Developing women as ICT users: a miniature scoping review of gender and ICTs for development

Abstract

There is room for topical and theoretical expansion in the literature on gender and ICT4D (information and communications technologies for development) to better prepare critiques and policy applications that improve gender equity. A constructivist approach was taken to understand the relationship between gender and technology utilizing insights from science and technology studies. Existing theory on the relationship between gender and technology was conceptualized as three categories: women using ICTs as laborers, women using ICTs for leisure, and ICTs as infrastructure impacting women users. Thirty articles from four journals (Gender, Technology, and Development, Information Technology for Development, Information Technologies & International Development, and Gender and Development) were coded using an iterative-inductive method. The sample encompassed all issues published between July 2016 and December 2016. Findings suggested, in that temporal moment, scholarship on gender and ICT4D conceptualized the gender and technology relationship by illuminating how women use ICTs for: increased communication and spread of information, and increased productivity. Some scholarship focused on justice, gender and ICT4D, or gendered fantasies about ICTs. Missing from that temporal moment was scholarship illuminating: women using ICTs as scientific instruments, ICTs allowing women to participate in outsourced jobs, and ICTs commodifying women.

Keywords:

• Users
• women
• ICT4D
• leisure
• labor
• infrastructure

Acknowledgements

The authors appreciate the Professorial Assistantship that paid for Georgia Artzberger's work on this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Read how to construct a concept map using IHMC open access software here, https://cmap.ihmc.us/docs/theory-of-concept-maps and download the open source CMap tools to your personal computer here, https://cmap.ihmc.us/cmaptools/cmaptools-download/.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Logan D. A. Williams

Logan D. A. Williams defended her PhD in Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She is interested in the power relationships between elite and marginalized users and producers of technology. Her recent book Eradicating Blindness (Palgrave/Springer) describes innovation from below. Overall, her research contributes to political sociology of science and technology and science policy studies. Dr. Williams is the Associate Editor of Science as Culture (Taylor & Francis). Her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Council of American Overseas Research Centers and the Smithsonian Institutes.

Georgia H. Artzberger

Georgia H. Artzberger is an undergraduate student at Michigan State University. She is double-majoring in Comparative Cultures and Politics through James Madison College and Biomedical Laboratory Science through the College of Natural Science. She has previously been published in Technology in Society (Elsevier).