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Why Gender in ICT Policy?
What's gender got to do with
ICT policy? What implications do ICT policy strategies have
for women? Why is there no such thing as gender-neutral
ICT policy?
In the last decades ICT has become a powerful
and widespread communications platform, particularly given
the convergence of existing communications media with new
communication technologies. ICT can be used to increase
access to employment, education or health services; strengthen
democracy; improve transparency; provide a platform for
diverse voices; and cross-cultural knowledge exchange. The
social, political and economic changes wrought by new information
and communications technology have prompted certain shifts
in development thinking. Development strategists now see,
as recognized for example in the UN Millennium Declaration,
the need to adapt ICTs as a way to avoid further marginalization,
and also as a potential force for creating new economic
growth opportunities and for pushing democratic boundaries.
What's gender got to do with ICT policy?
Lettie Longwe, WSIS-Gender Caucus Secretariat
Nancy Hafkin, gender and ICT researcher/consultant
The digital divide between the developed and developing
world in access to information and communication technologies
(ICTs) is the result of various factors beyond infrastructure,
including poverty, lack of resources, illiteracy and low
levels of education. In many societies women are the most
impoverished with the least access to resources and with
little control over decisions that affect their lives. For
this reason, women are on the wrong side of the digital
divide, with limited access to and control over ICTs.
When considering the factors that contribute
to these inequalities it is important to understand the
ways in which ICTs are allocated between women and men (the
gendered allocation of ICTs), the different opportunities
that exist for men and women with respect to education,
training and skills development, employment and working
conditions, content development and access to power structures
and decision-making processes.
- World secondary school enrolment statistics show that
only 11% have achieved gender equality and 51% have a
lower enrolment ratio for girls than boys.
- In 2003 women earned in formal market on average, 79
-75 per cent of what men earned. Men more likely are hired
in regular and better-paid positions, while women are
increasingly being hired in peripheral, insecure, less-valued
jobs including home-based, casual or temporary work. (ILO,
Global Employment trends for women 2004)
The factors listed above influence the fact
that the great majority of the world's women have no access
to internet or to any other sort of modern communication
system, and possibly will not in their lifetime.
But providing women with connectivity is not
enough. Beyond questions of access to technology and software,
other major concerns must to be addressed such as the need
to break down gender and cultural barriers to women’s
access to careers in technology, or absence of women in
decision-making structures.
What implications
do ICT policy strategies have for women?
Education, training
and skills development
Education, training and skill development are critical for
effective ICT interventions. Training methods are often
'ad-hoc,' alienating and not customized to women's needs.
Learning practices for women should be extended to girls
and women, made gender-sensitive (making training women-specific,
ensuring ongoing user support, and mentoring in the communities
where women live) and deepened (for women as not only users,
but technicians, ICT policy-makers, and advocates).
Other major concerns are illiteracy and language
as obstacles to information access; the need to break down
gender and cultural barriers to women's access to careers
in technology; and the design of software, that often does
not respond to the needs of women and girls.
>> Read
more about education, training and skills development issues
Industry and labour
In the ICT industry, labour is highly sex-segregated. Women
are found in disproportionately high numbers in the lowest
paid and least secure jobs. The gender dimension of ICTs
also affects telework, flexi-time, and work-from-home arrangements
where women have few rights, meagre pay, and no health,
social or job securities. A woman’s wage-labour outside
(or inside) the home as a result of new technologies does
not entail a change in the family division of labour. Men
still do not do the housework, and women find themselves
with dual or triple burdens. Poor working conditions, long-hours
and monotonous work routines associated with ICTs are often
injurious to women’s health.
>> Read
more about industry and labour issues
Content and Language
The dominance of English language content, often from countries
in the North, on the internet, is another major concern
raised by women. Language barriers to information access
require the development of applications such as multilingual
tools and databases, interfaces for non-Latin alphabets,
graphic interfaces for illiterate women and automatic translation
software.Women’s viewpoints, knowledge and interests
are not adequately represented while gender stereotypes
predominate on the internet today. Women need to systematize
and develop their own knowledge and perspectives, and make
sure they are adequately reflected in new media.
>> Read
more about content and language issues
Power and decision-making
Whether at the global or national levels, women are underrepresented
in all ICT decision-making structures including policy and
regulatory institutions, ministries responsible for ICTs,
boards and senior management of private ICT companies. Women's
representation is important in creating the conditions and
regulations that will enable women to maximize their possibilities
of benefiting from ICTs, and ensuring the accountability
of the institutions that are responsible for developing
ICT policies.
>> Read
more about power and decision-making issue
Pornography, trafficking,
violence against women, and censorship
A particularly sensitive issue is the use of ICTs for pornography,
trafficking of women and children, or hate literature. The
large and growing presence of pornography on the Internet
has been used to argue for the need to have stricter policies
on content. There have been calls to develop technology
that will not only filter content but will track down creators
and clients of pornographic websites. Many women feel strongly
that proposing control on these areas constitutes an invitation
to censorship that might easily be extended to limit other
forms of freedom of expression. No one has been able to
offer concrete alternatives that respond to the various
needs and demands of the situation. What is clear and must
be a priority is that women are informed, aware and involved
in the discussions and debates taking place around this
emerging trend. They must be consulted in the development
of any policies and practices that are advocated by state
agencies and other bodies involved.
>> Read
more about pornography, trafficking, violence against women
and ICTs
Why is there no such thing
as gender-neutral ICT policy?
ICT policies and regulation are developed,
managed, and controlled in majority by men. One problem
is that at both the global and national levels, decision-making
in ICTs is generally treated as a purely technical area
(typically for male experts), where civil society viewpoints
are given little or no space, rather than a political domain.
Deregulation and privatisation of the telecommunications
industry is also making decision-making in this sector less
and less accountable to citizens and local communities,
further compounding women's role in decision-making and
control of resources.
Given the under-representation of women in
all ICT policy-making processes, women’s needs and
views are not reflected in ICT policy frameworks. If women
are to benefit from ICT interventions, mainstreaming the
perspectives and concerns of women is one of the important
tasks to be undertaken. However, very few governments involve
women in processes of formulating national ICT strategies
and policies, beginning with the nomination of gender-balanced
teams, consulting gender and ICTs experts or supporting
women’s groups to provide inputs from a civil society
perspective.
Another obstacle to drafting gender
sensitive ICT policies, and mapping and analyzing their
impacts on women's and men’s lives, is the absence
of comparable sex-disaggregated data on ICT access, use,
education, employment, participation in decision-making
and development, etc.
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