Introduction

The term "digital divide" was coined in a report published by the Department of Commerce National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) in 1999.[1] The report documented the barriers to low-income families' access to technology, including the inability to afford computers and monthly fees for Internet access. An earlier NTIA report, released in 1995, indicated disparities in rural America. The 1999 report included disparities in technology use, based on ethnicity and income, using US Census data and a questionnaire about technology usage. All data indicated that the gap was wide and getting wider each year, but the report did not differentiate which communities were most affected. Were senior citizens, single mothers, and indigenous people, for example, less likely to have access to the Internet? With the US economy becoming increasingly knowledge based, access to information and communication technologies (ICT) has become about a matter of economic opportunity.

More recently, two NTIA reports stated that the digital divide was no longer a reality and that broadband access had increased dramatically.[2] As a result of this rise, approximately 385,000 families generate some part of their income from eBay, contributing to their economic security in a new and promising way. So is the divide really closed?

My Story

As a young girl growing up in a low-income project of New York City, I struggled financially every day. My parents divorced when I was five years old , as is fairly common today. My father never reappeared as a major figure in my life. As a single parent, my mother relied on me to help around the house since she worked long hours and, sometimes, double shifts. One day she realized that I didn't come straight home from school every day; instead, I went to the "arcade room" until my curfew. I was oblivious to the fact that I was the only girl there, but my mother had noticed. After many such evenings, she began to argue with me, thinking that I was seeing a boy and using the arcade as a pretext. I was a straight-A student in school, so I was confused by her concerns. I loved playing the various games, especially Pac-Man and its various spin-offs. Competing against the game and other players was thrilling to me.

It never occurred to me that I was the only girl at the arcade. My mother, however, promptly noticed. She never believed that I was drawn solely to the games. She thought there had to be a sexual motivation and decided to get the home console Atari version of Pac-Man to test her assumptions. She was happy to be proven wrong.

Despite the financial obstacles, my mother invested in various video games and then bought the Commodore 64 personal computer. It came with the processor built into the keyboard and a tape deck instead of a floppy-disk drive. The pre-Windows operating system meant no "plug and play" or "point and click." All actions had to be programmed, but I loved it anyway. Many years later, after hearing an interview about how I became a "techie," my mother exclaimed, "Imagine what would have happened if I just stopped you from going to the arcade or if I had not bought you a computer?" It had been practically impossible to convince her that I truly loved gaming, creating a tremendous source of conflict for years. A similar pattern emerged in my professional life.

Although I indicated "programming" as an interest in my SAT college profile, my guidance counselors steered me towards a more social career, suggesting I could only be successful helping others. During the same time, many of my male colleagues, like Black Planet's Omar Wasu, who had a similar love for technology, were guided towards careers in the hard sciences. As for me, technology became a hobby instead of a career pursuit.

While majoring in psychology in college, I stumbled into a "techie clique." Not everyone in my clique completed college, but, like Bill Gates, they all started tech companies or went on to work in the world of technology. Two went to work for America Online (AOL) long before the World Wide Web became a household word. While I was studying textbooks for my classes they were studying the technical manuals for the latest hardware and software. My competitive nature forced me to keep up with their technical learning, and, of course, I made sure my computer was just as fast as theirs. They offered to help me get jobs with them, but I preferred a career interacting with people, not machines. "Why would someone used to being the Ôonly girl,'" they wondered, " not want a back door entrance to a tech job?" Similar to my days at the arcade room, I was unaware that my gender played a central role in the way people saw me and my interest in technology.

After about five years, the clique started to break up and I decided to start a Web design firm. I held classes at "Sisterspace and Books" as a marketing tool, and my life quickly changed. I was first asked if men could attend the class, which I thought was an odd question. The women attending the class told me that having men present made them feel uncomfortable. I was quite surprised. After several sessions, evaluations, and interviews, I discovered that the women in the class felt intimidated by the way the men aggressively questioned my technological knowledge even though they were beginners. The women students felt ashamed to ask questions. The men, on the other hand, used technical terms they thought they understood. I became determined to find out the source of this divide. I therefore conducted research on gender and cultural "technophobia" and Digital Sisters, Inc. was born.

Today, Digital Sisters, Inc. (DS) is a nonprofit organization that focuses on building self-sufficiency skills for women and children who are traditionally underserved technologically. DS has developed and implemented programs that promote life-skills training and address the impact of the lack of technology skills on families. Our educational philosophy is based on participatory and interactive learning approaches. We offer technology safety curricula and job readiness programs through our lifelong learning initiative and after-school programs.

In our work we have discovered that many low-income single mothers do not provide Internet access to their children at home even if it is available. The mainstream media continues to publicize every computer virus, Internet pedophile, online terrorist, and hate crime activity, thereby overshadowing the positive impact that technology can have on families. Many single mothers feel too inexperienced with the technology to avoid these risks, so they choose to protect their children by avoiding the technology altogether. Many of these women are more afraid of Internet predators than the predators that may be already in their communities. (It has been reported that 90 percent of child abuse or molestation is done by someone the child or mother already knows.) The daughters of these technophobic mothers grow up to become women afraid of and inexperienced with technology.

These single mothers who come to DS access emails for an average of 15 minutes a week, which is not enough to build any type of technological skill. Unfortunately, these women are counted as having some "access to technology" in reports such as the NTIA's. Clearly, "some" is not enough to truly benefit these women's lives.

Gender Differences in Technology Use

The NTIA reports that 10 percent of the United States population (29.8 million people) is not online.[3] In addition, many families only have access to technology in school or at work, not at home. A large majority of these families are low-income minority women raising children under the age of 18. Is it that they are low-income because they don't have technology access at home, or that they don't have technology access because they are low income?

Technological experiences in general are different for men than for women. Men tend to be more confident about learning and downloading new software, using the Internet to enhance their careers, taking online classes, and fixing computers if there are problems. Women are more likely to use the Internet for communication and relationship building, to get health and religious information, and to look for maps and directions.[4] It is important to remember, however, that the problem here is not about women's skills or ability; it is about their perception of their expertise. Some women view technological skills as an opportunity for the community, where some men see it as an opportunity for themselves and their upward mobility.

Some have drawn conclusions, like Harvard University's ex-President Summers did when he stated that a woman's brain is inferior to a man's when it comes to math and science. My experience working with women and technology leads me to believe that, in reality, many women find technology uninteresting because of the negative—and gender-biased—messages that currently plague girls until adulthood. Video games are a major entry point for children to begin developing skills for technology use, and yet the gaming industry has been designed specifically with boys and men in mind. Violence and death are major themes, as in the enormously popular game "Grand Theft Auto," which gives bonus points for beating or killing female prostitutes after engaging in sexual activities. Notably, games were not as gendered over 20 years ago when I was discovering my love of technology at the arcade. The lack of games for girls—or games appropriate for children of either gender—is a major problem for our mothers, adding to their distrust of technology.

Lack of education and overwhelming family responsibilities continue to be barriers for many women, as is evidenced by the types of women who come to Digital Sistas, Inc. They don't have the technology skills they wish they had, particularly to compete in the current workforce. Some wish they could return to school. These women come to our classes asking for assistance, and we, in turn, provide them with training and education about technology, in some cases giving them computers. We discuss how sometimes mothers perpetuate in their children the same gender-biased expectations they faced as girls. Mothers who ask their sons to fix technological problems in the house will never bother to ask their daughters, assuming that boys and men are naturally better at it. If there is a computer at home, the boys are usually the ones using it the majority of the time. Therefore, no one else in the house gets the time to build technological skills, including the mother, who is often the only adult in the house. After recognizing these barriers, women are better able to identify where these preconceived notions of gender and technology have affected their lives. Although many can identify the problem, it is not easy for them to change their ways.

Sarah, for example, came to our program through our referrals from shelters. She had been trying to find a job to get out of the shelter with her children. After taking our class, she had acquired the confidence to consider a job other than housekeeping but still continued to sell herself short. Instead of continuing with housekeeping work, we encouraged her to look for a higher-paying job that could give her the option to upgrade her skills and receive educational stipends to go back to school. If she continued with minimum-wage hospitality work, we argued, she could easily end up back in a shelter. She could attend evening and online classes with the computer that she would receive from our program. These were strategies that took more time, but worked toward a better long-term outcome. For women who are accustomed to receiving $7.50 an hour, especially those without technology skills, seeking or demanding a job that pays a living wage of $11.50 or more is an overwhelming prospect.

The NTIA reports indicate that individuals from families with incomes under $30,000 are less likely to have technology access or high school diplomas than their wealthier counterparts.[5] If entry-level positions at companies like CVS Pharmacies, Giant Foods, Home Depot, the Marriot, and even Comcast Cable require filling out applications online, how will people without technology skills find jobs with decent pay? Higher-paying jobs require resumes, and many employers want them to be e-mailed for ease of distribution. If 29 million people still don't have Internet access, is the digital divide really a thing of the past, or has it merely changed its form?

Further, this issue transforms the recurring "where-are-the-women" question into the more complex "Which women, and why?" Although there are certainly "race/class/gender" discussions taking place daily in the blogosphere and in this edition of The Scholar & Feminist Online, one must ask, How many—and which—women's voices are missing from those dialogues? Although some women are currently pushing the boundaries of being seen as experts and leaders in the blogosphere, poorly educated, low-income, and minority women remain absent from the discussions. Digital Sisters, Inc. continues to explore diverse women's relationships to technology, asking why some women view technology as a powerful force for economic security for themselves or for social justice for their communities, and why some women are being left behind.

The Road Ahead

The ongoing challenges with technology are many. For example, the every-six-months schedule of upgrades for new-and-improved technology tools makes it difficult for lower-income individuals to keep up. Broadband companies are fighting over who should make broadband Internet access available in areas that have low purchasing rates, which are generally low-income communities. Digital cable companies have added telephone, long distance, and broadband to their services. Telephone companies are competing with wireless services, cable, satellite, and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone services. Currently, recommendations for providing e-mail, video, camera, and other services through cell phones are being made with the idea that this may impact the issues of the digital divide. However, although most students enrolled in my class have a cell phone, this doesn't allow them to create, edit, or send a resume for a job.

Many people have little understanding of the impact these new technologies have on low-income communities or minorities. On closer look, instead of providing new opportunities for these communities, they prove that the digital divide has not changed. The issues are still the same. If the cell phone is counted as Internet access because of text messaging, then we need to be clear that this is not the quality access that enables families to survive in a knowledge-based economy. With the appropriate connections, parents can work from home when their children get sick and not lose pay. Text messaging, PDA's, or digital cable don't allow access to post to a blog or to work with interactive media components. Children can't get their homework done and projects completed with text messaging. A mother can't take online classes after her children are asleep without adequate access.

The focus on these other technologies also distracts us from the bigger picture—building a diverse pool of technologically skilled workers that helps to keep the United States competitive. Further, it keeps us distracted from what is really going on in technology and with the Internet, whose public face is currently white and, most of the time, male. These distractions have come at a high cost to low-income families, especially those headed by women. There are 30 million "working poor" families—a number that almost exactly matches the 29 million families with zero online access. Just a coincidence?

Many of those women who have the chance to embrace technology are able not only to improve their economic status and job security, but also to influence public policy and dialogue by becoming bloggers, Internet radio hosts, and content developers. This highlights the value of access to technology for all women and indicates the importance of getting women from various ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds involved. These people are a part of the "invisible divide"; if such a large population is left behind, our economy can't continue to grow. In order to close the gap, however, the root of the access-to-technology bias must be dealt with in a more constructive and beneficial manner. Without tackling the roots of the barriers to technology access, the ultimate hope of technology—to create opportunities for all, regardless of location, economic status, or race—will be doomed to fail.

Endnotes

1. National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), Falling Through the Net: Defining the Digital Divide (United States Department of Commerce, 1999). [Return to text]

2. NTIA, A Nation Online: How Americans Are Expanding Their Use Of The Internet (2002); NTIA A Nation Online: Entering the Broadband Age (2004). [Return to text]

3. NTIA (2002). [Return to text]

4. Deborah Fallows, How Women and Men Use the Internet, Pew Internet & American Life Report (2005). [Return to text]

5. NTIA (1999); NTIA (2002); NTIA (2004). [Return to text]