Cell Phone and Women Empowerment
Last two weeks, the articles I read and share were both about using innovative technologies to empower women. This week is also about women empowerment.
Dr. Devendra Potnis, who is the instructor of Social Informatic course in UTK, conducted a study in his country, India, about how cell phone empowered low-income women in a rural area, Bhor, as shown on the map below.
In this study, Dr. Potnis applied qualitative interviews to explore women’s experiences of owning and using a cell phone in 2011. The study results categorized several themes of the reasons participants used cell phones. 1) Financial considerations: Many of the respondents’ families run a small business. Owning a cell phone allows women to efficiently order cheaper goods and contact customers. Having a cell phone also enable those who work outside their homes (e.g., in organizations) have better communications with cohorts and customers. Some respondents want to save money because a cell phone is cheaper than a landline phone. 2) Social and communicational consideration: It’s apparent that cell phones are more flexible and convenient for married women to contact their kids and husbands whenever they want. For unmarried women and young girls, they tend to use cell phones to chat with friends and seek emotional support. Interestingly, a respondent’s reason for using a cell phone is to show off, because cell phones are somehow a representation of prestige in that area. 3) Intellectual support: Having a cell phone is like opening a window for women. They can easier reach out to persons who have professional knowledge when needed. And vice versa, professional people can also provide useful knowledge to other women via cell phone. 4) Personal support: Safety is always a concern for women, especially in countries like India where females are less powered than males. Cell phones allow women to report their schedules to families when during commuting and traveling.
There are also barriers to owning and using a cell phone from two folds: human and technical. In a male-dominated society, men in a family sometime prohibit women from having too much access to the world outside the home. Having a phone means a woman can easily encounter new information and the community, which may “threaten” men’s status in families by earning more money or having more knowledge. As for technical aspect, language and interface barrier (not support native language) and insufficient infrastructure (e.g., electrical power and phone signal) were main issues reported by respondents.
There are plenty of studies about how cell phones empower women from financial aspects in developing countries. For example, Comfort and Dada’s (2009) study in Nigeria found that using cell phones can help women to save or earn money. Because women can receive and make calls anytime and anywhere to and from their family and customers, they no longer need to travel for a long distance to use a public landline phone, and this can enhance the efficiency of running a small business. Munyua’s (2009) study in Nairobi, Kenya also indicated that women felt they have more control and flexibility when using cell phones to manage their small business. The author narrated a story about a participant Lilian. Lilian came back from her school in Canada to her hometown to help with the beauty shop owned by her parents. With a cell phone, she can manage her clients anytime, and she can also monitor the household.
However, using cell phones did not solve all problems for women, in particular, fundamental issues from the male-dominated structure in a society. In Lilian’s story, she had a medical career plan in her school in Canada. But her mother asked her to go back for helping the family business, while her younger brothers remain pursuing their degrees abroad. The use of cell phones indeed improves incomes that women earn and the opportunities to run a small business. Nonetheless, males still hold the privilege of choosing their career development. Svensson & Wamala‘s (2016) study in Ugandan also stated that using cell phones for empowerment practices is situational. Women still face the challenges from men of applying the empowerment practices. For example, not declaring women's contribution to household income from their small business.
On the other hand, Comfort and Dada (2009) also indicated that some women still prefer face to face communication with family members, because only hearing voice from phones makes them feel far away from their family members, and this unsatisfied them from an emotional aspect. Moreover, a recent study also questioned if the technology can really empower disadvantaged women. Owning a cell phone is still an “elite-based, technology-centric, and poverty-insensitive phenomenon” in some areas (Cibangu, 2017). Women who can afford a cell phone may be a population that has better social-economic status in an area. Those “true” disadvantaged groups may still not have access to technologies.
Dr. Devendra Potnis, who is the instructor of Social Informatic course in UTK, conducted a study in his country, India, about how cell phone empowered low-income women in a rural area, Bhor, as shown on the map below.
In this study, Dr. Potnis applied qualitative interviews to explore women’s experiences of owning and using a cell phone in 2011. The study results categorized several themes of the reasons participants used cell phones. 1) Financial considerations: Many of the respondents’ families run a small business. Owning a cell phone allows women to efficiently order cheaper goods and contact customers. Having a cell phone also enable those who work outside their homes (e.g., in organizations) have better communications with cohorts and customers. Some respondents want to save money because a cell phone is cheaper than a landline phone. 2) Social and communicational consideration: It’s apparent that cell phones are more flexible and convenient for married women to contact their kids and husbands whenever they want. For unmarried women and young girls, they tend to use cell phones to chat with friends and seek emotional support. Interestingly, a respondent’s reason for using a cell phone is to show off, because cell phones are somehow a representation of prestige in that area. 3) Intellectual support: Having a cell phone is like opening a window for women. They can easier reach out to persons who have professional knowledge when needed. And vice versa, professional people can also provide useful knowledge to other women via cell phone. 4) Personal support: Safety is always a concern for women, especially in countries like India where females are less powered than males. Cell phones allow women to report their schedules to families when during commuting and traveling.
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| Source: https://goo.gl/images/j59EQi |
There are also barriers to owning and using a cell phone from two folds: human and technical. In a male-dominated society, men in a family sometime prohibit women from having too much access to the world outside the home. Having a phone means a woman can easily encounter new information and the community, which may “threaten” men’s status in families by earning more money or having more knowledge. As for technical aspect, language and interface barrier (not support native language) and insufficient infrastructure (e.g., electrical power and phone signal) were main issues reported by respondents.
There are plenty of studies about how cell phones empower women from financial aspects in developing countries. For example, Comfort and Dada’s (2009) study in Nigeria found that using cell phones can help women to save or earn money. Because women can receive and make calls anytime and anywhere to and from their family and customers, they no longer need to travel for a long distance to use a public landline phone, and this can enhance the efficiency of running a small business. Munyua’s (2009) study in Nairobi, Kenya also indicated that women felt they have more control and flexibility when using cell phones to manage their small business. The author narrated a story about a participant Lilian. Lilian came back from her school in Canada to her hometown to help with the beauty shop owned by her parents. With a cell phone, she can manage her clients anytime, and she can also monitor the household.
However, using cell phones did not solve all problems for women, in particular, fundamental issues from the male-dominated structure in a society. In Lilian’s story, she had a medical career plan in her school in Canada. But her mother asked her to go back for helping the family business, while her younger brothers remain pursuing their degrees abroad. The use of cell phones indeed improves incomes that women earn and the opportunities to run a small business. Nonetheless, males still hold the privilege of choosing their career development. Svensson & Wamala‘s (2016) study in Ugandan also stated that using cell phones for empowerment practices is situational. Women still face the challenges from men of applying the empowerment practices. For example, not declaring women's contribution to household income from their small business.
On the other hand, Comfort and Dada (2009) also indicated that some women still prefer face to face communication with family members, because only hearing voice from phones makes them feel far away from their family members, and this unsatisfied them from an emotional aspect. Moreover, a recent study also questioned if the technology can really empower disadvantaged women. Owning a cell phone is still an “elite-based, technology-centric, and poverty-insensitive phenomenon” in some areas (Cibangu, 2017). Women who can afford a cell phone may be a population that has better social-economic status in an area. Those “true” disadvantaged groups may still not have access to technologies.
Overall, the study conducting by Dr. Potnis is fascinating. But the situation of gender inequality in India really astonished me. For example, as described in the article, that "despite mediation by a female manager working at MGU, a few potential interviewees succumbed to social and family resistance to participation and thus, stayed away from the study." After reading this article, I search the usage of a cell phone, and I surprisingly found that even in the US, the percentage of a male who owns a smartphone is 5% higher than female and 1% higher than female in terms of owning a cell phone (Pew Research Center, 2018). It’s understandable why female faced lots of barriers from males of owning a cell phone in the developing countries. Using cell phones cannot entirely empower women fundamentally from the male-dominated society, and this society still has a long way to go to reach gender equality.
References:
References:
- Cibangu, S. K. (2017). Connectivity and Empowerment: A case study of cell phone technology in rural Congo. Library Trends, 66(2), 119-154.
- Comfort, K., & Dada, J. (2009). Rural women’s use of cell phones to meet their communication needs: a study from northern Nigeria. In Buskens, I. & Webb, A. (Eds). African women and ICTs: Investigating technology, gender and empowerment, pp. 45-55.
- Potnis, D. D. (2011). Cell-phone-enabled empowerment of woman earning less than $1/day. IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, 30(2), 39-45.
- Munyua, A. W. (2009). Women entrepreneurs in Nairobi: examining and contextualizing women’s choices. In Buskens, I. & Webb, A. (Eds). African Women and ICTs: Creating New Spaces with Technology. pp. 119-132.
- Pew Research Center. (Feb 5, 2018). Mobile Fact Sheet. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/mobile/
- Svensson, J., & Wamala Larsson, C. (2016). Situated empowerment: Mobile phones practices among market women in Kampala. Mobile Media & Communication, 4(2), 205-220.
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