Below are the 18 most recent journal entries recorded in PBAF 537 blog -- Gender and civil society in ICTs' LiveJournal:

Tuesday, December 13th, 2005
2:29 pm [sound_byte]	The most recent update on our work I am posting this at 2:30 on December 13, one day before our final project is due. We've got our last group meeting in half an hour, during which we will finalize the draft of our project. It's coming together very nicely -- I've read through most of it and I think there are very few edits we need to discuss. As a whole it looks very good. Our in-class presentation went well, despite the limited time we had to present. We all contributed ideas and text to our powerpoint slides, and Jana did a great job finding graphics to add some life to the presentation. Cori's sound file was both a great use of multi-media, and a great "from the field" example of the gender issues in ICTs that the four of us have looked at all quarter. So all in all we came up with a good product through this project. We're all pleaed with the results. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 6th, 2005
11:50 am [wsis_lynn]	Link to USAID article about VP Here’s a link that I forgot to put in an earlier entry. It’s to a USAID article on the Grameen Village Phone program in Uganda. (Comment on this)
1:01 am [corriedevry]	Tonight I attended a discussion on Zapatista women Here’s a little update on the Zapatista women and Radio Insurgente. This evening I attended a discussion on campus about the Zapatista women. I am so happy that Maria told me about this. It was so advantageous that there was a talk on the very topic I’m researching the week that it’s due. I wasn’t too sure if it would be very helpful at all, but I was able to get a first-hand account of the effect of Radio Insurgente in the Zapatista community. The event, Women Confronting Globalization, was mainly to educate people on the work of the women in cooperatives to combat globalization issues (Mujeres por la dignidad); however, radio communication was discussed, as well. There were two speakers, Christina Obregon, who works w/ the Mexico Solidarity Movement, and Margarita Plaza, a journalist who has lived with the Zapatistas for eight years. When I mentioned Radio Insurgente during the question-answer part of the discussion, Margarita’s face lit up. For her, the radio has served as an important tool in communication between the indigenous groups in Chiapas (as they are scattered far apart from each other) and has served as a tool to empower women (she said she was so happy that I mentioned it because it has special significance to the Zapatistas). First of all, she mentioned how working at a radio station is empowering. Margarita said that at first, for the indígenas, the technology at the stations was very scary, and they thought they wouldn’t be able to operate it. After learning how to operate it and using it on a regular basis, though, this has been empowering to both one’s personal self-esteem and for the community in general. For the women, the use of technology at the radio stations is especially empowering. The use of radio is essential to the Zapatistas for many reasons. Promoting their indigenous language and preserving their culture through radio programs are two important components to their community and to their movement. Women in Chiapas are the story tellers, and they are the ones who are preserving their culture, using the radio as their medium to reach a greater audience. Margarita discussed how girls as young as 12 years old are involved with the radio station. Radio, as an ICT, has also served as a tool for Zapatista women to voice their thoughts and their rights as women (as was discussed in the previous entry about Radio Insurgente programs). Also, for women to listen to other women share stories, news, community problems, and encouragement to remember their rights as women, this is comforting & empowering and serves as a means to form a greater solidarity between the women. After listening to Margarita, it is evident that the radio has been important for not only the Zapatista Movement & communities, but also for the women. To see both Margarita’s and Christina’s expressions when I mentioned Radio Insurgente was gratifying for me. This radio station isn’t just an ICT that I’m studying for a project, but is actually a vital part of this community & movement and serves a catalyst for the women’s movement within this community. It is important to note that the roles of women have been changing, and this movement has been happening over time. The declarations of the EZLA are based on the rights of equality (in general, among all people), and the women have interpreted this for their own identities & roles and have set out to create greater gender equity as a result. The use of radio has been a means for them to expand their own women’s movement within a greater movement. I am glad I went and feel that the discussion was beneficial for me to better understand the context of Radio Insurgente. It was great to get a first-hand account of how this form of ICT is being used. (Comment on this)
Saturday, December 3rd, 2005
6:29 pm [wsis_jana]	Update on Research During the past few weeks, I have found out some really interesting information about the interconnections among GEM, Radio Insurgente, Radio FIRE and WSIS. For starters, I found a detailed book by Maria Suarez Toro on the history of Radio FIRE called "Women's Voices on FIRE."  In this book, I discovered that Radio FIRE was the inspiration for the focus on improvements for women within the Zapatista community.  In 1996, the Mexican Army attacked the Zapatistas Chiapas, Mexico in such a massive and surprising manner that the Zapatistas were "separated and isolated."  In an effort to find out what was happening, Comandante Marcos listened to his shortwave radio and heard a radio program by a woman speaking in Spanish about "Las Zapatistas" and how poorly women were treated within their community.  She also spoke against patriarchy and how it impairs the progress of a movement.  The speaker, Marcela Lagarde, from FIRE radio said, "unless gender is taken into account in the agenda of social transformation and women are included in decision making there can be no real advancement in any process."  When the situation normalized for the Zapatistas, Comandante Marcos invited Marcela to the community and asked her to be the "gender advisor" to the movement.  Corrie and I plan to see if we can find more information about this connection from Maria or another source. I have found a lot of information about gender and WSIS on Radio FIRE, including broadcasts and printed articles.  This information might be of help for the part of the paper on the impact of WSIS on gender issues.  Additionally, the APC Women's Support Networking Program, who initiated GEM, were planning on having a book launch at WSIS for the GEM manuel and CD, but this launch was cancelled in solidarity with other civil rights societies who were upset about human rights abuses in Tunisia.  The broadcast called "Interview with Anriette Esterhuysen (South Africa) APC, human rights abuses during the WSIS" on Radio FIRE goes into some detail about this.   I am currently working on applying the GEM tool to the Radio FIRE initiative and also doing some additional research on the history of GEM and some of the ways it has already been used throughout the world.  I think that GEM and the women who support and advocate for it are doing some really interesting things with IT initiatives. (Comment on this)
Thursday, December 1st, 2005
7:08 pm [wsis_lynn]	WSIS information Earlier this week I did some poking around on the web and WSIS sites looking for more information about gender.  So far, I haven't found much reported on gender from the recent Tunis conference.  I will do some more digging, perhaps I am going about this the wrong way.  At any rate, here is some of my researching from earlier this week.  It really seems, at this point, that gender was more of a hot topic at the last conference than this one.   -         Four document adopted in Tunis (from WSIS website): 1.      Declaration of Principles – were recommendations taken into consideration?  Looks like not. 2.      Geneva Plan of Action §         Work on removing the gender barriers to ICT education and training and promoting equal training opportunities in ICT-related fields for women and girls. Early intervention programmes in science and technology should target young girls with the aim of increasing the number of women in ICT careers. Promote the exchange of best practices on the integration of gender perspectives in ICT education. §         Encourage the development of best practices for e-workers and e-employers built, at the national level, on principles of fairness and gender equality, respecting all relevant international norms. §         Strengthen programmes focused on gender-sensitive curricula in formal and non-formal education for all and enhancing communication and media literacy for women with a view to building the capacity of girls and women to understand and to develop ICT content. §         In cooperation with each country concerned, develop and launch a composite ICT Development (Digital Opportunity) Index. It could be published annually, or every two years, in an ICT Development Report. The index could show the statistics while the report would present analytical work on policies and their implementation, depending on national circumstances, including gender analysis. §         Gender-specific indicators on ICT use and needs should be developed, and measurable performance indicators should be identified to assess the impact of funded ICT projects on the lives of women and girls. 3.  Tunis Commitment We recognise that a gender divide exists as part of the digital divide in society and we reaffirm our commitment to women’s empowerment and to a gender equality perspective, so that we can overcome this divide. We further acknowledge that the full participation of women in the Information Society is necessary to ensure the inclusiveness and respect for human rights within the Information Society. We encourage all stakeholders to support women’s participation in decision-making processes and to contribute to shaping all spheres of the Information Society at international, regional and national levels.                         4.  Tunis Agenda for the Information Society               Background information on gender from WSIS website:                         - Forum on ICTs and Gender website:                                     Declaration and Recommendations                         - Article on Gender and ICTs from Bridges                         - Gender IT.org site                                     Why gender is important to ICT policy                                     Links to several papers/background reading   -         WSIS Gender Caucus website (www.genderwsis.org) 1.      You have to have a password to get access to pages within this site…weird.  Signed up… 2.      Frustratingly after signing up for access to this site I am still unable to access certain pages and several pages don’t even have any information on them! 3.      This site seems almost bogus to me.  Even though I’m logged in I cannot access pages like: about, links, contact, etc.  Seems like a wasted page, but one that if used appropriately could have lots of good information.   On a somewhat different note, I think the following quote is interesting: An individual poor person is an isolated island by himself or herself.  IT can end that isolation overnight. - Prof. Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, November 28th, 2005
10:20 am [wsis_lynn]	Note from Lynn and Aaron's meeting a while back Hi guys, I started this word document last week and then forgot to finish and post. There’s a decent list of what Aaron and I covered when we met a while back about Grameen, GEM, background, context, etc. So here it is… In an effort to get cover some of the background information for the topic of gender and civil society as they relate to ICT I put together a “list” of sorts that relate to the Grameen Bank Village Phone project. In reading the articles I listed in my previous post I came up with some issues that should be addressed and/or defined. - Grameen Bank history, link Grameen Telecom, Grameen Phone and Grameen Foundation - History of Village Phone in Bangladesh - Definition of microloan - Role of gender and how Village Phone is used to empower women (or not) - Implementing Village Phone in Uganda and partners - Similarities and differences of Village Phone program in Bangladesh and Uganda - Impact of Village Phone on women, their families, way of life and social status - Broader impact of Village Phone and why it is important - Internal and external opportunities and constraints of the Village Phone program - Possibility of Village Phone reaching to other areas of concern In addition to the aforementioned, we will evaluate the Village Phone program using the GEM methodology. We will also look at what took place in Tunis last week at the WSIS conference and how that may impact gender and civil society. Information on this topic is plentiful, and in fact gender was a key issue at the WSIS summit in 2003. This will be a key part of our evaluation to see what changed regarding gender from the Geneva meeting to the recent meeting in Tunis. (Comment on this)
Sunday, November 27th, 2005
8:47 pm [wsis_lynn]	Things are coming together... Today we met to discuss our research, initiatives, GEM, and WSIS among other things. In the next two weeks we will use this site to share our thoughts as we write and compile information for the final product/posting of this assignment. This will consist of the following: I. Background on gender, ICT, WSIS (Corrie) II. Background and evaluation of initiatives (all) III. History of GEM (Jana) IV. Use of GEM (Jana/Aaron) V. Evaluation of GEM (Aaron) VI. Gender and role/points of contention within WSIS (Lynn) Please feel free to post or comment if I have missed anything. Until our next meeting... (Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 23rd, 2005
1:36 am [corriedevry]	Radio Insurgente programs Okay, after Jana’s update on our project, I have information on some research I’ve done for the Zapatistas. We’ve decided to focus much of our research on the radio station, as it is widely used by many in the community due to its accessibility. I’ve been listening to some of the programs the station has posted on their website. I think this will be a good source for our research. After listening to hours of Spanish programs, I have come up with some programs that really highlight the current situation of indigenous women in Mexico, the rights of women under the Zapatista Movement & liberation, and how they are portraying to women their right to feel empowered and participate in the Zapatista activities. Radio Insurgente is broadcasted in shortwave radio and in FM for the Zapatistas to share news, voice opinions, and listen to music & plays (I hope the link works!). I have only gone through the programs they have listed on shortwave, but there is already a good amount of information we can use. This is probably only applicable to Jana, since Aaron & Lynn are not researching this initiative, but anyone can check it out if they want. If you go to “Programas de onda corta,” you’ll see a list of programs you can listen to. Sorry, it’s only in español, but maybe Jana will be able to understand the programs. If not, I’ve been translating them (not word for word, though…just the general idea). Here’s what I have found so far: For the program, “Día internacional de las mujeres e historia de Digna Ochoa” (3/11/05), if you listen to the first part of the program, they discuss the news of the day, particularly the indígena women who participated in forums regarding the rights of women (for the Int’l Day of the Woman). It was in this forum that they stated the need to address violence against women in the home, changes in the way indígena women are treated, and the need for these women to participate in the organizations and the government for social change. In “Homenaje a Zapata y derechos de mujeres” (2/6/04), if you listen to the program between 38:00 and 39:00, there are several women who list the rights women have (I felt this was the best part of the program for the project). I won’t list everything they said, but the gist is: your husband should treat you well, he should help with the house & family, and you can decide how many kids you want. Then they say, “Be proud because you are a woman (along that line).” They say this in Spanish and then in the indigenous languages. The program “Día internacional de las mujeres” (3/8/04) discusses thoughts on the significance of the International Day of the Woman. One woman talks about they need for women to have a decent job and salary. Then they talk about the many ways women participate and contribute to the Zapatista Movement (in decisions politically and in meetings, as health promoters, and in education). I still need to finish listening to the rest of this program. The last program I find to be the most entertaining and is very educational and empowering for women. “Radio teatro de mujeres” (5/28/04) presents little plays that depict women in certain situations. Start listening at 28 minutes. The first play is about a women suffering from domestic violence from her husband. Her friend tells her about the law under la liberación zapatista. This says that domestic violence is against the law and women have the right to defend themselves (Article 8 of the law). She also tells her she can see the proper authorities who provide her protection. There is another play where a woman wants to go to a Zapatista meeting, but her husband doesn’t want her to go because he wants her to take care of the house and cook for him. Then a narrator says that under the law (Art. 5), women have the right to attend meetings, and no one can impede or criticize them for going. The man then says that many men think women don’t know anything and should stay at home. Then he states that this isn’t so (that women don’t know anything), and it is a woman’s right to participate. He reassures men that if they don’t know how to take care of the home when their wife is gone, don’t worry, you’ll learn little by little. Okay, so this was super long, but I have so much from the programs that I translated (I didn’t mention everything). I need to finish listening to the last two programs and move on to Radio Fire, if Jana hasn’t already been listening. In summation, though, it is evident from these programs that we can see how women are participating in one form of ICT, by radio, in order to empower women to stand up against domestic violence, participate in the community, and to know they are of value, in general. The radio station is also used to educate men on the importance of women participating in community activism outside the home. Well, I’m finding this to be very interesting…I hope you all do, too! Oh, Jana, I agree about GEM. Let’s just use it as a general tool, but not too in-depth. Perhaps we can use the 3 phases, but use each phase as an overall criterion for assessment (and not analyze the initiatives w/ each part under each phase). I don’t if that makes sense, but we can discuss it later this week. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 22nd, 2005
4:51 pm [wsis_jana]	More Updates A lot has happened since my last post. After Corrie and I broke off into a separate project, we started researching the telecenters project found at www.tele-centers.net. We found this project to be very interesting, but were worried about a lack of contacts and ability to find more information. During Friday's class with Maria Garrido, we were inspired by the information about the initiatives that work with the Zapatista community in Chiapas, Mexico. We spoke with Maria after class and she offered to give us a hand with finding information and also agreed to meet with us to discuss the project. Maria has been very helpful as she has sent us her powerpoint with links to different initiatives that work with the Zapatista community. The links included initiatives working in health and cooperatives, education, fair trade, conflict resolution, political advocacy, and mobilization and awareness.  Maria also suggested that we contact one of the PLP Fellows, Gabriela Rodriguez, who is the President and General Director of Affluences in Mexico.   Today we met with Maria and discussed how we might use the GEM tool to evaluate one of these initiatives. After our meeting, Corrie and I decided that it might be too difficult to attempt to implement every aspect of the GEM tool in our evaluation and that it might be useful to use some of the tools for evaluation coupled with some of Maria's Interviews in the Zapatista community, some information from Gabriela, as well as a comparison of another initiative.  One other initiative that we are planning on researching is RadioFire in Costa Rica, where we can listen to interviews and possibly apply some of the GEM tools to this as well.  We are also considering comparing RadioInsurgente and RadioFire.   We would still like to do an evaluation of the GEM tool and the pros and cons of using it.  We already can see one main con--it is very difficult to implement correctly from a distance and it is too extensive for our purposes. It is very interesting to see how this project is changing and taking shape. (Comment on this)
Sunday, November 13th, 2005
9:19 pm [wsis_lynn]	A few more links... More links for Grameen Bank’s Village Phone: - Website for the Uganda Village Phone program here (in English). Provides information on the partners with Grameen for this project, information on the female phone operators, background and contact information. I wonder if this site is accessed by people in Uganda? People in developing countries that would like to have a Village Phone program? And I wonder where this website originates? I found this site using a Google search. - Link to study by Ryan Stanley which is recent (November 2005) titled: Village Phone – A Tool for Empowerment. here - 2003 article on the Grameen Village Phone program by Prof. Subhash Bhatnagar and Ankita Dewan in India here. Titled, “Grameen Telecom: The Village Phone Program.” - Article “What Works: Grameen Telecom’s Village Phones” by Nevin Cohen here. (Comment on this)
7:52 pm [wsis_lynn]	Moving forward with initiatives During a productive group meeting on Friday afternoon we have chosen our initiatives and are quickly moving forward with our research and study of gender, civil society, and ICT. Aaron and I will look into the Grameen Bank's Village Phone program; and Corrie and Jana will focus on a telecenter study with lots of information in spanish (sorry for the lack of detail here...perhaps you can fill in more...). We will all use the GEM site and methodology to review these initiatives, and come together to share our findings, etc. I stumbled upon a study titled, "Grameen Telecom's Village Phone Programme: A Multi-Media Case Study" by Don Richardson, Ricardo Ramirez, and Moinul Haq. You can access this study here. It will be interesting to read this study, the Grameen website, and see what changed when the Village Phone program was implemented in Uganda from the existing program in Bangladesh. More to come... (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 9th, 2005
2:01 am [corriedevry]	Thoughts on previous suggestions & a website I think is useful Well, I just wrote this long entry, and then I just lost it all. I have no idea what happened. I don't know if this will posted as a second entry by me or the other entry will be lost in blog heaven. I guess we'll see. Okay...what I was saying before...I definitely think that the website that Jana found will be helpful to guide us in using some form of criteria to research an ICT intitiative (or initiatives). I looked at the website that Arron told us about that has Michele Menou's project in the Americas. It's very interesting, but I think most of the substantial work of the project is discussed in Spanish. While I was able to read it, I don't know if the rest of the group would get much information from it. (Maybe I totally missed a link to more information in English...let me know if I did.) We can definitely use this project, though, to add to our research, especially if we can get first-hand information from Menou, himself. Also, I agree with Lynn that the Grameen Bank projects would be a good initiative to research. We already know that there is readily accessible information about the impact of the projects (both the successes and the shortcomings) on their website. Plus, we can always contact the speaker who came to our class for any more information we might need. I found this great website while researching the library website (and later realized it's posted on the WSIS website, too). It's GenderIT.org (I'm not going to attempt to make a link to it...I don't seem to be having much luck with it...maybe Friday we can go over that), and it's full of information and statistics on ICT initiatives regarding gender. (Lynn, this might be the sight that you tried to make a link to.) It has articles with research done on ICT's regarding economic empowerment, education, health, violence, etc. While we can't do research on all the case studies, there are some good resources to enhance our project. If you go under "Education," and then "Gender Assessments & Research," there is an article written by Nancy Hafkin: "Some thoughts on gender & telecommunication/ICT statistics & indicators." I found this to be really interesting and has some good stats, like impact of ICT's on empowerment, and so on. Also, if you go under "Economic Empowerment," and then "Case Studies," and then "Links," there is a site for "Women's ICT-Based Enterprise for Development." If you click on that title, you'll be led to a box. Click on "Case Studies." I think the information on these case studies could also be useful. Okay, so that was a lot of information and directions, which you probably couldn't follow too well, but at least navigate the site somewhat and see if you find anything you think would be relevant to our project (if you haven't already). I like how most of the articles have links to contact those who are involved with the projects. I think it would be good to concentrate on a project, or two, (like Grameen Bank) but these articles would give us a broad overview of the impact of these global initiatives, especially the Hafkin piece (check it out). What do you guys think? Well, it was a long entry, but my first one, so I had a lot to say. (Comment on this)
Monday, November 7th, 2005
11:18 pm [wsis_lynn]	Telecenters and Telecommunication programs After some reading, researching and reviewing the previous posts I think I have found an initiative for this project that will work well with Jana’s brilliant idea to use GEM as an evaluation tool. We have read a lot about telecenters, and telecommunication programs that provide greater access for women, as well as job opportunities. The Grameen Bank’s Village Phone is an example. (Okay, I’m trying to implement newfound techie skills and hyperlink the Grameen Project…did it work???) I am interested to know how telecenters and programs like the Grameen Village phone are empowering women. Additionally, how they are impacting their social, economic, educational status, and how in turn is this impacts gender relations between men and women. Are women moving up in the “digital divide?” Or are men moving up at the same time and women are still playing catch up? Who is moving at a quicker rate and is it feasible for women to “catch up” given traditional gender roles? So yes, I’m looking forward to meeting on Friday and discussing moving forward with this project. Perhaps I should not be surprised, but there is a lot of information on gender and ICTs and it surprised me! Before I go, here are a few links we should have on this blog: - WSIS Gender Caucus - GenderIT site (Comment on this)
Saturday, November 5th, 2005
5:19 pm [wsis_jana]	Some Ideas Well, I've spent the past few days looking at some information on how to tie all this research together. I think it is a good idea to have some concrete criteria for how to proceed with the project, so that's basically what I've had on my mind recently. From the Women’s Networking Support Program website, I stumbled upon a criteria for evaluating gender initiatives in respect to ICTs.  This criteria is called GEM or Gender Evaluation Methodology and is located here.  One thought I had after briefly perusing the site was for us to evaluate 2-3 different initiatives using this site and then we could evaluate the actual GEM as a tool.  The GEM tool through the Women's Networking Support Program has a list of email contacts that we could ask about the tool as questions arise.  I am also thinking that because the GEM is fairly extensive, we may need to use initiatives where we have a contact who could provide us with additional information, such as the Grameen Bank and Michel Menou.  We can also survey many different initiatives for comparisons using some of the tools and in that way include a more comprehensive aspect to our study.  I am wondering if you all can take a critical look at the GEM tool and the feasibility of a project such as this and post your ideas to this blog as soon as you can.  I am looking forward to our meeting on Friday! (Comment on this)
Friday, October 28th, 2005
12:45 pm [wsis_jana]	First Time Using a Blog Prior to the start of school this year, I actually considered myself fairly computer literate. During class last Friday, I had an epiphany about my lack of computer savvy. I realized how much of a crutch things like “google” are for me. In the same respect, I had never thought about the use of a blog or a wiki before this class began. In fact, I will admit, that I had never even heard of a wiki before September. If someone like myself, who has been using computers most of her life could feel this overwhelmed by the prospect of using new technology, how much more monumental a task is the successful integration of ICTs into poor countries, with large populations who have never even used a computer before?  As I begin the initial research into the vast topic of the effects of ICTs on gender, socialization and societal norms, I find myself thinking about the challenges I face using new technologies and how these compare to the challenges faced by marginalized populations who are using new technologies for the first time. My first thoughts about this have centered around the use of a blog as our chosen medium for communication during this project. As a novice in the blog and wiki arena, I am interested in the relevance of this form of communication not only for myself but also for people in developing countries.  During my research for an initiative related to gender and ICTs, I came across an interesting article on the Development Gateway website  about the possible uses for blogs and wikis, which addressed this issue for me to an extent. According to the article and subsequent postings, blogs and wikis can be a forum for candid discussions about community events, politics and a place for people to share in their own language and within their own cultures. As with most ICTs, blogs and wikis currently have some limitations. As founder of Wikipedia Jimmy Wales points out, “some languages in developing countries take longer to work out.” There are limitations surrounding the use of English keyboards that lack necessary characters for adequate translation. Funding is, of course, another problem as domain names require yearly subscription renewals. A third issue is literacy. But, Partha Pratim Sarkar, cofounder of Bytes for All, believes there is “reason for optimism” as audio tools can be added to bridge the gap. Again I realize that my initial challenges when faced with the prospect of using a blog are small in comparison to the challenges facing the successful implementation of blogs as a community forum in poor countries and poor regions of all countries.  As a side note, during this research, I have come across a few initiatives that I want to look into more carefully.  Rural Development ICTs in Nepal : Integrating National Policy with Grassroots Resourcefulness  -Telecenters in rural Nepal that are focusing on a social mobilization project   Woman's Networking Support Program - women who support women networking for social change and women's empowerment, through the use of ICTs  I am not sure if I will be using either of these as the initiative I will research, but they are definitely interesting to look at. (Comment on this)
8:14 am [wsis_lynn]	Lynn's initial thoughts and attempt to define gender As you can see from Aaron’s posting below, this blog is a space for our group (Corrie, Jana, Aaron and myself) to input our findings, thoughts and ideas for our final project. One of the cool things about this format is that we can get feedback and comments from people around the world that are interested in similar subjects. So just what are we going to research? Initially, as Aaron mentioned below, our topic was broadly defined: ICT, gender and civil society. Drilling down a bit further, I am specifically interested in the impact of ICT on gender, socialization, and norms. Do “traditional” gender roles persist, or is ICT an equalizing, empowering force? And drilling down a little further, how does ICT and it’s affect on gender roles impact employment. Our research comes at a time when the topic of ICT and gender will be discussed at the upcoming World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). No only is there current research available to us, but we will be able to see what comes out of the meeting in Tunis in November 2005. One of the first things it is important to do is define gender. Often gender is used synonymously with sex. For the purposes of this blog and our researching, I will use sex to refer to the biological difference between men and women. Gender will specifically refer to the socialization of individuals. Most frequently these learned behaviors are linked to characteristics that we think of as masculine or feminine. Pateel and Parmentier (2005) generalize masculine traits as assertiveness, leadership, physical strength, and dominance; and feminine traits as emotional, supportive, nurturing, and submissive. With that there is lots of research and reading to be done on this topic. There’s much more to come! Lynn (Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 25th, 2005
10:13 am [sound_byte]	Michel Menou's organization in Central and South America And since Michel Menou and his telecenter work in Central and South America came up yesterday, here is the link to this organization's webpage. If we want to get in contact with him about any questions we have or filling out a short survey I'm sure this would be no problem -- he and I have had at least one brief e-mail conversation in the past, and I should meet him at next week's American Society for Information Science and Technology conference. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, October 24th, 2005
2:19 pm [sound_byte]	The project so far Greetings! I should probably start out by saying that I, sound_byte, am Aaron. Sound_byte is the name under which I have my own blog. As the four of us were setting up this community blog I tied it into my own LJ account, so I will be listed under my regular LJ alias. We started out with a group meeting to get all four of us on the same page in terms of defining goals for the project. We decided upon the blog format for the body of our work -- the idea of creating threads of commentary by posting and responding to posts seemed to us a useful way of organizing and recording our research and analyses. Since our first meeting we've had two short meetings to get this LJ community set up and get Corrie, Lynn, and Jana set up with their own LJ accounts. And today we met as a group with Dr. Coward to discuss our searches for content, useful search strategies, where we want to focus our project, and what resources we might find useful. Here are some links to information searching tools: The UW libraries webpage of finding aids for different fields of study is here. Each page in these fields contains links to article databases that index literature in a particular field. Most of these databases are subscription-based, and require authentication proving that the UW subscribes to them, which means they are not available to people outside the UW community. This is particularly important if you're trying to connect from home -- if you're connecting from off campus, click on the "off campus access" link in the top right of the screen and sign in with your netID. Beyond that we discussed the World Bank's Development Gateway, the UN ICT Task Force, the Digital Divide Network, and the Grameen Foundation/Grameen Bank. And there are of course tons of other resources out there. We also talked about broad background themes in which we should ground our research. These themes range from social norms and expectations concerning the role of women in different societies, how these societies view women's empowerment, how they view ICT access as a means of women's empowerment, and how they view allowing women to be educated and hold jobs (particularly but not explicitly related to ICTs). Dr. Coward mentioned Nancy Hafkin as a scholar who adeptly summarizes some of the issues that serve as the background against which women interact with ICTs. Last but not least I promissed a simple example of how to copy and paste html code in order to hyperlink websites, as I've done above. I learned to do this from this page, under the "Links" heading. (In case anyone is wondering, The Silverfish is the Information School student newsletter, published entirely online. I write a column called Biblioteca, which deals with international information issues, for them). That's all I can think of for now, Aaron (Comment on this)