Technology - A global tool for creating equal opportunities for women

Author: Similoluwa Awe

Introduction

As a common knowledge, technology is the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry. This description comes with an open ended discussion, but considering this year's theme of the international women's day having this article as its offshoot, we will be sticking to the aspect of technology innovation considered in the theme: “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality”. As the world has been almost totally tilted towards digital innovations, it is impossible to achieve modern development without leveraging on technology.

In emphasising the importance of technology, Avani Desai said that technology has the power to transform lives and promote gender equality—by leveraging it, we can break down barriers and provide greater access to education, healthcare, and economic opportunities for women and girls around the world. With the way the world moved from industrialised societies to digital or information societies within a century, it is important to measure the impact as well as create more enlightenment about hidden potentials in technology.

Gender inequality on the other hand is one of the most discussed topic around the world, yet one of the difficult global goal to achieve based on unsuccessful attempts at the various efforts before the millennium development goals between the year 2000-2015, putting in consideration the level of marginalisation against women at different levels ranging from political, finances and others, with efforts still on going with the sustainable development goals having goals on gender equality and reduced inequalities since 2015 till date, these amongst many others is a pointer to the fact that even though there has been changes over the years, yet, not so much has changed especially in some areas of the world.

Today, with the development and evolution of the world, technology has played a major role in every aspect of human existence with no exceptions as to creating opportunities for women.Yet with identification of gender gaps hindering women's access to digital technology. This is evident through women's underrepresentation in STEM (science-technology-engineering-mathematics) and careers which continues as a barrier to their participation in tech design and governance.

With history showing how the means, processes, and ideas in addition to tools and machines were embraced in the 20th century which birth technology by mid-century, we will briefly consider the forms of gender equality/inequality before the 20th century. Prior to the 17th century, there was really less to talk about when it came to issues pertaining to women, until self-made women began to rise among the writers in the 17th century. After this time, the progress as to women's development and recognition continued, though was slow before a broader take-off in the 19th century. This take-off gave rise to the 1800 birth cohort, which had first amongst them women involved in art and academic scholars, followed by elected politicians, and after appointed politicians.

Indeed, the rise of women’s status came with much struggle. Until the 20th century when there was a first-wave feminism fight for women being able to acquire property and practice franchise, which led to enfranchisement in developed countries during the 20th century rights which the male gender has long enjoyed before this time. With this, it is obvious that technology has essentially removed so many barriers such as to knowledge that existed in the past amongst many others. Today, women have access to information leveraging on technology from wherever they are, which has in turn brought about a lot of changes as it assists them in achieving academic and professional growth.

Opportunities Created by Technology for Women

With the advent of technology, global empowerment of women and girls has become possible with digital technology. These technologies have created engagement opportunities that strengthened women financially, requiring less physical strength and more tactical approaches. This opportunities created by technology include:

1. Revenue generation: A study shows how women have made a significant difference compared to men, putting them at a better position to fill in top positions in application of technology to modern day development. The study narrated that companies with the greatest gender diversity (those in which 8 out of every 20 managers were female) generated about 34% of their revenues from innovative products and services in the most recent three-year period. In addition to these, it shows how 500 companies with at least three women in leading positions saw a 66% increase in ROI (return on investment) and have a purchasing power of an estimated $5 trillion.
2. Healthy competition: Women's ability to see things from a different point of view and think differently is essential to diversify team forces as it prepares the team better. As such, men and women bring unique ideas to the table, and this enables better problem solving, which is capable of boosting performance of any team. The organisational skill of women and calmness also create more opportunities for them in addition to their competence as every team now looks forward to a female team member.
3. Women empowerment: the digital age eliminates all forms of disparity and inequality, in that there is so much content online that has awakened women's consciousness about their values which has in turn translated to their worth. The Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have catalysed communication and networking between and among people on a global scale, which help more women to access connections and platforms beyond their continent.
4. Digital learning: with technology, there are access to online education both formal and informal, in that it creates opportunities for women to get education even for free; and they can be anywhere and study in any country of choice in the world through E-learning platforms. This education in turn is key for freedom and access to different opportunities.
5. Tech-facilitated sexual and reproductive health care: with technology, there are various web-based devices to address health challenges and this has really affected and improved the reproductive health girls and has been very impactful to women has they have different devices like pocket blood sugar monitor kit which has been helping women with diabetes to monitor their health and has in turn helped women to live longer and healthier.
6. Access to information: Information is power, and the lack of information or misinformation is ignorance. Digital gap which leaves vulnerable people in the dark with lack of adequate skills and education to survive this rapidly changing tech-enabled economy is caused by ignorance which has killed and affected a lot of women in the past. With access to information, women now have more opportunities to first hand information which in turn keeps them abridged and on top of the existence game.
7. Job opportunity: Technology has created a lot of opportunities for girls and women such as copywriting, content creation, SEO optimization, web designs, graphic designs, social media management amongst many others. All these skills are becoming hot cakes and one of the world's greatest opportunities, beyond it creating more jobs, it also provides for flexibility as most of the jobs are remote, reducing forms of sexual harassment at work place, which are one of the reasons women are held back.
8. Platform for creatives: Technology has absolutely created a platform where a child of nobody can become somebody not minding their sex and religion. With technology innovations and socially responsible computer professionals, women have been able to tap into opportunities created by social media, and other platforms, it has become easier for women to leverage on the opportunities created with the use of the internet such as publishing and showcasing their skills and abilities at little or no cost, this platform has helped a lot of women reach the peak.
9. Trading and Investment: trade has been referred to as an engine that reduces poverty, which has been so since about 30 years now. Trade is a means of expanding women’s role in the economy, as it also reduces gender gap. The introduction of technology to these trade has in turn made a huge difference using Nigeria as an example. The business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce platforms in Nigeria like Alerzo are a strong force emerging making impact in the growth of the Nigerian informal retail segment. These platforms are promoting technology as an instrument for gender parity via building technology products which removes the burden of informal retailers, who are women majorly. Around the world technology advancement is lifting many women out of poverty, with the expanding access to an array of tech solutions. The B2B e-commerce platform and other innovations enabling women to operate in the largely female-dominated Nigeria’s $100 billion informal retail segment are limiting barriers that previously inhibited women’s capacity, growth and sustainability.

Having considered these major opportunities created by technology, it is essential to note that there are others not covered by these points which are as important as technology presents us with a world of endless possibilities.

Bottlenecks to Women's Access to Technology

Like every other innovation, despite how much technology sounds like the saviour to put an end to different forms of gender inequality, it is still unfortunate to admit that the digital world can benefit men and boys more than women and girls. After considering the opportunities created by technology for women's advancement, it is essential to also consider the various hindrances that have and are affecting women's access to opportunities created for them by technology. This include but not limited to:

1. Insensitive digital product designs: there is a need for technology designs to be made in a more conscious way, in that women can easily access and use them to meet their realities. This is because most digital solutions, products and content are said to be designed for a ‘default’ user. Despite the best intentions of service providers, it is still obvious that teams often design for a user base that is predominantly male, as girls are left out of co-creation, design, and product testing. This affects women's accessibility and usage of the digital innovation which in turn widens the gender digital divide and puts girls at a further disadvantage.
2. Threat of online gender-based violence: the pervasive threat caused to women through the use of social media, which are coupled with a lack of legal recourse often force women out of the digital spaces they do occupy to showcase their talents and ability, which in turn affects their competitive and skill confidence. In a survey of women journalists from 125 countries, they found out that 73 percent of women has suffered online violence in the course of their work.
3. Unfavourable policies: no matter the level of innovation, without a mindshift there will be no changes, considering a lot of policies from time immemorial that did not favour women or the ones that favoured women but were not passed like the Go Girl Act - 107th Congress HR 1536, which was to amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to provide grants to local educational agencies to encourage girls to pursue studies and careers in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology. Instances like this have created a form of seeing favourable opportunities as charades for women and although there are various efforts to ensure this mind shift, it still remains a gradual process.

There are other barriers affecting women's access to leveraging on digital technologies to ensure a better life for themselves, some of the others are less discussed while some will remain unprintable, as statistics show that the proportion of women using the internet is 12 percent lower to men. Though the gap narrowed in some regions between the year 2013 and 2017, it widened in the least developed countries from 30 per cent to 33 per cent.

How these Opportunities Translated to a Reliable Result.

Indeed opportunities created by technology have raised a lot of famous women for their impact and outstanding innovations with technology. Grace Hopper is one of the unforgettable women who leveraged on tech in the United state, helping to standardise the navy’s computer languages at age seventy-nine (79). Today, hardly can we consider the development of a compiler which translated programmer’s instructions into computer codes without making reference to her.

Likewise, every second Tuesday in October known as Ada Lovelace Day to celebrate the achievements of women in STEM careers, is in honour of Ada Lovelace who is usually referred to as the first programmer, as she wrote notes that simplified how the notion of a specific engine could transition calculation into computation. Annie Easley is another good example of famous and successful women in tech, she was one of the four African Americans who developed and implemented code that led to batteries used in hybrid cars.

Specifically in digital technology innovation, we have other famous and successful women like Elizabeth Feinler which has to her credit the frequently used dot coms, dot nets and dot govs; Mary Keller one of those who developed the basic computer programming language, Radia Perlman who developed TORTIS an educational programming language as well as inventing the spanning tree algorithm and the spanning tree protocol, Karen Sparck Jones is a well known woman for working on the IR and introducing the IDF term to produce natural language for the search engines.

Katherine Johnson was the woman who became famous for running manual equations to affirm if it was safe for flight to take-off flight which landed safely; she also joined in co-authoring 26 research reports which provide mathematical equations for machines. Adele Goldberg in her own case was the only woman amongst the builders of Smalltalk-80 programming language which was developed and designed so that windows could overlap on display screens, a process formally known as Graphical User Interface (GUI), and finally, Mary Wilkes was the first person to have a personal computer (PC) and amazingly, she is also known for helping in develop the first PC.

Indeed with technology, women have become a lot and have solved many world problems with visible results, yet having opportunities to do more.

Conclusion

Technology has been proven to be a global tool considering the various impacts made with it around the world. It is almost impossible to live anywhere in the world without leveraging on digital innovations as an offshoot of technology It touches various aspect of human existence to eradicate different forms of barriers by creating various less gender bias innovations and opportunities and considering the various successful usage of technology by women to rule their world, it has become evident that technology is a global tool for creating equal opportunities for women.

Contact Author

Name: Similoluwa Awe

Email Address: [email protected]

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