IMPORTANCE
OF WOMEN LED DIGITAL SOLUTIONS – SCI & TECH
News: The importance of women-led digital
solutions
What's
in the news?
●
Despite progress in closing the global
gender gap overall, women and girls continue to be left behind in the digital
world.
Key
takeaways:
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The theme for International Women’s Day
2023 is ‘DigitALL: Innovation and Technology for Gender Equality.’
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The transformational and all-encompassing
role of digital technology is growing even faster in the post-pandemic world.
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The digital revolution also poses the
challenge of perpetuating gender inequality, which is increasingly noticeable
in the manner in which women are left behind in knowledge of digital skills and
access to technologies.
Digital
Gender Gap:
●
It is the inequalities between men and
women in terms of access to information
and communications technologies.
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The term “digital gender gap” was coined
by UN Women in 2010.
Digital
Equity:
●
Digital equity on the other hand is about
providing everyone with equal opportunities
to use technology to improve their lives.
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It includes making sure that everyone has
access to the internet and the skills they need to use it effectively.
Data
on the digital divide:
UNICEF
Report:
●
According to a UNICEF report, as many as 90% of the jobs in the world today have a
digital component.
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These jobs, however, are available only to
the digitally able, and to more men than women.
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According to the report, in developing
countries, only 41% of women have access to the internet compared with 53% of
men.
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Women are 20% less likely to own a
smartphone and are more likely to borrow phones from a male family member.
OECD
data:
●
Another report by the Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and Development revealed that the gender gap in internet
use is widening.
●
Software development remains a
male-dominated field, with women
comprising only 15% of software designers.
ICUBE
2020:
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ICUBE is an annual syndicated study of
Kantar to measure the reach and frequency of Internet users in India.
●
Data on the use of the internet in India
indicates that in comparison with 58% of
male internet users, female users are only 42%.
Significance
of bridging the Gender Digital Divide:
1.
Benefits to Women & Nation:
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India aims to have a $1 trillion digital economy by 2025.
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Already, 40% of global digital
transactions take place in India.
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In 2022, a staggering 49 billion digital
transactions took place in India.
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As economies digitize further, there is
every reason to believe that most jobs will require some knowledge of digital
technology.
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There are vast opportunities for girls and
women to power India’s digital economy and benefit from it.
2.
Can act as a multiplier effect:
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India has the world’s largest young
population, and women and girls constitute almost half of it.
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Access to digital technology for a young
woman can be a game changer with multiplier effects.
3.
Acting as a solution:
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Giving women access to the internet and
teaching them digital skills can help them overcome many of the obstacles they
face.
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With internet access, women can gain new knowledge and skills, connect with
others, and find new opportunities.
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Digital knowledge can also play a
significant role in women’s safety.
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With digital equity, women can be
empowered to reach their full potential.
Challenges
leading to Gender Digital Divide:
1.
The post-pandemic world:
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Children struggled to keep up with their
studies using the limited smartphones
and computers available to them.
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UNESCO estimated that around 168 million
girls enrolled in pre-primary to tertiary levels of education were affected.
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It is possible that within some families,
boys had more access to scarce digital resources.
2.
Always second to men:
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Girls and women are denied access to
digital technologies because they almost always come second in a patriarchal social order.
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Data on literacy, education, and access to
resources confirm the reality of their being second to men.
3.
Online abuse faced by women:
●
The dangerous trend in online abuse was
forcing women out of jobs, causing girls to skip school, damaging relationships
and silencing female opinions, prompting him to conclude that “the web is not
working for women and girls”.
4.
Offline impacts:
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Online harassment often translates into
offline impacts and consequences, with much-documented evidence in this regard.
5.
Inadequate artificial intelligence:
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The third threat comes from badly designed
artificial intelligence systems that repeat and exacerbate discrimination.
Measures
to Overcome Digital Divide:
1.
Addressing the divide:
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Addressing the digital divide requires
special, urgent and focused efforts of the government.
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A large investment needs to be made, year after year, in digital
infrastructure.
2.
Need of policy interventions:
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Bridging the gender gap will require smart
interventions specially designed for girls and women in health, education,
employment, banking, skilling and transportation.
●
A favourable policy environment to promote
the digital empowerment of women is
a step in the right direction.
3.
Digital Skills:
●
Digital skills, required today both for
life and for livelihoods, must be imparted on a war footing by transforming government digital literacy
programmes into skilling missions, and expanding outreach, including
through the private sector.
4.
Online safety of women:
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Social media sites can use their “algorithm power” to proactively tackle
the issue of safety.
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Governments need to strengthen laws that
hold online abusers to account, and the public to speak up whenever they
witness abuse online.
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Example of ‘Digital Sakhis’:
○
Young women known as ‘Digital Sakhis’ from
Madhya Pradesh are upturning discriminatory social norms through the use of
smartphones.
WAY
FORWARD:
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The
digital gender gap is not only a modern social evil but also a huge economic
constraint.
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To leave women out of the digital world
would amount to denying what today has become a basic skill for survival.
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Making
the right use of the G20 platform:
○
The Prime Minister has emphasized the need
for ‘women-led development’ as India
took over the G20 presidency.
○
Women20
- the G20’s official engagement platform to promote gender equity identifies
“bridging the gender digital divide" as one of its five priorities that
need to be mainstreamed as part of the G20 agenda this year.
Women can harness digital
tools for improving nutrition schemes and initiatives, while also using them to
create economic opportunities that ensure long-term food and nutrition
security.