Digital divide and gender equality

Article by Conchita Poncini
(International Federation of University Women)
President, Geneva-based CONGO Committee on the Status of Women

In today's knowledge-based society, the digital divide has become the center of international development concerns. In fact, the UN has placed access to information technology as the third most important issue facing women globally, after poverty and violence against women. Taking advantage of the high profile of this issue, it is an opportune time for governments and the private sector to act now to ensure that women notably from developing countries can enter the information age as a right to their human development Gender equality should particularly be in the agenda of all mainstreamed activities that would bridge the gap of the digital divide. It is essential that gender issues be incorporated from the beginning of the process of the introduction of information and communication technologies and not as corrective measures.

Education and skills training over the life course are sine qua non to participation in the information age especially for women. Moreover, the key to the empowerment of women and young girls is to reach higher levels of information technology through basic scientific and mathematical education.

I wish to emphasize the necessity to include social and cultural considerations in information and communication policies since women's ability to benefit from the ICT opportunities is contingent upon conducive policies. Policies should be a lifeline for economic, social and political empowerment and not tools for sexual exploitation or further gender inequalities. To cite just one example, in many cultures a woman has little autonomy from her family and husband, therefore her public mobility is limited; in more conservative societies, female-male interaction is discouraged which hamper her access to such training programs where men are numerically in the majority such as engineering and computer science or where there is hands-on training that needs some physical male presence such as mechanical manipulations.

The impact of ICT on women's work has considerably grown but the emerging employment patterns are a cause for concern. Women who have traditionally high representation in secretarial positions are leading many to acquire training in word processing for similar positions. This replication in the ICT sector tends to find women at the lower level, end user positions. Gender stereotype division of labor in Information Technology tends to stem from employers attitudes. In fact this may undercut women's leverage within the IT job market by the feminization of certain IT occupations: large numbers of women entering a profession leads to a drop in salaries, status and working conditions. This is particularly evident in the globalization process which has brought changes in the location of work leading to the proliferation of two major aspects of spatial re-organization of women's work - home work and teleworking.

In themselves, ICT's do not solve problems but are mere conduits. So, the question is to what extent does Internet technology and modern-based communications technology affect the basic challenges of discrimination notably based on gender?