Gender and Technology (Oxfam Focus on Gender Series) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0855984228 ISBN 13: 9780855984229

Verlag: Practical Action Publishing - IPSUK, 1999

Inhaltsangabe

This collection of articles from Gender and Development considers technologies of many kinds, including those intended to save women`s labour, to enable them to control their fertility and to learn and communicate using computer technology.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Caroline Sweetman is Editor of the international journal Gender & Development and works for Oxfam GB.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Gender and Technology

By Caroline Sweetman

Oxfam Publishing

Copyright © 1998 Oxfam GB
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-85598-422-9

Contents

Editorial Caroline Sweetman, 2, 
Cyberfeminism, technology, and international 'development' Radhika Gajjala and Annapurna Mamidipudi, 8, 
Supporting the invisible technologists: The Intermediate Technology Development Group Maggie Foster, 17, 
Marketing treadle pumps to women farmers in India: The IDE India experience Maya Prabhu, 25, 
Reproductive health technologies and gender: Is participation the key? Katie Chapman and Gill Gordon, 34, 
Rural development and women: What are the best approaches to communicating information? Joyce A Otsyina and Diana Rosenberg, 45, 
Skilled craftswomen or cheap labour? Craft-based NGO projects as an alternative to female urban migration in northern Thailand Rachel Humphreys, 56, 
Rural women, development, and telecommunications: A pilot programme in South Africa Heather Schreiner, 64, 
The denigration of women in Malawian radio commercials Charles Chilimampunga, 71, 
Resources Compiled by Emma Pearce, 79, 
Books and papers, 79, 
Journals, 82, 
Organisations, 82, 
Internet resources, 86, 
Electronic discussion groups, 88, 

CHAPTER 1

Cyberfeminism, technology, and international 'development'

Radhika Gajjala and Annapurna Mamidipudi

Feminists from diverse backgrounds are considering the implications of the spread of Internet technology, and questioning its benefits for women in developing countries. Apart from having access to the Internet, women must also be able to define the content and shape of cyberspace.

The simplest way to describe the term 'cyberfeminism' might be that it refers to women using Internet technology for something other than shopping via the Internet or browsing the world-wide web2. One could also say that cyberfeminism is feminism in relation to 'cyberspace'. Cyberspace is 'informational data space made available by electrical circuits and computer networks' (Vitanza 1999, 5). In other words, cyberspace refers to the 'spaces', or opportunities, for social interaction provided by computers, modems, satellites, and telephone lines — what we have come to call 'the Internet'. Even though there are several approaches to cyberfeminism, cyberfeminists share the belief that women should take control of and appropriate the use of Internet technologies in an attempt to empower themselyes. The idea that the Internet can be empowering to individuals and communities who are under-privileged is based on the notion of scientific and technological progress alleviating human suffering, offering the chance of a better material and emotional quality of life. In this article, we make conceptual links between 'old' and 'new' technologies within contexts of globalisation, third-world development, and the empowerment of women. We wish to question the idea of 'progress' and 'development' as the inevitable result of science and technology, and develop a critique of the top-down approach to technology transfer from the Northern to the Southern hemisphere. There are two questions of central importance: First, will women in the South be able (allowed) to use new technologies under conditions that are contextually empowering to them, because they are defined by women themselves? Second, within which Internet-based contexts can women from the South truly be heard? How can they define the conditions under which they can interact on-line, to enable them to form coalitions and collaborate, aiming to transform social, cultural, and political structures?

The Internet and 'development'

Cyberfeminists urge women all over the world to learn how to use computers, to get 'connected', and to use the Internet as a tool for feminist causes and individual empowerment. However, ensuring that women are empowered by new technology requires us to investigate issues which are far more complex than merely providing material access to the latest technologies. The Internet has fascinated many activists and scholars because of its potential to connect people all across the world in a way that has never been possible before. Individuals can publish written material instantaneously, and broadcast information to remote locations. Observers predict that it will cause unprecedented and radical change in the way human beings conduct business and social activities. In much of the North, as well as in some materially privileged sections of societies in the South, the Internet is celebrated as a tool for enhancing world-wide democracy. The Internet and its associated technologies are touted as great equalisers, which will help bridge gaps between social groups: the 'haves' and the 'have-nots', and men and women.

Since the Second World War, development — in the sense of transferring and 'diffusing' northern forms of scientific and technological 'progress', knowledge, and modes of production and consumption, from the industrialised north into southern contexts — has been seen by many as the one over-arching solution to poverty and inequality around the world. Much of the current literature, as well as media representations of the so-called underdeveloped world, reinforces this discourse of 'development' and 'under-development'. As scholars such as Edward Said (1978) have pointed out, this process is also apparent in the context of colonialism, when the production of knowledge about the colonised nations served the colonisers in justifying their project.

What, then, does it mean to say that the Internet and technology are feminist issues for women in developing nations, when the project of development in itself is saddled with colonial baggage? In order to examine whether women in these contexts are indeed going to realise empowerment through the use of technology, we need to understand the complexity of the obstacles they face, by considering the ways in which the conditions of their lives are determined by unequal power relations at local and global levels.

The form of this article

In the following, we each describe our engagement with cyberfeminisms, development, and new technology, and discuss some of the problems that we encounter in our efforts. Both of us have interacted quite extensively using the Internet, where our interactions occasionally overlap when we engage in discussions and creative exchanges with others. One of us, Annapurna Mamidipudi, is also involved with an NGO working with traditional handloom weavers in south India. The other, Radhika Gajjala, works within academia, and creates and runs on-line 'discussion lists' and websites from her North American geographical location, aiming to create spaces that enable dialogue and collaboration among women with access to the internet all over the world. This paper was written via the Internet, across a fairly vast geographical distance of approximately 10,000 miles. We have written the article as a dialogue, to make our individual voices and locations apparent. This unconventional form and method seems appropriate for our subject matter: a belief in the possibilities of dialogue and collaboration across geographical boundaries offered by this medium of the future. We do not consider either of us to represent the North or the South, 'theory' or 'practice'; each of us will use her professional and personal experience of technology within both 'first world' and 'third-world' contexts. We share caste, class, national, and religious affiliations, but once again, neither of us are representative Indian...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Practical Action Publishing - IPSUK
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1999
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0855984228
• ISBN 13: 9780855984229
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 88
• Herausgeber: Sweetman Caroline
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Friedensallee 273; Hamburg; 22763; Deutschland