Women's CMC in Global Contexts
Few studies discuss women users in poor or newly industrializing nations. In their study on gender and technology, Nancy Hafkin and Nancy Taggart (2001) report 22 percent of internet users in Asia and 38 percent in Latin America are women. Merely 6 percent of internet users in the Middle East are women. No definitive statistics are available for users in Africa.
Sophia Huyer (2001) of Women in Global Science and Technology (WIGS AT) argues that women can be empowered through control of communication and therefore the flow of information. CMC crosses not only national barriers, but also barriers between traditionally gendered spaces. While women may gain access to men's spaces (politics and the public sphere) through CMC, this also may allow men access to spaces generally reserved for women (home and private spaces) and lessen women's empowerment there. Sarah Murison of the United Nations Development Program on Gender ranks access to technology as the third most important issue facing women, after poverty and violence. She explains that communication technologies are controlled by men, and therefore women are prohibited access in many regions.
Despite the many patriarchal, or male-dominated, systems in the Global South, women's organizations are narrowing the gender and technology gap there. Women are participating by building online communities to increase supportive dialogue, exchange information and promote activism. Building women-centered communities between the Global North and South aids how women face challenges around the world. For example, the Vrouwen ontmoeten Vrouwen (Women meeting Women) project in the Netherlands is a forum for women's organizations to distribute news online and discuss issues ranging from women and the environment to the results emerging from international forums on women's rights.
Particularly in times of crisis, citizens are silenced by traditional media, economic hardship and authoritarian governments. It is in such times that CMC is arguably the most important means for women to voice their concerns. From the Independent Women Journalists in Kosova [www CI5:11] to the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), women's groups reported on the crises in their countries long before these crises made the front pages and opening stories of Western print and broadcast news. They are often challenged, however, to reach their own communities. Sharida, a RAWA member, notes: 'Unfortunately we cannot hope to use the internet to bring information to our own people. Can you use the internet to communicate with the eleventh century?' Women like Sharida are in the minority of women who enjoy access to engaging in CMC. Rosemary Brisco (2001), member of the Digital Divide Task Force of the World Economic Forum, says: 'Three-fourths of women have not yet pressed the 'Power' button' to connect them to larger global communities'.
Those who do have access work to connect women with global communities. Women in the Global Digital Society Research and Practitioners' Group, for example, gather data on women's access to and use of IT worldwide. Comprised of women from Afghanistan, India, Israel, Morocco, the United Kingdom and the United States, the group examines access for women in the Global South. The group is also creating strategies for bridging the digital gender divide, and for facilitating the training of trainers who will work closely with civil society and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The group has been guided by the efforts of Women's Learning Partnership for Rights, Development and Peace (WLP). With partner organizations in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, WLP works to redefine women's and girls' roles in their communities, through leadership training, technical skill building and the creation of gender- and culture-specific multimedia educational materials.
These efforts make CMC more gender-balanced. Through community building and activism, women are finding new ways to raise their voices against gender imbalance and harassment. Community-building efforts through CMC foster both gender equity and, more broadly, the future growth of participatory democracy. Recall from Central Issues: Unit 3, collaborative links and community building through CMC benefit those who have been marginalized by differences in race, gender, class, ethnicity and nation. Participation in an open computer-mediated dialogue affords women a space to enhance both local and global understanding of such issues as national and ethnic differences, economic problems and communities in crisis. Women want to voice their concerns to the world, and CMC creates a space to do just that.
During the mid-1990s, feminists, policymakers, and educators expressed concern about ensuring equal access to the internet for women. Various studies assessed why women were online in such low numbers. Factors included technological temerity, socioeconomic reasons, a paucity of content to attract women, and time constraints. In 2000, statistics indicated that, at least in the United States, there was no longer a gender gap in access to the internet. As various Pew Internet and American Life reports also established, women are using die internet for activities that reinforce and correspond to their everyday lives such as e-mailing friends and relatives, searching for health information online, and for engaging in leisure time activities. In a sense, then, the internet has become domesticated, similar to other communication technologies in the household such as the television and the telephone.
This article examines some of the facets of gender online. First, however, it grounds the discussion by focusing on the gender-technology dynamic. A significant body of contemporary research has looked at how communication technologies have been gendered, both via their social uses and through design. Some of this research, particularly on the telephone, shows similarities to the current adoption of the internet by women. Data from various Pew reports describing how American women use the internet, and the gendered nature of how men and women use the internet, are then discussed. Given that men and women seek different kinds of information online, the chapter then looks at online content designed for women, particularly some of the mechanisms by which corporate interests are attempting to attract the "feminine audience."
There is a sense of optimism that the internet, despite the still-present "digital divide," has reached a level of gender parity for the American population. But is access to the internet the only determinant of gender equity? Is the internet really a level playing field for men and women? What other considerations should we consider in terms of equity? Even though women might be on an equal par with men in terms of internet use (despite the differences in information-seeking behavior), is there equity in terms of design, administration, ownership, and governance of this infrastructure?