The Hindu Business Line : Women embedded in technology spaces

REKHA was `a reserved and shy person'. After training, she now has "so much self-confidence and knowledge that she can face anybody and talk boldly". What about Priya? She is happy that she has been learning a lot about banking and marketing, and also about other countries, though "the negative side of this industry is that exposure to western culture and a free flow of cash in their hands is resulting in an increasing number of girls visiting pubs, smoking, and trying to imitate the West."

Then, there's Sanjana, who likes the college-like, relaxed atmosphere at work; she feels that the BPO industry has given the younger generation, especially girls, "a welcome opportunity to know about the world, and earn well after graduation". Meet also Ashima, who has reservations about the monthly late-night party, and Deepika, who does not plan to leave the job after marriage. These are some of the women whose voices you can hear in Gender and the Digital Economy, edited by Cecilia Ng and Swasti Mitter, from Sage (www.indiasage.com) .

"Only a very small percentage of the world population is connected in the `network society' and the majority of women and men in the developing world are affected by exclusion rather than inclusion," they write in the introduction."Women in both the developed and developing countries, embedded within patriarchal contexts, are most probably heavily disadvantaged compared to men, in both the access to and control over ICTs," points out the book.

Among the scores of examples discussed in the book is Datamatics, which receives assignments from around the world and passes on the job to women teleworkers "who work from their homes, mostly online, and with their own computers." These housewives, CAs, doctors, and lawyers have one thing in common: "They had to give up regular employment for the sake of their families." However, home-based telework is miniscule even in dynamic cities such as Mumbai and Kuala Lumpur (1 and 0.35 per cent respectively), one learns from the book.

Read about Argentina in the context of `engendered regional globalisation' in a chapter by Martha Roldan describing the transition from information to knowledge society. Following it is `female spaces in the Philippines' ICT industry' written by Czarina Saloma-Akpedonu, studying the `gendered embeddedness of the economy'.

Three observations she makes about the country are: "One, there are more men in hardware development and Web designing; two, there are more or less equal number of women and men in software development and technical support services; and three, there are no fields where women are predominant in number, and there are also no fields that are exclusively male species."

There is a socially-sanctioned double standard in dealing with women in the workplace, write Govind Kelkar, Girija Shrestha and Veena N in a chapter titled `Women's agency and the IT industry in India'. They cite, as example, this quote of `a very senior woman manager': "If you complain, it is seen as a sign of weakness. If you are aggressive, you are a bully. If you have a mentor or friend in office, you are having an affair. Some of these perceptions are changing now, but only marginally."

Step into N'kob, "located in the Anti-Atlas Mountains in southern Morocco, south of Marrakesh and north of Tazenakht", and get to know the Ait Oughrda tribe, `famed for its skilled weavers', in a chapter titled `Women weavers online' by Susan Schaefer Davis. "The village has a population of about 700 people, and nearly all the women over the age of 13 know how to weave... There is no regular electricity or telephone line, and mobile phones work only at one spot in the village."

Other chapters include `Virtual community building for networking among women,' by Isabel Zorn; `Gender-Net: a political goal of communication technologies' by Dora Ines Munevar and Juan Aburto Arrieta; and `Thinking big to accelerate gender equality' by Gillian M. Marcelle.

A book on a topic of great importance that can't be wished away!

Tickle yourself with annoyances

BEAT back spam, stop pop-up madness, troubleshoot broadband problems, and fix the many more maddening things about going online with Preston Gralla's Internet Annoyances, from Shroff Publishers (www.shroffpublishers.com) . The first chapter discusses e-mail annoyances, such as inability to retrieve Web-based mail from one program, and enduring the {gt}{gt} characters in reply or forward.

For the latter, there is Text Monkey, informs the book. If you tend to forget attaching files, try `Attach!' from KMGI, which ensures that when you intend to send file attachments, you actually do so? But how? It scans all outbound messages for words such as attach, attachment, and so on!

For the hot-tempered, there is Eudora's Mood Watch that rates the e-mail on a scale of one to three chilli peppers, in terms of offensiveness. "If you create a new message while you're in a bad mood, don't fill in the sender name, and store it as a draft," advises Gralla.

"I've signed up for half a dozen e-mail newsletters using my Gmail account, but I haven't received a single one yet. What's with Gmail - is it losing more mail than the US Postal Service?" reads one annoyance. "Why does Outlook give me claustrophobia?" frets another mail-maligned, about the "puny space devoted to displaying message contents".

The chapter on connection problems discusses a common issue of slowing down. "When I complain to my broadband ISP, it has only two words for me: `Prove it!' How can I show just how slow my connection really is?" The author suggests the use of NetStat Live to report "current incoming and outgoing connection speeds, as well as your average connection speed, how much data you've transferred this month and last month, plus other details, such as your current and average CPU use".

To help the wireless clueless, there are answers to questions such as this: "I just installed a Wi-Fi network, but the connection to my upstairs PC is so slow and flaky, I might as well use the Pony Express to send mail." And, this: "Communications devices are at war in my house, and I'm the victim. Every time I talk on my phone, my Wi-Fi connection cuts out. How can I get my phone and Wi-Fi network to declare a truce?"

On Web hosting, design and blog, check if you suffer from these annoyances: "I don't have the time to learn HTML tricks, but I'd like to build a Web site that's more exciting than a dead fish. I'm a great designer, but a dismal speller; I don't want visitors to think I'm an ignoramis - or is that ignoramus? I designed my site using some very cool-looking fonts, but visitors tell me they see plain-Jane ones."

Gralla phrases annoyances with verve so as not to annoy, but tickle us instead. Try this, for instance: "Browsing the Web these days feels like cruising a carnival midway, with pop-up ads screaming their messages at me everywhere I turn. If I wanted bright, flashing lights, I'd visit Las Vegas. How can I kill these digital carnival barkers?"

Entertaining read.

Tailpiece

"My new laptop has a light for my keyboard!"

"How nice!"

"Yeah, and I use it for reading books."

Books2Byte@TheHindu.co.in

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