AGAINST THE ALGORITHM
While social media is often one of the most hostile environments for women, the third day of the UCLG Congress in Tangier offered a different picture. For hours, the hashtag #UCLGCongress became a space where female mayors, city council members, activists, and local leaders from around the world shared experiences and proposals through the first @uclg_women Assembly. The feed itself became a map of the global feminist municipal movement.
And this is no minor detail. X is now one of the main platforms for the “manosphere”— that ecosystem of discourse ranging from the crudest anti-feminism to outright misogyny. Within that same environment, the @uclg_women Assembly filled the timeline with proposals, testimonies, data, and voices that didn’t need to ask permission to be there.
“Decisions about public services, care, and governance must be made with women and girls in mind,” @UCLG_Saiz.
“The feminist municipal movement is an antidote to misogyny,” @ClareLouHart That’s also what it’s about, taking up space. @myrnous, from UN Women Morocco, noted that only two countries in the world have achieved 50% female representation in local governments. The gap isn’t just institutional, it’s also digital.
For hours, the conference feed served as a collective archive: @PatriciaMoraC highlighting women with disabilities, Sanjolli Padhy recalling the invisible work of previous generations, @serrabucak emphasizing that women lead differently—and that matters. @LoweMayor closed the session with an idea that sums up the issue well: “The Legacy we build today isn’t about us, it’s about the girl in Banjul who will never have to ask for permission to lead.”
In a corner of X that tends to amplify the worst, the #UCLGCongress demonstrated for a few hours that the opposite can also happen. Sometimes the best response to noise is simply more voices.