• ICT and gender

ICT and gender

This book is a collection of case studies about women and their communities in developing countries and how they have been influenced by Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). It notes that ICTs and policies to encourage their development can have profound implications for women and men in terms of employment, education, health, environmental sustainability and community development. It makes the point that, due to systemic gender biases in ICTs and their applications, women are far more likely than men to experience discrimination in the information society. It notes that, despite these constraints, even resource-poor and non-literate women and their organisations are aware of the power of information technologies and communication processes and, if given the opportunity to do so, will use them to advance their basic needs and strategic interests.

The book draws its insights from five case studies, which are:

• the effect of ICTs on women’s enterprise creation: a practical example from China
• e-business piloting and readiness for rural women weavers in Bhutan: lessons learned
• fishers and radios: a case study of Radio Ada in Ghana
• development through radio: a case study from Sierra Leone
• gender, ICTs and health in the Caribbean

Some of the conclusions are:

• ICTs are clearly not ‘gender neutral’ because women know the importance of information and the power that these technologies hold in terms of breaking out of systematic discrimination and gender violence in the household
• ‘digital opportunities’ for women may involve a risk that new divides are created – for example, in China there is a preference for younger female ICT operators over (displaced) older women workers
• women may use ICTs to transform Women in Development projects involving low-tech initiatives such as handicrafts into more strategic initiatives that address gender-based inequities in the local and international markets
• ICTs can mean the difference between rapid communication and being cut off from the rest of the world, particularly in times of crisis, such as the post-Tsunami period
• ICTs offer possibilties for change and empowerment in terms of gender relations, so the focus needs to be focus be placed on gender relations in communication and learning rather than simply women and technology

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