Gender and Technology (Oxfam Focus on Gender Series) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0855984228 ISBN 13: 9780855984229

Publisher: Oxfam Professional, 1999

Synopsis

This collection of articles from Gender and Development considers technologies of many kinds, including those intended to save women`s labour, to enable them to control their fertility and to learn and communicate using computer technology.

About this title

About the Author

Caroline Sweetman is Editor of the international journal Gender & Development and works for Oxfam GB.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Gender and Technology

By Caroline Sweetman

Oxfam Publishing

Copyright © 1998 Oxfam GB
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-85598-422-9

Contents

Editorial Caroline Sweetman, 2, 
Cyberfeminism, technology, and international 'development' Radhika Gajjala and Annapurna Mamidipudi, 8, 
Supporting the invisible technologists: The Intermediate Technology Development Group Maggie Foster, 17, 
Marketing treadle pumps to women farmers in India: The IDE India experience Maya Prabhu, 25, 
Reproductive health technologies and gender: Is participation the key? Katie Chapman and Gill Gordon, 34, 
Rural development and women: What are the best approaches to communicating information? Joyce A Otsyina and Diana Rosenberg, 45, 
Skilled craftswomen or cheap labour? Craft-based NGO projects as an alternative to female urban migration in northern Thailand Rachel Humphreys, 56, 
Rural women, development, and telecommunications: A pilot programme in South Africa Heather Schreiner, 64, 
The denigration of women in Malawian radio commercials Charles Chilimampunga, 71, 
Resources Compiled by Emma Pearce, 79, 
Books and papers, 79, 
Journals, 82, 
Organisations, 82, 
Internet resources, 86, 
Electronic discussion groups, 88, 

CHAPTER 1

Cyberfeminism, technology, and international 'development'

Radhika Gajjala and Annapurna Mamidipudi

Feminists from diverse backgrounds are considering the implications of the spread of Internet technology, and questioning its benefits for women in developing countries. Apart from having access to the Internet, women must also be able to define the content and shape of cyberspace.

The simplest way to describe the term 'cyberfeminism' might be that it refers to women using Internet technology for something other than shopping via the Internet or browsing the world-wide web2. One could also say that cyberfeminism is feminism in relation to 'cyberspace'. Cyberspace is 'informational data space made available by electrical circuits and computer networks' (Vitanza 1999, 5). In other words, cyberspace refers to the 'spaces', or opportunities, for social interaction provided by computers, modems, satellites, and telephone lines — what we have come to call 'the Internet'. Even though there are several approaches to cyberfeminism, cyberfeminists share the belief that women should take control of and appropriate the use of Internet technologies in an attempt to empower themselyes. The idea that the Internet can be empowering to individuals and communities who are under-privileged is based on the notion of scientific and technological progress alleviating human suffering, offering the chance of a better material and emotional quality of life. In this article, we make conceptual links between 'old' and 'new' technologies within contexts of globalisation, third-world development, and the empowerment of women. We wish to question the idea of 'progress' and 'development' as the inevitable result of science and technology, and develop a critique of the top-down approach to technology transfer from the Northern to the Southern hemisphere. There are two questions of central importance: First, will women in the South be able (allowed) to use new technologies under conditions that are contextually empowering to them, because they are defined by women themselves? Second, within which Internet-based contexts can women from the South truly be heard? How can they define the conditions under which they can interact on-line, to enable them to form coalitions and collaborate, aiming to transform social, cultural, and political structures?

The Internet and 'development'

Cyberfeminists urge women all over the world to learn how to use computers, to get 'connected', and to use the Internet as a tool for feminist causes and individual empowerment. However, ensuring that women are empowered by new technology requires us to investigate issues which are far more complex than merely providing material access to the latest technologies. The Internet has fascinated many activists and scholars because of its potential to connect people all across the world in a way that has never been possible before. Individuals can publish written material instantaneously, and broadcast information to remote locations. Observers predict that it will cause unprecedented and radical change in the way human beings conduct business and social activities. In much of the North, as well as in some materially privileged sections of societies in the South, the Internet is celebrated as a tool for enhancing world-wide democracy. The Internet and its associated technologies are touted as great equalisers, which will help bridge gaps between social groups: the 'haves' and the 'have-nots', and men and women.

Since the Second World War, development — in the sense of transferring and 'diffusing' northern forms of scientific and technological 'progress', knowledge, and modes of production and consumption, from the industrialised north into southern contexts — has been seen by many as the one over-arching solution to poverty and inequality around the world. Much of the current literature, as well as media representations of the so-called underdeveloped world, reinforces this discourse of 'development' and 'under-development'. As scholars such as Edward Said (1978) have pointed out, this process is also apparent in the context of colonialism, when the production of knowledge about the colonised nations served the colonisers in justifying their project.

What, then, does it mean to say that the Internet and technology are feminist issues for women in developing nations, when the project of development in itself is saddled with colonial baggage? In order to examine whether women in these contexts are indeed going to realise empowerment through the use of technology, we need to understand the complexity of the obstacles they face, by considering the ways in which the conditions of their lives are determined by unequal power relations at local and global levels.

The form of this article

In the following, we each describe our engagement with cyberfeminisms, development, and new technology, and discuss some of the problems that we encounter in our efforts. Both of us have interacted quite extensively using the Internet, where our interactions occasionally overlap when we engage in discussions and creative exchanges with others. One of us, Annapurna Mamidipudi, is also involved with an NGO working with traditional handloom weavers in south India. The other, Radhika Gajjala, works within academia, and creates and runs on-line 'discussion lists' and websites from her North American geographical location, aiming to create spaces that enable dialogue and collaboration among women with access to the internet all over the world. This paper was written via the Internet, across a fairly vast geographical distance of approximately 10,000 miles. We have written the article as a dialogue, to make our individual voices and locations apparent. This unconventional form and method seems appropriate for our subject matter: a belief in the possibilities of dialogue and collaboration across geographical boundaries offered by this medium of the future. We do not consider either of us to represent the North or the South, 'theory' or 'practice'; each of us will use her professional and personal experience of technology within both 'first world' and 'third-world' contexts. We share caste, class, national, and religious affiliations, but once again, neither of us are representative Indian women.

Annapurna Mamidipudi:

As a field-worker in an organisation which focuses on the development and use of environment-friendly dyes for textile production, I am part of a team that has been successfully introducing and transferring the technology of non-chemical natural dyes to clients. The course we offer is comprehensive; it includes training in botany and dye-material cultivation patterns, concepts of eco-friendly technology, actual dyeing techniques and tools, specific methodology for further research, aesthetics, and market research. While the service we provide is similar to that of any professional consultancy, a crucial difference is that we cater solely to traditional handloom weavers; our trainees, sponsors and manufacturers are all artisans, men and women from traditional weaving communities.

The craft of traditional natural dyeing is based on sophisticated knowledge that has been passed down from generation to generation of artisans. The end-product created by these artisans is exquisite hand-loomed cloth, woven of yarn hand-spun from local cotton by women in remote Indian villages, dyed in the vibrant colours of indigo and madder. This has been exported all over the world from pre-colonial times onwards. One might well ask, why should a skill that has been passed down successfully over so many generations suddenly need technical consultants like me for training?

Radhika Gajjala:

I am a producer, first, of theory concerned with culture, post-colonialism, and feminism. I am in continuous dialogue with women from non-privileged and nonwestern locations, examining the experience of activists like Annapurna, and collaborating with men and women from the South. I rely to a large extent on having access to knowledge through Northern technology and power structures, but I am not blind to the fact that these power structures oppress women and men living in poverty in both North and South.

My second role as a producer is in creating electronic 'spaces' which are used by people of different identities to express themselves and talk to each other. The Spoon Collective, started in 1994, is 'dedicated to promoting discussion of philosophical and political issues' (http://lists.village.virginia.edu /~spoons). The Spoon Collective was started in 1994, and I entered it in 1995, volunteering to co-moderate two 'discussion lists'. I set up two further discussion lists in 1995 and 1996, which I will mention later in this article.

While members of the Spoon Collective have different individual aims in belonging to the Collective, I believe that all of us are interested in the possibilities of activism through electronic communications. All of us have set up, and continue to moderate, discussion lists that implicitly question the global status quo, in one way or another. One member of the collective said, 'One way in which we conceptualise what we do is by talking about thinking [and writing/ speaking on-line] as a civic, public activity'. As is characteristic of much Internet-based activity (whether activist, personal, or commercial), our goals and our actual output are constantly evaluated. We ceaselessly discuss their impact on society and culture. For example, what determines whether a list 'works' or not? The volume of messages exchanged? The quality of information or discussion? But how would 'quality' be defined? Do we determine the success of the list by the number of members who subscribe to it? Or by the number of members who participate by sending messages? By the number of websites that have links to our list-archives or the Spoon Collective website? How can we tell from this how many people we really reach?

In order to start up discussion lists, and construct websites, I had to teach myself sufficient programming and computer-related skills to be able to manage the technical side. My background as creative writer and student in the humanities had not trained me for the technical aspects of being an active producer on-line, and my knowledge is mostly self-taught. Later in this article, I will discuss my e-mail lists as part of an effort to try and facilitate collaborations between feminists across vast geographical boundaries. What scope is there for them to discuss and assert their differences on an equal basis, within these electronic social spaces which are themselves based in unequal economic, social and cultural relations? In a sense I suppose my on-line ventures could be called 'cyber-feminist' investigations.

Annapuma:

Until the nineteenth century, most of the weaving industry in the area where I work was shaped by the demands of local consumers. Chinnur is a little village in Adilabad, in an interior region of the Deccan plateau in South India. There used to be a large concentration of weavers with a reputation for excellence in this area. Their reputation was based on three things: the skill of the farmers in producing different varieties of cotton; the ability of different groups of people to work together and process the cotton; and, finally, the wealth of knowledge of dyes and techniques that added aesthetic value to utility. Different castes and communities were inter-linked in occupational, as well as social relationships, exchanging services and materials, creating a strong local market economy which was entrenched in the traditions and rituals of daily life. For example, during specific seasons or events, women of leisure from non-weaving communities spun, exchanging spun yarn for sarees (Uzramma 1995).

However, the development of chemical dyes almost 100 years ago in Europe had a calamitous effect on traditional Indian dyeing practices. Processes which were the pride of the textile industry of this country were abandoned and replaced by chemical dyes. Even in remote Chinnur, the spreading wave of modern science changed people's perceptions of traditional technology; they now saw it as outmoded, and this resulted in almost total erasure of knowledge of the traditional processes within these communities.

Europeans had started to document the local dyeing and weaving activities in the eighteenth century; Indians themselves continued this up to the early twentieth century, in a bid to preserve knowledge. But this process meant that knowledge which had been firmly in the domain of practice of the artisans was now converted into textual information, and shifted the ownership of the knowledge to those able to 'study', rather than those who 'do'.

As the outside world mutated into a global village, the organic processes of the traditional artisan weaver turned full cycle, back to popularity when the colour of neeli (indigo) caught the imagination of ecology-conscious consumers in the late 1970s. But even while the self-congratulatory back-patting went on among the nationalists and intellectuals, the weavers had internalised information about 'modern' chemical technology. Just as they had begun to find a footing in the market, their practical knowledge was again found wanting. The only available information about vegetable dyes was documented in the language of the colonisers, codified, and placed in libraries or museums, inaccessible to the traditional practitioners from whom the information had been gathered in the first instance. Thus, although it looked as if a demand had been created for their product, in reality this further reinforced the image of weavers' technology as needful of input from outside experts, in the weavers' own minds as well as in those of others.

Today, in most descriptions of the handloom industry, the traditional weaver is seen as an object of charity, who can survive only through government handouts or patronage from social elites. Yet their 'sunset' industry — as it was referred to by a top official in the Department of Handloom and Textiles in charge of formulating strategy for this industry (personal communication, 1999) — has the second largest number of practitioners in India, farming employing the greatest number. For the men and women engaged in weaving in villages across India, the journey from traditional neeli (indigo) to modern naphthol (chemical) dyes has meant a journey from self-sufficiency to dependence, self-respect to subordination; in short, a journey to 'primitivity'.

Radhika:

Most highly-educated women from the third world, whether or not we live in the North, experience a parallel journey to 'primitivity' in the sense Annapurna uses above. In part, this happens through acquiring western-style education and professional status, which is not often an autonomous personal choice. No woman of the third world has the luxury of not choosing to be westernised if she aspires to be heard, or even simply to achieve a level of material freedom, comfort, and luxury within global structures of power. Many of us have 'made it' within westernised professional systems, and have enjoyed the status of the representative third-world woman within global structures of power. Yet, as a result of our education and professional status, we are not representative, although we are of the third world, and our stories are not those of many truly under-privileged women in third-world locations.

Often, we meet other people's expectations by taking on the role of victims of third-world cultures, or, alternatively, victors who have 'survived' our backgrounds. Yet, when we refuse these roles allotted to us, some feminists from Northern backgrounds suggest our experiences don't 'count', since we are not 'real' third-world women. Even as we demonstrate our potential by attaining the level of education and 'westernisation' required to become powerful within global structures, we are silenced once again.

Annapurna:

Outside the house of one of the weavers in the village of Chinnur is a chalk-written address board in English. It says: 'Venkatesh U.S., Weavers' Colony, Chinnur'. The initials U.S. after this man's name stand for 'Unskilled Labour': a powerful statement on how an expert weaver chooses to categorise himself. This classification in the government records, he hopes, will make him eligible for a low-grade job in a government office.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Gender and Technology by Caroline Sweetman. Copyright © 1998 Oxfam GB. Excerpted by permission of Oxfam Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxfam Professional
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0855984228
• ISBN 13: 9780855984229
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 88
• Editor: Sweetman Caroline