"Women should be empowered by enhancing their skills, knowledge and access to information technology. This will strengthen their ability to combat negative portrayals of women internationally and to challenge instances of abuse of the power of an increasingly important industry. Most women especially in developing countries, are not able to access effectively the expanding electronic information highways and therefore cannot establish netwoks that will provide them with alternative sources of information. Women therefore need to be involved in decision-making regarding the development of the new technologies in order to participate fully in their growth and impact", says Article 237 of Section J "Women and the Media" of the Beijing Platform for Action.
The process around the 4th UN World Conference on Women opened up a space for promoting the democratic right of women to communicate. This was clearly reflected in Section J of the Beijing Platform for Action, in which, for the first time, the community of nations defines the issue of the media in relation to women as a "critical area of concern" (among a total of 12) that requires urgent action to improve the status of women in society.
Another important stepping-stone in this process was the UNESCO Toronto Platform of Action, reflecting the proposals of citizens groups, of the women's movement and of journalists associations, has become a reference document for a new focus on communication. This document identifies the need to incorporate the different instances of society in actions to promote women's access to expression and decision-making in the media.
Why the SID-UNESCO Project "Women on the Net: Gender perspectives on global communication sytems?"
The greatest potential of the technology lies in enabling us to do new things. The information communication technologies (ICT's), when systematically applied and adapted to the specific needs of women, can be used to increase participation, disseminate information, share knowledge and develop new skills. The global Internet is one tool that can enhance the free flow of information between local grassroots and communities and the rest of the world. Information and analyses can be tailored to local, regional and national knowledge, and to communication needs and realities. The quantity of information available on Internet is huge, but the lack of interpretative resources in developing countries means that they face both information overload and information shortfall. In theory the means to handle information -satellite, electonic media, digital technology, the Internet - are increasingly available and potentially democratic, but in practice, there is a new information elitism which further disenfranchises the majority of the world's population and particularly women. Cyberspace can empower; it also means radically new patterns of human communication.
The project suggested the orientations that the SID-UNESCO Workshop "Women on the Net" took during the 22nd SID World Conference on "Which Globalization: opening spaces for civic engagement" in Santiago de Compostela, Spain on the 20th of May 1997 and laid the way for the publication: "A Multicultural Guide to the Net".
The success of the women's caucus in the United Nations Conferences or Summits on environment, population and development, social development, on women, habitat and food was largely due to the long term preparation and networking by women NGO's through skillful use of information technologies. Declarations, documents and strategy plans were sent by fax or e-mail well in advance to hundreds of women's groups. Virtual networking allowed for continuity between events and increased the possibility for women to share information and ideas in the follow-up at the local level. Such activity illustrates around these conferences the creative use of information technology by thousands of women.
What are the issues to be addressed ?
An important issue to consider is how to expand the opportunities the Net offers to women from the academic, activist and professional circles in the North to other women. This means innovative use of the knowledge networks being created by the Internet to challenge the inadequacies of traditional modes which often fail to encourage women to be part of mainstream activities. Some issues which the project will confront are: How can we change the education system to encourage women to feel comfortable and confident with the knowhow to cope with high tech computer systems? How can we equip women with the confidence and training needed to take up the economic activities which rely on creative work with computers? How can we help women to find the time needed for training or for holding on to the demanding jobs which are "up to speed" with the information age? How can we balance the demands of women's social reproductive work so that their caring work with families and communities is more evenly shared with men in order for women to participate actively in the information age? How can we enable women to take advantage of the fact that the new management style of the information age relies on traditionally femal skills: team work, service orientation and communication skills? Fundamentally we need to address the issue of how to take advantage of the new information age and how to create new spaces for women in order to position them more effectively in cyberspace.
Global Networking for Change
The project aims to facilitate access and use of commputer communications for women. It will also help identify women's electronic networking needs.
