Role of Women in ICT?
"The so-called digital divide is actually several gaps in one. There is a technological ?divide great gaps in infrastructure. There is a content divide. A lot of web-based information is simply not relevant to the real needs of people.And nearly 70 per cent of the world's websites are in English, at times crowding out local voices and views. There is a gender divide, with women and girls enjoying less access ?to information technology than men and boys. This can be true of rich and poor countries alike".
United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan
Statement to the World Summit on the Information Society,
Geneva, 10 December 2003
Despite the very substantial gains that women have made in the labor market over the past half-century,they remain substantially under represented across a range of technical and
?scientific fields. Although women make up nearly 47 percent of the labor force today, less than 20 percent detriot jersey of ?most engineering professions are female, just 27 percent of environmental scientists, 31 percent of chemists, and 27 percent of computer and mathematical occupations are female. 1 Given the importance of these technical fields in our modern economy, and the rapid expansion of employment opportunities in technical occupations,the dearth of women in these areas is puzzling from an academic perspective. It is also troubling from a policy perspective since it suggests that the nation's technical workforce may be failing to fully capture the creative energies that are potentially available.
WOMEN AND GENDER IN ICT STATISTICS
Women tend to use the Internet and cell phones more for personal and social use in the six West African countries, while men use them more for professional or work-related reasons.
The major connectivity obstacles for women relate to place of access (particularly safety and security of location), time constraints, and technophobia.
Few people were aware of gender issues in ICT. The study made the following recommendations:
Universal access strategies should be implemented to enable access to ICTs for adult women in low-income and rural areas. These areas were not covered in the study because of limited ICT availability.
To reduce the gender digital divide, ICT policy should move beyond access―where the gender gap was not large―to the areas of decision making, content, and capacity building.
Young women should be encouraged to upgrade their computer skills and enroll in advanced computer training.
Gender equality and ICT
While there is recognition of the potential of ICT as a tool for the promotion of gender equality ?and the empowerment of women, a "gender divide" has also been identified, reflected in the lower numbers of women accessing and using ICT compared with men. Unless this detriot jersey gender divide is specifically addressed, there is a risk that ICT may exacerbate existing inequalities between women and men and create new forms of inequality. If, however, the gender dimensions of ICT―in terms of access and use, capacity-building opportunities, employment and potential for empowerment―are explicitly identified ?and addressed, ICT can be a powerful catalyst for political and social empowerment of women, and the promotion of gender equality.[2] In the past few years, the global community has seen the "gender issue" come onto the agenda. Despite economic and socio-cultural barriers to women's use of Information and Communication echnology (ICT), when women are able to use them productively, they can substantially improve their lives and increase their income. They have proved useful in: health care delivery ?distance education; enhancing rural productivity through access to market information and ccess to inance promoting empowerment and participation in national and international policy processes
improving service delivery by governments; improving environmental monitoring
?and response systems; and facilitating environmental activism. In general, women make up a small percentage of internet and computer users.This is changing in some countries ? generally those which have greater levels of development and gender equality. ICTs are potentially an important knowledge resource for women, but a focus on access is insufficient. We need also to consider what kind of information is being accessed? Whoproduced it? Who can use it? What is it used for? In sum, we need to view women not as passive recipients of information, but active knowledge and technology developers
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