Gender Inequality In Digital Technologies And Online Violence — Bloomsbury Intelligence and Security Institute (BISI)

Implications

The interaction between AI, online violence and structural inequalities in digital access is reshaping how women experience digital technologies. While AI is often framed as a potential pathway to gender equality and economic empowerment, evidence shows women are disproportionately exposed to AI‑enabled harms and underrepresented among those who design and govern these systems. Across OECD countries, women remain a minority in ICT specialist roles and, at current rates, parity in the ICT workforce is many decades away. Globally, women hold only about 22% of AI‑related jobs, and they occupy just around 14% of senior executive roles.

Generative AI increases the scale and credibility of reputational attacks on women, with particularly acute consequences for those in public life. Synthetic media tools enable malicious actors to fabricate sexual or defamatory content cheaply and distribute it rapidly across platforms. In the 118th US Congress, 26 female members were identified as victims of sexually explicit deepfakes, with women 70 times more likely than men to be targeted; around one in six congresswomen had been subjected to non‑consensual intimate imagery. Similar cases have emerged internationally: Northern Ireland politician Cara Hunter and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni have both faced pornographic deepfake attacks, illustrating how synthetic media can be weaponised to intimidate or discredit women in leadership.

These attacks carry systemic political risks. UN bodies and independent researchers find that technology‑facilitated violence, including deepfakes and gendered disinformation, is a key factor in women’s decisions to self‑censor, withdraw from social media or avoid standing for office. When coordinated harassment targets female candidates, journalists or human‑rights defenders, it shapes political discourse by driving women out of the conversation rather than contesting their ideas, undermining inclusive governance and the…

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