While Artificial Intelligence (AI) promises a digital revolution benefitting masses, it also majorly threatens women around the world in the digital world, endangering their security, privacy and consequently, mental health.
With the rise of artificial intelligence in both the domestic and industrial sphere, artists and environmentalists were quick to bring to the public’s attention the negative aspects of its usage, ranging from the excessive consumption of freshwater by the data centers to the general decline of human creativity and comprehension skills.
Along with its drawbacks for nature and human brain, AI has also proven to be a huge/ threat to women, both as an individual and a professional.
Despite being a symbol of progressiveness, artificial intelligence isn’t free from gender bias with the models consistently associating men with concepts like business, dominance and executives while women were linked to family, children and home.
This sexism was clearly observed in the 20% responses of Large Language Models (LLM) when asked to complete sentences starting with each gender.
According to a recent report by UN Women, in a survey of 133 AI systems, 44% were found displaying prejudice towards women. This shows the misogynistic views being fed to the machines in the form of codes and programs that cause the widening of the gulf in society.
A major reason for criticism of AI is the risk it poses for human employees with the rise of its usage in major corporations. Even this adverse effect impacts women more as according to the report of International Labor Organization (ILO), generative AI poses a major threat to 29% of women dominated jobs, which is almost twice as that of men.
This predicts a rise in women being left unemployed due to AI replacing them in their careers like receptionist, secretary, managers, writers and editors. With the job market being already saturated, this could lead to thousands of women losing their financial independence.
With AI being largely accessible and free of cost, it has amplified cyber bullying and harassment against women. Through the study of the survey published on UN Women, in a survey of 51 countries, 57% of women advocates, journalists and workers have reported blackmailing through private images, 65% have faced harassment through AI generated misinformation being spread in their name and 63% have been harassed through AI generated explicit images and videos.
Another major threat is the increase in AI Girlfriend applications used by a majority of young and middle aged men, that have reported toxicity and abusive attitudes from its users. These applications are also playing a part in promoting misogyny, male supremacy, harmful gender hierarchies and domestic abuse.
An alarming case and one of the reasons for AI’s continuous sexist behavior is the limited involvement of women in the personnel responsible for AI platforms’ preparation, coding and management leading to their voice and their perspective remaining outside of the rooms these machines are being made in.
The report of the International Labor Organization clearly states that only 30% of the global AI workforce consists of women, which also shows how women are outnumbered in STEM.
Read More: Why Global South Women Must Lead AI Development or Watch It Fail Them
Not only are women facing marginalization in the digital workspaces, they are also being overlooked by the decision makers as shown by the survey of 138 countries, out of which 82% hadn’t referenced gender in their national AI strategies, exposing the gap left by women being absent from these rooms.
A huge concern for women and children on social media platforms is their pictures being manipulated by AI bots present in those apps and independent of them to remove their clothing and edit their pictures in revealing bikinis.
Grok AI, that is the AI bot on X (formerly Twitter) has been commanded to generate over 20,000 images over the span of only 6 days (25th December 2025 – 1 January 2026) and according to the research of AI-Forensics, a nonprofit organization, over half of the images were of women and children as young as 5 year old in bikinis and suggestive poses.
Despite actions being taken against this, preventing Grok from generating such pictures, numerous other AI models are still being used to create and/or edit explicit images of women and minors.
Artificial Intelligence being used to undress, harass and limit women who are already sidelined in social and professional fields, is reflecting the misogynistic views ingrained in our patriarchal society.
Despite restrictions and updated programming, the struggle of women to show up and maintain their professions while their basic rights as privacy and security are being compromised, is a stark reminder that as long as the root cause of the problem is not addressed, which in this case is the prevailing gender bias in society, every new technology would only pose a threat to women.
*The views presented in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Diplomatic Insight.
Fatima Omer
Fatima Omer is an International Relations student with an interest in human rights, geopolitics and gender equality. She is the Sub-Editor of her university's bilingual journal Politico Vista. She can be reached at [email protected]
