Designing Data for Women with Lorena Fuentes
What led you to start Ladysmith?
I co-founded Ladysmith with the brilliant Dr. Tara Cookson. Our paths first crossed while we were studying for our PhDs in the UK. Then in 2016 a beloved mentor reconnected us over what she sensed was a mutual grappling with the possibilities and limitations of bridging critical, feminist research with the worlds of policy-making and advocacy. In particular, bridging the gap between gender data and social action had been a focus of ours since researching the hidden, gendered costs of the world’s biggest anti-poverty programs, conditional cash transfers (in Tara’s case), and the limitations of statistics for addressing the drivers of gender-based violence (in my case). Tara and I ultimately joined forces because of our shared vision of how academic scholarship could meaningfully contribute to a more just and caring world.
For both us, our PhD experiences highlighted the importance of qualitative research grounded in feminist methodologies and theories of change. Our findings weren’t entirely novel – other feminist scholars had shed light on similar dynamics in other contexts—but we wondered why academic research that had for decades shown gendered and other blindspots in policies and programs wasn’t necessarily shifting the terrain of how policies and programs were being designed and implemented. Beyond just our PhD research, our experiences in women’s movements and activist spaces had led us both to the conclusion that research—and the knowledge and data that comes out of it—is deeply political, and that it can have an important bearing on gender equality and processes of development. And it was in this shared vision that Ladysmith, a home for feminist researchers, was born. Our mission is to help international organizations, and their government and civil society counterparts, to collect, analyze, and take action on gender data.
Part of what we think makes Ladysmith unique is that we try to bridge two worlds-- academic research and policy advocacy-- that are not in conversation often enough. But the question is always about the how-- how do you do this in practice? For example, how do you ensure that a local government policymaker working on anti-poverty measures, or a program designer working on addressing gender-based violence, has access to relevant academic scholarship? It’s not particularly helpful to publish research outlining problems with existing approaches, or proposing solutions, if that research remains behind institutional paywalls or if the language is inaccessible. What’s needed is translation – literally and figuratively. At Ladysmith, we take each of our academic research outputs and translate these into punchy policy briefs to reach policymakers and donor audiences, or into compelling op-eds in national newspapers to garner the attention of government and civil society stakeholders (and this applies in the opposite direction too: taking policy or technical reports we produce and putting them through the academic pipeline).
We often ask ourselves the question: what is needed in this context to catalyse change in favour of more equality and justice? While there’s a bit of a fixation in our field with data gaps, it’s not enough to focus on closing these gaps (to be sure, gender data gaps are a big part of the problem!).
But beyond data gaps, we think it’s important to identify and address gaps in things like political will, resource allocation, and frankly gaps in empathy for the individuals and populations who are the subject of all of these conversations about global inequalities. In other words, closing data gaps is not enough to ensure that data is connected to social action: our task as researchers and advocates is to figure out what the main barriers are in a given context, and work with local movements and organizations to overcome these.
What have you learned about designing for women & girls through your work?
Those closest to the problem are often closest to the solution—hire, support and enable them
This is true whether it’s academic research, or policy and programming work. I’m hardly the first person to say this, but it really is the case that some of the best ideas and solutions emerge at the local level, and from the very people whose lived experiences give them insights that ‘outsiders’ simply do not have. This is not to romanticize some ‘insider-outsider’ dynamic as if there are not shared or mutually-worthwhile learnings that can emerge from these encounters. But for example, victim-survivors of gender-based violence who have experience navigating complex institutional referral pathways in order to receive mental health support will necessarily have insights into what’s needed to make services more accessible and experiences more dignified-- insights that those who are not victims-survivors will simply not have. What I’ve learned in my work is that often what’s missing is not good ideas or potential solutions, but rather, that those with the ideas lack the resources and access to powerful decision-makers to operationalize those ideas. So rather than assume we know what’s needed in a particular context or amongst a particular group, what we try to do across our projects is listen to what local women’s and feminist organizations say they need --for instance, data that can help to garner the attention of government actors or international donors-- and then we leverage our own expertise and our networks to try and problem-solve with them.
This is the reason that we’ve collaborated with grassroots feminist organizations and hired local women to work on our flagship project, Cosas de Mujeres. Cosas de Mujeres is a platform that leverages Whatsapp to build bridges between women and the services that respond to and prevent gender-based violence. It provides women with timely and accurate information via an up-to-date ‘service map’ developed through direct engagement with service providers and grassroots organizations. Cosas de Mujeres also generates actionable data that paints a picture of women’s experiences of gender-based violence in the context of mass migration between Venezuela and Colombia. From the design phase, through to implementation and ongoing iteration, we’ve partnered with and hired local Colombian and Venezuelan women-- they are at the forefront of engagement with service providers and the women beneficiaries of the program. I don’t like to speak in terms of women’s ‘resilience’ because this can be a way of romanticising injustices and inequalities they experience, but it is also true that because of their experiences, women in these contexts become incredibly resourceful and have really clear ideas of what needs to change and how to make those changes, so I’m incredibly proud that they make up the majority of our Cosas de Mujeres team members.
Contexts are forever evolving, and so should products
One reason we engage in a feminist design process is that it invites--or indeed, it necessitates-- constant thoughtfulness and iteration. It acknowledges that there is never a “finished product.” It recognizes that if you land on one solution and refuse to let it ever shift or evolve then you risk doing unintended harm or you risk excluding individuals or groups (and their experiences) that might not have been visible to you during the initial design process. For example, when we first launched Cosas de Mujeres, we set up a protocol that when women messaged the platform seeking information, we would request their age, location, and what specific type of support they needed. The logic behind these information requests was that data on the most common types of violence and age of victims was important to feed back to service providers and local advocates, and that this information would determine the service we signposted her to. But once COVID hit, so much service provision shifted online and we decided that location was no longer an essential data point, and that requesting it could present undue risks and burdens to women, who were now more likely to be engaging with us from within homes where privacy was further compromised (and where abusers might be present). The bottom line is that the design process should be circular, not linear-- it’s about constantly ‘ground-truthing’ the assumptions you’ve made and iterating (or re-designing!) as contexts change.
Be conscious of your co-design process & feedback loops
The question of accountability in research and design is a huge one for us at Ladysmith: we’re not interested in collecting data for data’s sake, or initiating projects or programs that are not responding to needs as these are articulated by local movements or established through substantive research. We call the latter approaches ”extractivist”-- the analogy is illustrative because it’s about research and design processes that involve taking without building partnerships, or neglecting to create feedback loops with the communities whose time and labour are so often used in research. We humbly yet confidently position Ladysmith in opposition to this model. We do this by making continuous, conscious efforts to engage in meaningful co-design with local movements and organizations. One way we hold ourselves accountable is by making sure that the research or data we produce is actually useful to our local partners and their various advocacy efforts. As I mentioned earlier, our ethos is that when any research is conducted, it has to come out the other side not only in the form of an academic article, but in the form of a policy brief or an op-ed, and crucially, in the language(s) that the data was collected in.
What advice would you have for someone creating a product, service, or community for women?
There is no check box that you can tick off to say "now we're taking a feminist approach!" There's a ton of grey space. But we cannot just flake around and use that grey space as an excuse for non action or for harmful action. And the reality is that there are some really good existing frameworks and guidelines that provide paths forward. In fact, Most of what I’ve discussed is tied to the six principles that we’ve developed at Ladysmith to guide our approach to research, design, and advocacy. We’re really proud of these and think that they could prove useful to lots of people and organizations working in similar fields.
Co-design is key. The principle of co-design is inspired by the concept of ‘no research about us, without us’, which comes from disability rights activism. For Ladysmith, this principle motivates us to ask: who is shaping the research process or project agenda and who is accountable to whom?, and making sure that in every context, women’s analyses of their own situations are centered in our work. Everywhere in the world there are local women’s and other grassroots movements and organizations, so people should start by listening to them.
Do not collect data for data’s sake (or just because a donor demands it!) This principle is about remaining vigilant against the extractivist tendencies that can accompany data collection. I’d encourage people to always ask themselves why data needs to be collected, according to who, and to establish how the data (if collected) will be connected to medium and long term positive change. One really excellent example of how to operationalize this principle when it comes to data collection around gender-based violence is UN Women’s “decision tree”.
And this connects to the third principle: If your research and design period has a long time frame, make sure you’re also meeting women’s immediate needs. For example, while we want the data we collect through our Cosas de Mujeres project to inform action for medium and longer term change, this principle compels us to also focus on the shorter-term and to make sure we’re balancing long-term goals (such as collecting data to inform service improvement) with more immediate needs, such as safety from an abuser or access to cash transfers.
Data minimization – set a high bar for what data is needed in order to have a meaningful understanding of a context and to design a ‘fit for purpose’ project or service. As we know, any additional data point about a community or individual can increase potential risks. As I mentioned earlier, when COVID hit, we changed-- or rather reduced-- the number of questions that we asked women when they reached out to us using the Cosas de Mujeres platform.You have to iterate because contexts and conditions are constantly changing, and it’s very possible that the risks can start to outweigh benefits even if that wasn’t originally the case when you designed something.
Amplify the voices of data subjects and their allies: This principle is about asking: which voices are being amplified through your research or project, and how is the data being leveraged to support the advocacy goals of the communities, organizations or movements that your research or project is designed to support or serve? Through Cosas de Mujeres, we have co-authored opinion editorials and regularly produce co-authored data briefs with leaders of grassroots women’s organizations who we partner with. The recommendations included in these outputs are always crafted collaboratively with them.
Technologies are tools, not solutions. There’s a tendency in the field I work in to treat technologies like mobile phones as ‘magic bullet’ solutions that will empower women and help to meet their needs. But it isn’t that simple -- technologies are shaped by, and introduced into, contexts with unequal relations of power and intersecting forms of exclusion. Therefore, if you’re thinking about leveraging digital technology in a program or service, it’s necessary to first understand the grounded realities of how the community in question engages with those tools (if they do at all!). Again, you can see how these principles overlap because understanding those grounded realities requires following the co-design principle and having meaningful relationships with the communities that are meant to be served by a program or service.
We didn’t invent these principles from scratch— they build upon and are inspired by generations of feminist and decolonial scholars as well as grassroots movements. I love this quote from indigenous activist-scholar Lilla Watson, because I think it speaks beautifully to the principle of co-design, and to what research and practice grounded in advocacy should look like: “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”
About Lorena Fuentes
Lorena Fuentes is the co-founder and Director of Practice & Advocacy at Ladysmith, a feminist research collective that helps organizations collect, analyze, and take action on gender data. She is an expert in social norms and gender-based violence. Her current research explores the relationship between gender-based violence and social protection, and the role of data and reporting in making violence visible and catalyzing action around it. She earned her PhD from the University of London as a School of Social Sciences Fellow and as Chair of the Gender & Social Policy in Latin America Academic Working Group. Lorena’s extensive advocacy work is driven by a commitment to connecting grounded needs and knowledge to policy formulation and service provision. Lorena is also a Lecturer in Gender and Development Studies at UCLA’s International Institute. Her work has appeared in Gender, Place & Culture, Antipode, International Feminist Journal of Politics, and Global Public Health, among other outlets.