‘Til Technology Do Us Part

International Feminist Journal of Politics,
Vol. 2, No. 3, Autumn 2000, Abingdon

Globalization is to the world what marriage used to be for most women: inevitable and transformative, for better or for worse. And like marriage, globalization and the concurrent spread of new technologies affect women differently than men — particularly in the developing world.

The varied impact of new technologies on women workers is often lost in polarized debates that either trumpet technology’s liberating effects or decry its steep costs. Supporters note that women now represent more than a third of the manufacturing labor force in poor nations, while critics highlight that where female employment has risen significantly, such as in export processing zones, men usually displace women as production shifts to higher-technology goods. However, in a recent issue of the International Feminist Journal of Politics, a triannual publication founded in 1999, Swasti Mitter, an academic and activist from the University of Sussex, and Sheila Rowbotham, a well-known scholar on women’s history from the University of Manchester, offered a refreshing exception to this rule.

In an article titled "Bringing Women’s Voices into the Dialogue on Technology Policy and Globalization in Asia," the authors analyzed a United Nations-sponsored research project studying the impact of technology on women’s employment in Asia. The project gathered nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), academic researchers, and policymakers from Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam to examine the "problems and possibilities" that technology poses for women workers.

The project found gender differences in access to technology across Asia. Trade-union researcher Geraldine Reardon noted that, "Women get jobs that utilise lower technology, are less prestigious and are paid less." Even when women do work with new technologies, health hazards arise, including repetitive strain injuries, while many low-tech female laborers suffer the psychological costs associated with exclusion from the technological revolution. For example, hand loom weavers in India reported feelings of uselessness and despair because their skills were rendered obsolete by technologically skilled workers.

Mitter (who served as the project coordinator) and Rowbotham also examined the relative strength of NGOs versus trade unions in serving as advocates for female workers. While project researchers found that unions traditionally have neglected women’s specific interests, they argue that unions and NGOs can play off of each other’s strengths for mutual benefit. For instance, advocacy groups can bring new workers into contact with unions by offering legal aid and job training; for their part, unions can tackle women’s health and domestic-violence issues that concern non-governmental organizations (NGOs). UBINIG, a nonprofit group focusing on sustainable farming, has fostered this sort of partnership through its Trade Union Development Education Centre in Bangladesh.

The authors close with a wish list of now familiar recommendations and policy initiatives: They conclude that maximizing the benefits of technology for female workers requires building on women’s "experiential knowledge," providing women with flexible vocational training that considers nontraditional job opportunities, and ensuring that the state takes greater responsibility for protecting vulnerable workers. Unfortunately, without a concrete political strategy spelling out the how, who, what, and where, such objectives remain unobtainable. A realistic strategy should identify the individuals and institutions that would implement these recommendations, assess the costs and benefits to the state and to employers, and outline the specific steps at the local, national, and international level needed to translate well-intentioned rhetoric into reality.

Although the project rightly highlights the need to consider the perspectives and experiences of female workers, its strictly qualitative approach — however thorough — undermines its credibility and usefulness, making it easy for policymakers to dismiss the conclusions as merely anecdotal. Without careful studies quantifying the costs and benefits of technology to women workers (such as the proportion of female workers facing potential high-tech health hazards or the number of women versus men whose employment is continually at risk), the design and funding of policies ensuring that the impact of globalization on women workers is more positive than negative becomes increasingly difficult. Such efforts are particularly crucial, because in the case of globalization — unlike that of marriage — divorce is not an option.