Equal opportunity in cyberspace?
 In 1995, academic Dale Spender wrote a book called Nattering on the Net: Women, Power and Cyberspace. In it she urged women to join the cyberspace race and avoid being left behind in the multimedia revolution.Spender speculated that if women could appropriate the internet as a networking tool in the same way as they have embraced the telephone (hence the word “nattering” in the title), then the transition to the computer might seem less daunting.
Addressing the National Press Club on March 14, Spender, now an educational consultant, spoke on women and information technology, and how far women have come.
“In a dot.com economy, the test for success is whether you are smart — not whether you are male or female ... On this first International Women's Day of the 21st century, it is appropriate to celebrate women's intellectual liberation. Australian women are making the most of the opportunity”, Spender declared.
However, access to the on-line wonderland is still heavily skewed in favour of men and boys. According to the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics figures, children who have advanced computer skills are most likely to develop them from home use of computers. An ABS report shows that, in Australia, “boys start using computers earlier outside school and are more likely to have access to computer-related technologies, games and their own computer, and supplement their school-based computer activities with extensive experimentation outside school. Girls are significantly less likely to have their own computer at home.”
The report says that girls do gain basic computer skills at school, but most of the advanced applications are attained from home use of computers.
Not surprisingly, there is a dramatic difference in computer use and home internet access between different socio-economic groups. Households with annual incomes of $150,000 or more are almost 11 times more likely to be connected to the internet than those on less than $20,000.
In terms of internet access, 66% of those in the highest income bracket were connected, compared with 5.7% of those in the lowest. Comparing figures for August 1999 and August '98, the gap appears to be widening.
The ABS found that girls generally have lower computer skills in all socio-economic groups. The differences between girls' and boys' performance and skills acquisition is far more marked for girls in low-income areas, who attend government and small schools, or who live in rural areas. Indigenous girls, the ABS report says, are multiply disadvantaged.
With women earning, on average, less than men, heading most sole-parent households (which are among the poorest of households), and making up the vast bulk of those living below the official poverty line, it is also no surprise that adult women are less likely to have access to these new technologies than men.
Among households that have a computer, but are not connected to the internet, more than 40% cite cost as the main barrier. Ten per cent said they would have to upgrade their computer equipment to be able to connect to the net.
Spender told the National Press Club that setting up on-line businesses allowed women to avoid harassment by big institutions, permitted women to control their work conditions and allowed an easier balance of work and family. While this may be true for some, what percentage of working women have the opportunity or the time to embark on such enterprises?
Like those who claim that flourishing small businesses will make our economic system fair and open up a place for the “little people”, the idea that there is an internet business-led path to women's liberation women is utterly utopian. It will not challenge the basis of power and wealth under capitalism.
Concrete issues such as child-care, reproductive rights, ending violence against women, unpaid domestic work and occupational and pay inequity are only some of the matters which still need to be resolved before women will be able to fully enjoy a hi-tech future.
Internet access can be a valuable tool for information distribution related to the fight to achieve equality, but the sort of social, political and economic revolution that is needed to create real justice will have to take place outside of cyberspace.
By Margaret Allum