Message-ID: <33CA3B96.3460@wigsat.org> Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 12:02:17 -0400 From: Sophia Huyer <mailto:shuyer@wigsat.org> Subject: FWD: GK97 Gender Discussion To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
gk97-gender-digest Saturday, July 12 1997 Volume 01 : Number 065
Topics in this issue:
Re: REPORT: Women's Breakfast at GK SUMMARY: 06.15.97 - 07.09.97
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Date: 11 Jul 1997 16:44:47 -0500 (EST) From: mailto:maureen@web.apc.org Subject: Re: REPORT: Women's Breakfast at GK
For reference, here's the Financial Post's coverage of the Women's Breakfast and women participants at GK'97:
GK 97 - Financial Post Supplement (06-25-97)
Women drive economies by afra jalabi
"If you look around the world, you'll see that women are development," said James Wolfensohn, the president of the World Bank to a thousand people attending a breakfast forum.
"The arrival of information technology in terms of education for women is the breakthrough we've been waiting for," he said.
The program was organized by the Independent Commitee on Women and Global Knowledge. Nidhi Tandon, one of the organizers, introduced the list of panelists which included Wolfensohn, Shirley Malcolm, director of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Huguette Labelle, president of Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), and Kathryn White, president of Canadian Committee for UNIFEM.
The main themes of the conference focus on information technology and development, but there has been an effort to include women and their concerns in this conference. A third of the presenters at the conference are women.
Angela Zamaere, a participant from Malawi at the GK 97 has never travelled outside the continent of Africa nor surfed the Internet. "We have e-mail in Malawi, but I am hoping to learn more about the Internet at this conference," said Zamaere who is 21 years old.
The British Council has sponsored women to come to this conference. Shehnaz Abdurrahman is one of them. She is a journalist from Saudi Arabia. "This the first time I go to a conference of this magnitude. I am hoping to be enlightened and enriched by this experience," said Abudrrahman. There is Internet at the university in Riyadh, she said. But, "it's a process that's happening now, and I think there will be a gradual adaptation the way everything else happened in Saudi Arabia."
All the panelists stressed the importance of involving women at the decision-making process. "The discussion is different when women are at the table," said Malcolm. Women should be active actors in development and not its objects, she added.
Accessibility and friendly technology was stressed by White. "We have an opportunity to make a gentler technology," she said. "It's a gift women can bring to you."
Monia Aziz from a NGO in Tunisia wanted a more grassroot approach. " I wanted to hear more about how to introduce women to technology and educate them about it," she said.
Elizabeth Robinson from Family Health International said the program was too general. "They did not provide details. I would have liked to see case studies of women who successfuly got involved in this kind of development."
White, however, talked about one group of women in former Yugoslavia who called themselves the Electronic Witches. They explained their situation during the war on-line and gave tips for survival.
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Date: 11 Jul 1997 16:59:00 -0500 (EST) From: mailto:maureen@web.apc.org Subject: SUMMARY: 06.15.97 - 07.09.97
GK97-GENDER Summary 06.15.97 - 07.09.97
In the last few weeks, we've been busy in GK97-gender with final preparations for the face-to-face GK97 meeting, as well as follow-up reporting.
*** GK'97 Meeting Reports ***
So far, reports from the face-to-face meeting have covered these topics:
- - General Impressions - - Breakfast Honouring Women in Technology, including a copy of Dr. Shirley Malcom's inpsiring keynote address, and some comments on James Wolfensohn's comments - - Notes from the Media Collective - - Women and Information & Communication Technology in Ukraine
These GK'97 workshops were reported on from a gender perspective:
- - Learning and Using Policy Lessons - - Empowering Information Tools for Grassroots Women (UNIFEM) - - The Development Impact of the Internet: Why and How to Measure It (USAID, National Research Council) - - Promoting Grassroots Women's Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries: Three Tools (World Bank: EDI) - - Telecommunications Deregulation and The Issue of Universal Access (ITU, CIDA) - - Extending the Reach: The GK97 Virtual Conferences (EDC, APC, UNDP, CIDA, World Bank)
If you have reports or impressions to post, please do!
*** GK97.gender Discussion Highlights ***
One Point to Make... "the economic, political, social and psychological contributors to women's alienation from new technologies must be understood and addressed in order for women to become equal partners in the use of these tools for global knowledge."
Networking Support - - Women need local/regional networking support and training programs that take into account the local opportunities and constraints women are facing.
Gender-Sensitive Training - - one university faculty member observes that her women colleagues tend to be more timid, avoiding using computers unless necessary - - training issues are aggravated by the prevalence of a foreign language (English) and software inability to deal with non-English characters, widening the gap between people and technology - - need to emphasize the role of facilitators and educators in considering gender issues amongst students - - need more women with jobs at universities, etc., in technology and computers, and training for all instructors in gender issues - - many women still resist moving their work onto computers, even though several of them use computers already, due to fear about not being able to use them, or of breaking them -- training needs to address these fears - - in many places, there are relatively few barriers to women entering technological education programs, but still the numbers of female participants are low... we need to educate girls about the benefits and uses of technology from primary school age 5-12yrs, so that the girls are more interested in gaining the necessary skills to go further and be more involved as they grow up - - lobby the education system and software producers, at the same time as encouraging women to be teachers and developers of female friendly technology - - need classes or periods of time for "girls only" access to the computer equipment using teachers who are familiar with the differences in taste and learning styles of girls: may make girls more confident with the technology and better able to stand up for themselves and participate - - men need to take on more home and family responsibilities so women have more time to explore technological opportunities without feeling completely overloaded
Women's Rights and Preserving Tradition - - the question of the dramatic and possibly negative societal effect of liberating women by means of access to new technologies was raised and sparked an interesting discussion, with these (and more) points in response: - - if new communication methods are introduced in a way that works for local people, they can liberate women to find and share information and expand their world views in ways that are sustainable... - - we should be careful in promoting tradition over progress in human rights... as women in various cultures learn about the advances of women in other cultures, it will be natural to want the same, and this will happen, with or without the internet
Lobbying for Gender Considerations in National Policy - - women should become aware of the economic connotations and considerations of the various vested interests and be more watchful at all levels to see that a really gender sensitive policy is shaped at every level -- a Himalayan task but not an impossible one - - how can we even think of talking about Global Knowledge, without considering the social inequality of women: one of the biggest problems in Haiti is educational, where 33 per cent of Haitian girls 10-14 years old already work full-time and in Haitian villages, where electricity and phones are often rare the Internet is an impossibility -- in 3rd world countries, national policies are very important, in women's issues generally, and in IT
Software Design - - computer engineering and human computer interface development must take into consideration women's specific needs and environments - - many web sites developed by women for women are highly innovative, and have been deliberately created as social environments instead of mere information reservoirs... the interaction devices available are specifically geared to provide opportunities for social networking, support, role modeling and mentoring in order to support women's movement efforts and enhance women's careers and education
Practical Applications - - an electronic conference for francophone African women, to promote indigenous production of content, for women to keep pace with information developments instead of being left behind Here's an example of how various communication methods intersect to a useful end: Last year, a young Ivoirian woman, married very young (under legal marriage age) by her parents to an older man, refused the marriage after being subject to conjugal rapes and violence, and finally cut the throat of her husband. She went to jail. News of the incident was circulated in English by IPS Harare (Inter Press Service), and ENDA translated it into french for the francophone constituency. The Women Living Under Muslim Laws Network (WLUML) heard the news and requested the contact information of the women's group in Ivory Coast lobbying to get her out of jail. We were only able to give them the telephone number, as this organisation doesn't have fax nor computer. WLUML started an international solidarity campaign for the girl. She was pardoned by the Cote d'Ivoire president at the beginning of this year. At present we have to count on many communications tools, not only on email, as few people have access to it in our region.
*** Resources Recently Posted ***
o April-June GK97.gender in review: summary of emerging discussion themes o GK97 Gender Declaration: GENDER, PARTNERSHIPS AND ICT DEVELOPMENT: http://www.postindustrial.com/morewomen/canon.html o Society for International Development (SID) Statement to GK'97 o Gender Analysis guidelines, developed by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) o Daily reports from GK'97 http://www.mbnet.mb.ca/linkages/sd/gk97/
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Next Focus Topic... starting July 10th - - Factors Affecting Gender-Relevant Content - - What's Next with gk97.gender
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Archives of the discussion are at: http://www.igc.apc.org/gk97/gk97.gender
For more information, see the introductory documents, summaries and reference materials for this discussion in English, Spanish and French at: http://community.web.net/gk97/resource.htm
If you are without WWW access, you can access these documents by sending a message with no subject to: mailto:getweb@ecn.apc.org with the following text: get http://community.web.net/gk97/resource.htm
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End of gk97-gender-digest V1 #65 ********************************
-- Sophia Huyer Women in Global Science and Technology Network (WIGSAT) International Federation of Institutes for Advanced Study (IFIAS) 39 Spadina Road, Toronto, ON M5R 2S9 CANADA mailto:shuyer@wigsat.org = shuyer@ifias.ca www.wigsat.org/index.html