Gender digital divide
As the gender spectrum continues to exist more prominently in social and professional spaces, the inclusion of other identities is an important area of concern in these types of conversations.
[4] Women are less likely to know how to operate a smartphone, navigate the internet, use social media and understand how to safeguard information in digital mediums (abilities that underlie life and work tasks and are relevant to people of all ages) worldwide.
[7] Recruiters for technology companies in Silicon Valley estimate that the applicant pool for technical jobs in artificial intelligence (AI) and data science is often less than 1% female.
[9] While the gender gap in digital skills is evident across regional boundaries and income levels, it is more severe for women who are older, less educated, poor, or living in rural areas and developing countries.
[12] The stereotype of technology as a male domain is common in many contexts and affect girls' confidence in their digital skills from a young age.
This post war market utilized discriminatory criteria measures that women were no longer able to meet due to societal, educational, and labor expectations.
[14] Managers of early technology firms allowed women well-suited for programming because of stereotypes characterizing them as meticulous and good at following step-by-step directions.
[17] Other research on the gender divide in Canada has found contrasting results, showing a potential suggestion to the closing of the gap in more developed countries over the last couple years in relation to access to the internet and technology as a whole.
[19] Due to the declining price of connectivity and hardware, skills deficits have exceeded barriers of access as the primary contributor to the gender digital divide.
In the United States, it was found that individuals who has lower than high school education and made less than $30k a year has the lowest access to the internet.
[25][23] Many people have access to affordable devices and broadband networks, but do not have the requisite skills to take advantage of this technology to improve their lives.
In a study conducted across 10 low- and middle-income countries, women were 1.6 times more likely than men to report lack of skills as a barrier to internet use.
[28] Interest and perception of need are related to skills, as people who have little experience with or understanding of ICTs tend to underestimate their benefits and utility.
[29][23] The COVID-19 pandemic and the measures taken by governments on social distancing and mobility restrictions have contributed to boosting the use of digital technology to bridge some of the physical access gaps.
[23] However, the rapid proliferation of digital tools and services stands in stark contrast to the many systemic and structural barriers to technology access and adoption that many people in rural Africa still face.
The technological changes adds impetus to the 'across life' perspective, as skills learned today will not necessarily be relevant in 5 or 10 years.
[1] Women and girls digital skills development are strengthened by:[1] According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), there are seven success factors to empowering rural women through ICTs:[23] The regulatory role of governments (at local, national, regional, and international levels) is crucial in addressing infrastructural barriers, harmonizing and making the regulatory environment inclusive and gender-responsive, and in protecting all stakeholders from fraud and crime.
[23] Initiatives targeted at boosting women's representation in the technology industry are essential to closing the digital skills gender divide.
These efforts can help create more inclusive workplaces that respect diversity and promote creativity by boosting the presence of women in the technology industry.
[34] Overall, initiatives targeted at boosting women's representation in the technology industry are essential to closing the digital skills gender divide.
Men continue to dominate the technology space, and the disparity serves to perpetuate gender inequalities, as unrecognized bias is replicated and built into algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI).
[1] Limited participation of women and girls in the technology sector can stem outward replicating existing gender biases and creating new ones.
[1] Today, AI curates information shown by internet search engines, determines medical treatments, makes loan decisions, ranks job applications, translates languages, places ads, recommends prison sentences, influences parole decisions, calibrates lobbying and campaigning efforts, intuits tastes and preferences, and decides who qualifies for insurance, among other tasks.
[39] Voice assistants now manage upwards of 1 billion tasks per month, from the mundane (changing a song) to the essential (contacting emergency services).
The trend to feminize assistants occurs in a context in which there is a growing gender imbalance in technology companies, such that men commonly represent two thirds to three quarters of a firm's total workforce.
Companies often cite research showing that customers want their digital assistants to sound like women, justifying the choice with the profit motive.
[1] For example, BMW was forced to recall a female-voiced navigation system on its 5 Series cars in the late 1990s after being flooded with calls from German men who reportedly "refused to take directions from a woman".
