnant foreign technical trainees in Japan, a nonprofit organization is informing interns about truths, falsehoods and where they can turn should they become expectant mothers here. Pregnancy in a foreign country often induces anxiety, and this is especially true for technical trainees, who work in...
Lebanon: Women-led peacebuilding creates bridges across rival Tripoli neighborhoods
By Amanda Haydar, L’Orient Today-L’orient le Jour (Lebanon) This publication is part of the “Towards Equality” Sparknews-led program, a collaborative alliance of 16 international news outlets highlighting the challenges and solutions to reach gender equality. It is a winter day in Tripoli, Lebanon’s second-largest city, and near the end of Syria Street, youth sit gathered in a cafe. They laugh and chat over coffee, as the rain rhythmically raps the outside pavement and clears the thick city air. Such a scene would have...
Sex Ed: Beyond Risk Prevention
By Ana Requena Aguilar, El Diario ES This publication is part of the “Towards Equality” Sparknews-led program, a collaborative alliance of 16 international news outlets highlighting the challenges and solutions to reach gender equality. “Much ado about nothing” sums up attitudes towards sex education in Spain. Studies have emphasized its key role in preventing machismo, low self-esteem in young people and sexual and domestic violence, yet sex ed remains something of a pending assignment for the government, which has ensured neither quality standards...
Brazil’s Christian Feminists
By Anna Virginia Balloussier, Folha de S.Paulo (Brazil) This publication is part of the “Towards Equality” Sparknews-led program, a collaborative alliance of 16 international news outlets highlighting the challenges and solutions to reach gender equality. What led a former nun to organize within the Catholic Church to defend every woman's right to abortion? Well, it wasn't overnight that Christian feminist and sociologist Maria José Rosado decided to challenge the Vatican's historical position. But one story impacted her more than any other. She had...
Women’s Pain: Tackling the Taboos
By Danielle Castro, Folha de S.PAulo (Brazil) This publication is part of the “Towards Equality” Sparknews-led program, a collaborative alliance of 16 international news outlets highlighting the challenges and solutions to reach gender equality. Intense cramps, leg and lower back pain, extreme fatigue, gastrointestinal discomfort and even fainting are some of the symptoms that have plagued teacher Maria Eugênia Costa, 32, since her adolescence. After 10 years of suffering and the removal of an ovary, the resident of Ribeirão Preto, in southeast Brazil,...
A Blueprint for Stemming Gender-Based Violence
By Marta Borraz, El Diario ES This publication is part of the “Towards Equality” Sparknews-led program, a collaborative alliance of 16 international news outlets highlighting the challenges and solutions to reach gender equality. Spain is a pioneer when it comes to combatting gender-based violence. The comprehensive legislation and extensive data collection system the country has put in place have become benchmarks for foreign policymakers seeking solutions to this problem. The system has been a work in progress for more than two decades, originating...
Morocco: How Tibu Africa uses sport to transform women’s lives
By Fatima El Ouafi, L’Économiste (Morocco) This publication is part of the “Towards Equality” Sparknews-led program, a collaborative alliance of 16 international news outlets highlighting the challenges and solutions to reach gender equality. Sport is a true lever for emancipation. It is with this conviction in mind that the Moroccan organization Tibu Africa works to eradicate gender stereotypes and encourage female leadership. Its founding president, Mohamed Amine Zariat, explains, “In 2011, we created the non-profit Tibu Maroc, which uses basketball as an authentic...
From Exploitation to Activism
By Flávia Mantovani, Folha de S.Paulo (Brazil) This publication is part of the “Towards Equality” Sparknews-led program, a collaborative alliance of 16 international news outlets highlighting the challenges and solutions to reach gender equality. Diana Soliz’s story began like those of many other Bolivian immigrants in São Paulo: The unemployed single mother arrived in by bus, without papers, and initially worked and lived inside a sewing workshop. The year was 1996. Soliz was 35 years old, and she put in exhausting hours; her...
