Gender Inequality and Internet
Gender Inequality concerns are also plaguing the world of new technologies the same way they have been haunting us in other areas. It is widely believed that women are less frequent users of the Internet and new related technologies as compared to men, which is creating a widening gender gap. The research in this area proves that this concern is not exactly baseless but a change has been noticed in this trend from mind 1990s to 2003.
During the time when Internet was still in its infancy, men were not only more frequent users, they would actually dominate the field with women still lurking in the dark since they knew little about the technology and even less about its potential impact. Women as active users of the Internet and email as found by Nielsen/NetRatings Study of 2001 but the frequency and intensity of their usage remains low compared to male users (Ono, 2002). It has also been found that men and women use Internet for different purposes with women focusing on communication while men showing more interest in browsing and searching. The statistics revealed by Nielsen/NetRatings Study of 2001 prove that women have become eager and active users of the Internet but the intensity and the purpose of their usage differs.
In May, an estimated 53.33 million women actively used the Internet compared to 49.83 million men. Women spent an average of nearly 9 hours a day online, where men spent about 10 1/2 hours online. Men viewed 31% more pages than women. Since May of last year, both sexes increased their time spent on the Internet by about 30 minutes a day, and over 11 million more women and 9 million more men jumped on the Internet. (cited in Roach, 2001)
However with the increase in Internet usage for both men and women, a strange new problem has surfaced which makes gender inequality in the cyberspace a serious issue. Women have become victim of Internet pornography as tens of hundreds of sites reveals them in degrading fashion thereby making gender inequality a more intense and pervasive issue. It is important here to take into account available figures of Internet usage among men and women, which reveals that since men are more frequent users, they dominate the cyberspace and can use it for whatever purpose they feel right. Various researches and studies have given differing figures but they all agree that women are still less frequent users compared to men and are less likely to access Internet from various locations. Women usually access Internet from workplace or academic locations while men enjoy multiple points of access making them more frequent and more intense users. In one of the surveys conducted in 1995, it was found that women used Internet mostly from workplace and it is amazing that things have not changed much in last eight years. In this American Internet User Survey (1995), which is no longer available on the Internet but is cited in various journals and books, it was found that:
....women are more likely than men to use the Internet exclusively from work or academic locations, while men are more likely to use the Internet from multiple locations, including after-hours use from home. Behind this finding is the related finding that men are significantly more willing than women to actually personally pay for Internet access. Thus, men are more than twice as likely as women to access the Internet from home.
Amazingly the same trend exists even after eight highly progressive years in which women have mostly been able to overcome or minimize the gender gap in many areas. While more women access Internet today than they used to in mid-1990s, their access points are still the same and due to this, men are heavier and more intense users. A recent report by U.S. Department of Commerce, Falling Through the Net: Defining the Digital Divide states that, "Both sexes use the Internet more at home than elsewhere. Males generally access the Internet by about three percentage points more, regardless of location, and equal 34.3% in total access." The gender-wise access points and percentage has been shown in a chart which is given below:
Source of Data:
US Department of Commerce
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/fttn99/InternetUse_II/Chart-II-14.html
One research claims that there exist no significant difference in the frequency of male- female usage but agree that men and women use Internet differently. (Ervin et al., 2001) Men are more frequent users of pornographic sites and they are more interested in such activities online and thus even in this modern age, technology is being used to degrade women and to create gender inequalities. Lisa R. Hoffman (1999) states:
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