AI and Feminism: Foundations of a Critical Dialogue on Gender, Power, and Technology

Learning Objectives

• Define key terms and historical developments in both feminist theory (e.g., waves of feminism, intersectionality) and AI (e.g., machine learning, deep learning).
• Explore how feminist critiques and critical theories can be applied to ethical challenges in AI.
• Investigate how biases related to race, gender, and other identities are embedded in data and algorithms.
• Engage with case studies to identify how algorithms, such as facial recognition systems, perpetuate or challenge social hierarchies.
• Reflect on the ethical development of AI through a feminist lens.
• Identify actionable steps for applying feminist principles to AI research and development.

Key Course Features

• Comprehensive Curriculum: Covering everything from the fundamentals of feminism and AI to intersectionality, ethics, and bias.
• Expert Instruction: Led by experts in the fields of feminism and AI, this course will deliver lectures on feminism, AI, and intersectionality.
• Collaborative Environment: Discuss lecture topics and case studies alongside like-minded peers in a supportive and dynamic learning environment, fostering creativity and innovation.
• Reflective Session: Create a personal reflection based on course content and share ideas with your peers.

Who Should Attend?

This course is designed for Feminist students, Eng. And Comp. Sciences student and researchers, Students interested in AI and Feminism, data scientists, enterprise and NGO employees interested in the topic.

Please note that you do not need to have a background in feminism or AI to successfully complete this course.

Dr. Christo El Morr

Christo El Morr, PhD, is a Professor of Health Informatics and the Director of the Centre for Feminist Research (CFR) at York University. He is also a Research Scientist at North York General Hospital, Toronto. Additionally, he serves as the Health Informatics Certificate Coordinator and is a former Graduate Program Director and Undergraduate Program Director at the School of Health Policy and Management at York University.

His research aligns with an Equity Informatics perspective, covering areas such as Equity AI (e.g., patient readmission, disability advocacy), Patient-Centered Virtual Care (e.g., chronic disease management, mental health), Global Health Promotion for equity (e.g., equitable health promotion), and Human Rights Monitoring (e.g., disability rights, Gender-Based Violence).
As a theologian and poet, his broader intellectual contribution to social justice focuses on defending the human person against alienation, whether through infringements on human freedom or dignity in the face of irrational powers and exploitation. His work encompasses the fight for freedom from oppression (e.g., analysis of exclusive identities, communion and solidarity, freedom, liberation of reason), freedom from exploitation (e.g., analysis of illusions of freedom, political and religious exploitation), and the freedom to celebrate life (e.g., poetry).

Dr. Elaine Coburn

Elaine Coburn is the former Director of the Centre for Feminist Research and Associate Professor, International Studies at York University's bilingual Glendon College. In addition, through the Faculty of Graduate Studies, she is a member of the Department of Sociology, the Gender, Feminist and Women's Studies and Social and Political Thought at York University. Elaine holds a PhD in sociology from Stanford University, and a BA in Sociology and Canadian Studies from the University of Toronto. Prior to coming to Glendon, she was a researcher at the Centre d'analyse et d'intervention sociologiques (CADIS) at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, France, and Assistant Professor at the American University of Paris. Currently, with Andrea Davis, she is co-editor of the Journal of Canadian Studies and on the editorial board of the Canadian Review of Sociology. Her research interests include neoliberal forms of globalization, struggles for social justice and social theory, especially socialist feminist, Indigenous and anti-racist perspectives. Finally, she has recently begun writing for the Literary Review of Canada.

Dr. Andi Schwartz

Andi Schwartz is the Coordinator of the Centre for Feminist Research at York University and Co-Investigator on the SSHRC-funded project, “On Our Own Terms: An Oral History and Archive of Femme Cultural Production in Toronto, 1990-2000.” Her research interests include femme identities, cultures, and histories; digital and popular cultures; affect and “softness”; and intersectional approaches to the study of femininity. Her academic work has been published in Sexualities, Feminist Media Studies, Punk and Post Punk, Social Media and Society, and others. Andi is the creator of the podcast Still Brazen and the zine series Soft Femme. She recently co-edited a special issue of Feral Feminisms with Dr. Shayda Kafai on the intersection of critical femininity studies, Mad studies, and critical disability studies. Andi has been a faculty member in the Women’s and Gender Studies program at St. Francis Xavier University and is currently the Treasurer of the Sexuality Studies Association and a Research Associate with the Critical Femininities Research Cluster at York University.

Dr. Maleknaz Nayebi

Maleknaz is an Assistant Professor at York University in Toronto. Before that she was a professor at Ecole Polytechnique of Montreal. She received her PhD degree from Software Engineering Decision Support (SEDS) lab at The University of Calgary in Canada. Maleknaz has been working on software open innovation with a focus on the platform mediated software products. She is one of the main collaborators on DEEL Collaborative Research and Development Grants with a total value of 2M dollars. She was also a professor of IVADO data science institute with the role of fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration with industry.

She has six years of professional software engineering experience. Her main research interests are in mining software repositories for open innovation in two-sided markets. Maleknaz co-chaired SANER 2020 ERA track, ESEM 2020 Emerging ideas track, RE data track 2018, IASESE 2018 advanced school, and several workshops. Maleknaz is a member of the IEEE and ACM. Maleknaz leads a team of students and associates on analytical methods for decision support in software innovation in society.