International Women's Day Theme: 'DigitALL' Innovation and Technology for Gender Equality

This year's International Women's Day theme is, “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality,” which highlights the role of innovative technology in promoting gender equality and meeting the health and developmental needs of women and girls.

Women and girls remain underrepresented across the creation, use and regulation of technology. In the face of escalating global crises, we stand at a crossroads. I wanted to share insights from UN Women released today.

-63% of women have access to the internet, compared to 69% of men. And women are 12% less likely to own a mobile phone, a figure virtually unchanged since before the pandemic.

-Women remain a minority in both STEM education and careers, representing only 28% of engineering graduates, 22% of artificial intelligence workers and less than 1/3 of tech sector employees globally. 

-Women in tech often face an actively hostile environment, with a significant pay gap of 21% and considerably lower rates of promotion (52 women for every 100 men). Nearly half (48%) report experiencing workplace harassment and 22% say they are considering leaving the workforce altogether due to the treatment they’ve received in the sector.

What are some key pathways to create and build a safer, more sustainable, more equitable future?

1. Close all gaps in digital access and skills, whereby race, age, disability, socioeconomic status and location all play a role in determining women’s digital access and use.

2. Support women and girls in STEM. Providing universal broadband access for teachers, students and schools—and ensuring digital literacy for its users—can increase girls’ exposure to STEM. Digital learning provides new opportunities to adapt educational environments and curricula to the needs of girls and students from marginalized groups.

3. Create tech that meets the needs of women and girls. The importance of cognitive diversity can not be understated. Technology reflects its creators. Digital access gaps mean women produce less data than men, and a lack of data disaggregation leads to unequal representation in data sets. A global analysis of 133 AI systems from 1988 to today found that 44% displayed gender bias, with 25.7% exhibiting both gender and racial bias—which led to lower service quality, unequal resource distribution and the reinforcement of harmful stereotypes.  

4. Address technology-facilitated gender-based violence. There is continuum between real-world and online violence, with technology helping to perpetuate and heighten surveillance, trafficking and other forms of abuse especially impacting intersecting forms of discrimination for women of color, LGBTIQ+, and women with disabilities.

These are conversations I hope we have every day, not just on March 8th. What would you add as a key pathway to create a safe and equitable world for women and girls?

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