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.