Case study: Cotidiano Mujer
Case study: ICT for social change: a democracy-building proposal for women groups in Montevideo
COTIDIANO MUJER
Montevideo-Uruguay
ICTs as tools for social change….
In the Latin American context we can observe sectors of the population fully incorporated to the global power networks, along with others that are slowly integrating the advantages of technological developments, next to vast portions of society that remain excluded. Through this reality, we get to observe that the progress of Information and Communication Society (ICS) has been heterogeneous for each country as well as within each country.
Further progress in the Information and Communication Society development requires digital inclusion of every person. However, ICT access and usage barriers affect millions of people in the world, who live in the margins of the development processes. Women, who constitute half of the world’s population, have faced difficulties to fully exercise their civil, political, economical, social and cultural rights, all of which have been threatened by patriarchal and fundamentalist systems. Today, every aspect of social organization is going through a change of paradigm fostered by a technological revolution that places us on a challenging scenario to intensify the struggle for true equity and democracy in society.
Even when in ICT access Uruguay is quantitatively well positioned among Latin American countries, very few digital inclusion policies at the national level promote the democratization of economical, cultural and political possibilities offered by these tools. The challenge is bigger yet regarding gender issues, as alongside the definition of a National Plan of Equal Rights and Opportunities1 addressing specifically the needs and difficulties of women to access and gain ownership of ICTs, there is a need to articulate actions with other government, civil society and private sector actors in a scenario that lacks from systematic and continuous efforts for the population to participate actively in the Information Society as citizens rather than passive consumers of technological offers.
ICTs offer important tools to promote a diversity of development processes, increase participation options in decision making and carry on active citizenship. However, this potential will only be reached if all the elements shaping the current gender digital gap are recognized in the national spheres as well as in the global discussion spaces where ICT policies are discussed, formulated and oriented, in such a way that more women may participate and benefit from the opportunities and challenges brought in by the Information and Communication Society.
Women as actors
ICTs represent a challenge for women movements as well as for feminism, inasmuch as they are a key symbolical and political space por development and social justice.
This new scenario is opening cracks in traditional power structures that erode hierarchical relations and give way to multidirectional ones. It is necessary for women to participate as creators of different policies, outlining other ways of doing, other ways of naming, other places where to talk and communicate, other relations for working and studying.
In the face of this regional and national context, Cotidiano Mujer, a feminist social organization advocating for women rights since 1985 in Uruguay, began to work in the area of New Information and Communication Technologies from a gender and feminist perspective, to promote and transform women’s use of ICTs.
In 2006, working with groups of organized women in Montevideo, we set as a goal to promote the active participation of women in the ICS. But above everything else, this first initiative began a reflection process and working approach directly involving the opinion and participation of women, looking to revert their position as passive spectators of the ICS development.
The historical contributions of feminism and women movements established in the global agenda the need to cross over all dimensions of reality with a gender perspective. (Beijing 1995; World Summit for Women; CEDAW, etc.) From this standpoint we aim at the construction of more free and informed societies. Open, flowing and shared knowledge empowers individual abilities and ways of organization and collective work that foster mutual learning in groups and social actors advocating to obtain equity among women and men in local and global communities.
Network building
In sight of the good results reached the previous year, in 2007 we decide to extend this project to Comuna Mujer in Montevideo, a total of 9 regions working with 150 women2.
At the same time, the extension of this project to include further regions of Montevideo, not only in ICT use capacity building, but in fostering a meaningful ICT use and appropriation, constitutes a challenge for Cotidiano Mujer in its promotion of participation spaces.
The project emphasized the participation of women, especially the right of women to access communication and information. The training, management and appropriation of ICT aimed to improve the quality of networking among organizations, as well as their ability to support and communicate local initiatives.
This second stage intended to generate synergies capable of transforming the organizations and its members into multipliers fully integrated in their communities – with technology resources not always within their reach – strengthening them in non traditional roles and integrating ICTs with an equity perspective in the local communities, thus promoting the right to communication, seldom used by women in our country.
Although the organizers participated constantly in social, cultural, and political activities in their local environment, they hadn’t been able to create a network between their different groups, mainly because of socioeconomic issues and their low appropriation of ICTs as tools for social change and transformation. Most of them had no active access or knowledge of ICT to carry on in their local activities. Thus we considered as urgent the stimulation of the use of technologies in these groups dynamics.
The goal of the workshops carried on was to strengthen the already existing network through the use and appropriation of ICTs, thus having an impact in their performance as local leaders, renewing the format of their practice to integrate them globally in the current information circuits.
This will enable shared approaches to common issues, and the construction of unified proposals to local and city authorities, as well as a regular and flowing contact between regions.
Daring
Susana had a computer at home for many years, but never touched it except for dusting it off. She said the computer was for her daughters and her husband, to study or work, that she could mess or erase the programs, and what use would she give to it…
Olga didn’t have a computer at home. When the part of her family that lives in the USA sends news, she finds out through her daughter, who has an e-mail account and lets her know.
Cecilia received a new desktop, quite modern, state of the art technology. It was a gift from some friends who left the country and left it for her. And there it was, unused, because she didn’t know how or what for.
These stories could be invented, but are true. These women could live in Argentina, Bolivia, Rio or Madrid, but they live in Montevideo, Uruguay. Chance brought them together at the workshops organized by Cotidiano Mujer for the different Comunas Mujer of Montevideo. The workshops were short and nobody became an expert, but they were no longer afraid of the “enter” key, discovered their enthusiasm for clicking, awakeend their Google curiosity and created many e-mail accounts.
These stories show the reality of many adult women, who by fear or lack of opportunities or just misinformation never approached a computer. They slowly built enough self-confidence for a basic use of their resources. The first and fundamental step was to leave their fears behind. Then comes the explanation of the broad possibilities offered by these new tools, like communicating with relatives who live far away, filling in procedures through the Internet, design leaflets or posters for the community centre, share information or generate it themselves.
Why is it more difficult for women to reclaim ICTs to use them as techno-political tools, ie technological tools strategically used to influence current policies and to transform inequality and injustice? For the same reasons it’s harder for them to reach decision making positions in policy building, access scientific knowledge, obtain better salaries and social recognition. The digital gap suffered by many women is a new phenomenon, a recent issue, but it’s just one more page in the already worn book of gender inequalities rooted in a system of beliefs, prejudices and stereotypes as old as humanity.
This is one of the objectives that has motivated Cotidiano Mujer in the implementation of this set of projects for and with organized women, to develop this study area and enable the participation of more and more women in the ICS, a participation that can only be guaranteed through an active citizenship, prepared to influence policies and decisions at the national and regional levels.
Contact:
Maria Goñi Mazzitelli
Cotidiano Mujer
cotidian@cotidianomujer.org.uy /
www.cotidianomujer.org.uy
