Cinderella or Cyberella?: Empowering Women in the Knowledge Society
Nancy Hafkin is today’s Berkman Luncheon Series guest. She’s speaking about gender issues and technology and how women can be empowered in the knowledge society.
Hafkin suggests a cyberella has many characteristics, including someone who is more than just a user of technology. She’s someone who uses it in many aspects of her life and introduces it to others. She also regularly designs and implements technological systems to improve her everyday life.
With Sophia Huyer, United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development, she published the book Cinderella or Cyberella?: Empowering Women in the Knowledge Society.
Hafkin has done a lot of work in Africa and is sharing some of her knowledge about the information society in the developing world. She shared a graph showing the amount of Internet penetration per country and the number of female Internet users. (The country names weren’t on the graph.) The number of female Internet users seemed fairly steady regardless of the amount of Internet penetration. Developed countries don’t necessary have a closer relationship between Internet users and female Internet users. Some developing countries have a smaller gender gap. The numbers indicate that gender doesn’t just ‘take care of itself.’ We need to pay more attention to the digital and gender divides. They do not move in tandem.
Gender neutral technology is a myth, according to Hafkin. The belief that everyone will benefit equally from technology is not true. It’s important to look at women and technology because of what it reveals about the greater society. There’s a lack of awareness of women and gender issues with technology.
Access to information technology in general has many barriers. You might be familiar with some of these because they’re similar to general digital divide issues. Many people don’t have Internet access at home. Public access is often much more common, especially in developing countries. Are women comfortable going to the space? Does society allow women to go by themselves? Do women have time to go? Do women have a high enough education level to use a computer (2/3 of the world’s illiterates are women, she says)? Geography, lack of mobility, and finding appropriate content can also be a barrier. She told us that women are more likely to be technophobes than men.
There’s a school in a developing country that tries to give students access to computers. However, she shared with us, when it’s time for the students to go to the lab, all the boys run there and the girls get scolded for running because it isn’t lady-like. The lab has 15 computers and there are 30 students. You can imagine what that means.
Technology is wonderful, but it also brings some negatives. With the Internet, as you might imagine, comes an increase in access to pornography. Some people also use it as a tool to increase trafficking. In some areas of the world, men feel very threatened by their wives having access to the technology. Studies indicate in some areas, the rise of technology maps to a rise in domestic violence. Some men believe women who use the technology are being subversive.
What is the role of the library in this gender gap? How can we encourage people we know to move from being a Cinderella behind the scenes to being a Cyberella?
Just a few days ago, a public librarian I know mentioned how he’s often surprised by who comes into the library to use the Internet terminals. I think I’ll point him to my summary of this lunch. He and his coworkers might find it interesting.
For those of you who would like to join the lunch, here are the links. I can only pass out virtual sandwiches and cookies.
Video and audio webcast: rtsp://harmony.law.harvard.edu/webcast.s… or ” title=”irc://irc.freenode.net/berkman
” target=”_blank”>irc://irc.freenode.net/berkman
Second Life at the Berkman Island: http://tinyurl.com/s6tv4
I meant to post this event earlier, since it’s very relevant to librarians, but I was a slug and forgot about it. My apologies.
