“Women constitute 50 per cent of the population but do 60 per cent of
work, earn one-tenth of the income and own 1/100 of the assets1”.
The digital divide in access to ICTs, between the developed and
developing world, is the result of various factors 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.
| GenderIT.org (http://www.genderit.org)
is meant to be a tool for women’s movement, ICT advocates and policy
makers to ensure that ICT policy meets women's needs and does not
infringe on their rights. It offers special focus on Africa, and
regular news features come from African policy-writers.
|
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.
Beyond questions of access to technology and software, training
programmes for women should focus on how to find, manage, produce and
disseminate information, and how to develop policies and strategies to
intervene effectively in and make use of new media. 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.
This page collects news, information, resources, events, and the names
of organisations working in Gender . Recommended reading will
automatically appear on this page and is marked with a star.
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On Gender in the APC Monitor
View all news on Gender
 South Africa: How can feminists use ICTs to their advantage? 
16/02/2008 (APC) --
The first-ever Feminist Tech eXchange (FTX) held recently in Cape Town brought together more than 100 activists from around the globe. Organised by the APC women’s programme in the run up to the massive women’s movement forum AWID, the capacity-building and information-exchange event explored various technologies such as video, audio, social networking platforms and other emerging ICT tools.
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Senegal: Linking up through technology
12/02/2009 (APC) --
Seven women and thirteen men from Anglophone and Francophone Africa and the Caribbean met during the last days of September in Gorée Island, Senegal. They have many things in common, but one in particular is their ability to make innovative connections between gender, agriculture and ICTs. This ability has led them to be finalists of the Gender, Agricultural and Rural Development in the Information Society (GenARDIS) small grants fund...
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See all documents on Gender
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Egypt: Getting women's crafts online
26/12/2008 --
Are there limits to how the internet can be used to improve the lives of women? A study by ArabDev in Egypt concluded that the internet is too competitive a marketplace to be a realistic showcase for women artisans, but it can be used to generate new handicraft ideas that can be marketed locally.
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CONTENT: the World Wide Web of desire
29/05/2008 --
It is obvious that the discourse around content regulation has shifted mostly towards the protection of children from harmful content and child pornography on the internet. Any references to gender-related concerns were dropped, including even problematic conceptions that women and children need the paternalistic protection of the state or international bodies from harmful content. Namita Malhotra asks the questions in this APC issue paper on content regulation on the internet.
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Are women's ICT rights underfunded?
19/03/2008 --
Where is the money for women's rights work on ICTs? Lucía Carrasco, Fernanda Hopenhaym and Cindy Clark take a brief look at the funding landscape for women’s organisations working in the field.
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