HOW TO THINK ABOUT IT

Getting your digits. There’s an app for everything, even protest. Apps like Hustle and networks like Ragtag allow political movements on both sides of the aisle to organize volunteers and increase voter turnout. This is way beyond Facebook organizing: The tech is more focused when it comes to grass-roots mobilization, while simultaneously focusing on ethics and protecting users’ privacy in an age when personal data is on everyone’s minds.

Body politic. Who knows best about a woman’s body? The answer seems obvious. Yet men have long been in control of the products that enter women’s bodies, such as tampons and condoms. Now, though, female company founders and inventors are increasingly taking control, focusing on the development of all-natural products, and attempting to protect both women and the environment at the same time.

Persistence pays. Nigerian politics, like politics in most places, has long been dominated by men. But three female candidates will run in February’s presidential elections (the previous record was one), and support by the African Women’s Development Fund has increased from $15,000 in 2015 to $138,800 this year, giving women a real chance to compete.

Pissed off. Who gets to pee in public? In Amsterdam, it’s usually not women. The city’s few public toilets are designed only for men. So when a woman was fined for peeing in a canal after dark, and the fine was upheld by a judge, the country’s design whizzes decided to fight back by coming up with better public toilets, ones that women could also use. Meanwhile, apps to help find places to pee — and public ridicule of existing laws — have started to change city culture already.

People power. Give corporations an inch and they’ll take an acre. In Tanzania, villages and communities have seen big companies attempt to snatch their land — which often isn’t clearly deeded or even mapped. But now they’re fighting back with digital tech, skillful legal wrangling and good old-fashioned help from their elected politicians, and they’re starting to win big victories.

WHAT TO READ

Yellow Vest Protests Spread to Canada, Criticizing Illegal Immigration, Taxes in CTV
"Originally starting in France, yellow vest protests have moved to Canada. Many were held Saturday across the country criticizing the tax and immigration policies of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his government."

How the Town of Whitefish Defeated Its Neo-Nazi Trolls, by Andrew Romano at Yahoo News
“The fact that hundreds of their non-Jewish neighbors stood in the crippling cold to cheer them on was a powerful reminder — to the world outside, and to the Nazis themselves — of how marginal the haters really were.”

WHAT TO WATCH