Introduction
March 8th was International Women’s Day with this year’s theme of “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality”. This topic was chosen by UN Women and remains particularly important because, although most societal transactions are characterised by a digital process, women still don’t have equal access to the Internet. In fact, women are eight percent less likely to own a mobile phone than men, with the highest gender gap in mobile ownership in South Asia at 23 percent and sub-Saharan Africa at 13 percent (Tyers-Chowdhury & Binder, 2021). They either don’t feel safe in digital spaces or were not taught how to engage in them. This also leads to less women in STEM-related fields than men with an average of 31 percent of women in scientific research and development positions with the lowest proportions in Southwest Asia (24 percent). Particularly, in leadership positions, they represent only 24 percent of professionals and, in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), only 22 percent of professionals are women (Unesco, 2023).
This gap creates a cycle of unequal possibilities of shaping the digital world. If more women would be encouraged to be part of STEM-related teams and faculties, not only would the quality of work improve by including more perspectives, but women would also get greater career opportunities in a well-paid industry which can reduce the gender pay gap (Maryville 2023). The UN’s Secretary General Antonio Guterres stated on International Women’s Day that “when women are under-represented in developing new technologies, discrimination may be baked in from the start” (Guterres, 2023). He calls for an increase in women’s representation in science and technology. Executive Director Natalia Kanem from UNFPA joins him in that demand and states that diverse perspectives are paramount to ensure safety, usability, and inclusivity of tools and products and this is only possible by involving women in the whole design process of technologies (Kanem, 2023).
Iceland’s Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir, one of the spokespersons at the 67th session of the Commission on the Status of Women, warns that “if we do not have data on women and if the algorithms are mainly designed by men, the risk is that new technologies will make our world even more unequal.” She concludes that “gender equality must remain a top priority regarding innovation and technological change” (Euronews, 2023).
To ensure that gender equality in technological innovation is pursued, the UN makes four calls directed to all national governments and societies: (1) Remove all barriers to access the digital world; (2) Educate and train women and girls in STEM; (3) Enable women to create tech that enables their needs; (4) Eliminate online gender-based violence. This article will elaborate why it is necessary to follow these demands. It is also necessary to clarify how the unequal access for and underrepresentation of women in the digital sphere arises in the first place. In a final step, concrete solutions and recommendations are being proposed. The fourth call will not be part of this analysis since it is too broad and deserves its own investigation.
Access to technological devices
It is crucial to understand how women are banned or threatened when trying to participate freely in the online sphere. Women are less likely to use digital devices and services or to enter careers in STEM-related occupations; this limits their digital empowerment through digital learning, activism, a chance for a high-paying tech job, or participation in tech design and governance. So far, political decisions to close the access gap circled around expanding the digital infrastructure, but this is not enough when other factors such as social norms, online safety, and affordability, hinder women from participating equally (UN Women, 2023). Gendered social norms influence women’s access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) by limiting girls’ education, negative perceptions in traditional societies of women using the internet or patriarchal control over women’s digital communications. Since 2019, women have been continuously 12 percent less likely than men to own a cell phone. The Secretary General stated in its report on “Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls” that policies and programs aimed to increase equality in science and technology “continue to focus on ‘fixing women’ and place the onus to drive change on women rather than on the people and institutions that are perpetuating stereotypes and on unsupportive education and work environments” (Guterres, 2022).
ICTs have the ability to increase the user’s relative power through access to information. However, already existing power dynamics define which societal groups have access to the aforementioned technologies. In an analysis of different factors that impact the access of women to ICT, Bhandari (2019) found out that the factor with the highest impact is women’s reproductive autonomy. According to this analysis, economic growth is negligible when thinking about policies to mitigate digital gender inequality. Policies should therefore focus on improving women’s overall wellbeing by dissolving structural barriers that constrain women’s liberties in the digital world instead of emphasising economic and infrastructural growth (Bhandari, 2019).
When incorporating such laws and programs, possible negative implications through indirect discrimination of women must be considered. They can occur when aid programs distribute benefits to the “head of household” which is mostly the man. Therefore, the distribution of cell phones or the mere expansion of digital infrastructure does not guarantee increased access for women when they do not enjoy full autonomy. Another example of indirect discrimination is the lack of access to relevant information and resources which can hinder women’s possibilities to vote in elections (UN, 2014). This means that women’s access to ICT is clearly relevant for the implementation of international human rights law as is legally specified in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Here, it says: “The States Parties to the International Covenants on Human Rights have the obligation to ensure the equal rights of men and women to enjoy all economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights.” (CEDAW, 1981).
Treatments at the workplace
The second demand refers to the discrimination of women at tech-related workplaces. Women in tech fields face hostile environments indicated by a significant pay gap of 21 percent and lower rates of promotion (52 women for every 100 men). Moreover, 22 percent of female workers consider leaving their workplace due to harassment and the overall negative treatment they experience in this sector (UN Women, 2023). When looking specifically at STEM departments in academia, it is alarming how the number of women in faculty positions remains low. Such gender inequality is produced by negative and pervasive stereotypes which facilitate hiring discrimination and hinder women’s career advancement. Women in STEM have lower social capital such as support networks which limits their access to grant funding mechanisms and they also perceive the academic climate as unwelcoming in general. The numeric underrepresentation and consequential discrimination can be explained by the higher appreciation of stereotypically masculine characteristics in STEM departments such as independence or competitiveness which leads to the perception of men being more suitable for leadership positions. Additionally, women in academia are expected to perform mentoring and communal roles and to be approachable for students’ requests which take more effort and time. Institutional interventions to create more parity in STEM faculties are therefore necessary and range from networking programs solely offered to women, to mentoring programs regarding leadership that address especially women, to training search committees in recruiting diverse applicants and to educating male faculties on gender bias to improve the working environment in general (Casad et al., 2020). The occupational inequality in STEM fields is of high importance since science functions best when it incorporates a wide range of perspectives. Diverse workplaces are evidently more productive and content and by being more inclusive, STEM organisations can open up great career and salary opportunities for women which can in turn help to reduce the gender pay gap (Maryville, 2023).
From a legal and human rights perspective, the support of women in STEM is crucial to tackle the unlawful discrimination they face. Women’s discrimination includes any difference in treatment on the basis of sex which (un)intentionally disadvantages women (UN, 2014). In Article 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights it is specified that States Parties recognize the right of everyone to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications (CESCR, 1979). Consequently, every State must address difficulties and discrimination for women in tech related occupations to ensure fundamental and equal human rights. To create equity in the tech workplace, States have to provide a living minimum wage, regulations against pay discrimination and social protection systems that address discrepancies between unpaid care burdens of women and men (UN Women, 2023).
Female tech design
In her book Invisible Women, Caroline Criado-Perez demonstrates how most of the information collected and evaluated is centred around men as the prototype. This bias fuels policy and planning across every sector that is affected by technology – e.g., medicine, design of technologies, urban planning, recruitment – which in turn favour men. The gender data gap is caused by the notion that men are the neutral universal sex and women as a special form that complicates the data evaluation. She says that it is essential to increase the representation of women if only to remind people that women exist (Criado-Perez, 2019).
When women are not part of collected data and are underrepresented in STEM education and careers, a huge barrier to their participation in tech design and governance is created (UN Women (2), 2023). Moreover, the lack of data disaggregation by the factor gender leads to unequal representation in datasets which has significant effects on AI and machine learning systems. A global analysis showed that 44 percent of AI systems that are used for public and private service delivery incorporated gender bias which leads to lower service quality and unequal resource distribution. Consequently, harmful stereotypes are being reproduced and normalised (UN Women 2023). In this way, the unlocking of technology’s full potential in protecting women and creating parity through e.g., gender-responsive digital learning or tech-facilitated reproductive healthcare is hindered by the gender data gap (UN Women (2), 2023).
IT-teams must be aware of these downsides and negative consequences when building and designing digital technologies. For example, digital trackers are used to find lost objects but they can also be instrumentalized to stalk women. This is often referred to as “dual use” which generally means that technologies can be used for civilians but also for military purposes. Technologists must consider socioeconomic, political, and environmental impacts when creating a new product and be trained in anticipating potential harm that can arise from these new products before releasing them (Guterres, 2022). The bias can only be limited when design and regulation processes are rooted in human rights, which means that the voices of marginalised groups must be central and human rights experts must be part of the design team of new digital tools. There are tensions between the enjoyment of different rights in the digital sphere, namely freedom of expression that can also harm the right to safety. Ethical frameworks that are grounded in international human rights standards and norms (UN Women, 2023) can ensure that abuses or exploitation are not only addressed after they occurred. An example is the Framework of ethical aspects of artificial intelligence, robotics and related technologies in which the European Parliament committed in October 2020 to implement social responsibility and gender equality and safeguards and remedies against bias and discrimination (García del Blanco, 2020). Decisions of recruitment or firing, offering loans, or criminal proceedings can be informed by biased and misused AI systems which is why governments worldwide must commit to incorporate the gender perspective into regulations (EP, 2022).
Conclusion and recommendations
Gender Inequality and uneven distribution of power and financial resources characterise our data driven world and innovations that shape the future. New technologies can benefit and empower women and marginalised groups by making information easily accessible. But there are still barriers for women to have equal access to the digital sphere mostly created by stereotypes and discrimination. Women are underrepresented in data, in design teams and in STEM occupations which makes them almost invisible in the digital world. Consequently, devices are not designed for their needs, and stereotypes are being reproduced through the underrepresentation in occupations that would give them the opportunity to take over powerful decision making roles and shape the knowledge production in STEM. Or as ED of UN Women Sima Bahous formulates it in a speech on the 8th of March:
Across the world, mobile banking has connected women to their own bank accounts, unlocking both financial inclusion and economic opportunity. And yet, the gender digital divide has become the new face of gender inequality. It compounds existing inequalities, disproportionately excluding women and girls in low-income settings, women migrants, older women, women living in rural areas and those with disabilities (Bahous, 2023).
To tackle the inequalities that plague marginalised and underrepresented groups, the benefits of digital technologies must be equally distributed, and their development and use must be guided by human rights-based approaches as well as the principles of inclusivity, fairness, universality, transparency and accountability (Guterres, 2022).
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