by Saweda Liverpool A popular saying goes "if you educate a woman
you educate a nation". It is an established fact that investment in a woman
is of value not only to her individually, but to the wider society. It is
said that the children of educated mothers are more likely to succeed in
school, more so than if only the father is educated. Their daughters are
more likely to attend school, do well and graduate. It is almost impossible
to conceive of the children of an educated mother being illiterate (GC
women's ministries). The nature of statistics on female participation in the area of ICT in developing countries, especially amongst African nations is a sign of the fledgling nature of this phenomenon across the continent. While increasing statistics are being made available of female use of ICT in the developed countries, it is still quite difficult to get reliable statistics in developing countries. In many developing countries and on the African continent as a whole, the acknowledgement of the concept of Information technology as an important development tool is still a fairly recent phenomenon. The rise of gender inclusion into the ICT realm occurred mainly through the promotion of ICT as a tool to foster the dissemination of information amongst women and provide the platform for them to get their voices heard and their needs considered and incorporated into policy making at various levels. It involved ICT use in the provision of avenues for women to be educated about their capabilities and engage in political activism. However in current times the discussion has gone beyond the advocacy for women to be users of ICT in collaboration with their male counterparts to advocacy for women as developers of ICT. This issue of gender and ICT is a very complex one with many different reasons proposed for the low female participation in ICT. Some of these include; less access to electric communications and ownership of equipment, less time to commit to learning new programs, how to install things, what to do when there is a problem and browsing the Internet and even low level of interest shown by women towards ICT related tasks. Studies have shown that women tend to be more involved in and interested with the communicative aspect of ICT. With due recognition of the many exceptions, it has been observed that whilst their male counterparts are fiddling with computer parts and other technical issues, women are more interested in attending to customers and helping them deal with computer related problems. (Liverpool, S, 2002) Two interesting issue that continue to be raised and discussed in research and articles on the low participation of women in ICT are those of mentoring and IT expert portrayal. In the past, it has been shown that girls had very few female ICT experts to look up to or to desire to be like. Looking into the field and seeing a male dominated arena did not attract girls in the least. With regard to IT expert portrayal, the conception of IT experts as "male" "geeky" and "Nerdy" did nothing to help matters. Thus in recent times, numerous non governmental organizations (NGO's) and development agencies are trying to encourage the use of mentoring where young girls can see and relate with other women with dreams and aspirations like them who have actually succeeded in the technology field. Also more awareness about the nature of the IT domain exposes them to the reality that not all ICT experts are male, nerds or geeks. The goal is "...Instead of trying to make girls fit into the existing computer culture, the computer culture must become more inviting for girls." (AAUW, 2000) It is also interesting to note that statistics does show that where women have participated in the field of ICT, they have shown comparable performance to their male counterparts and even instances of greater achievements. (Liverpool, S, 2002) In this light, these pages provide you with links to numerous research that has been done in the area of gender and Information and Communication Technology world wide but with particular emphasis on developing countries. It is crucial for all nations to ensure that their entire human population is given the best possible opportunities to learn about and use ICTs as failure to do so is to the detriment of the entire nation. Check out some articles on Gender and ICT Some
interesting gender and technology related sites
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