Women and Information Society - Case Study Example

Contents Introduction Information Society Explained 4 The Rise of the Information Society: What it means for Women 5 Opportunities and Challenges 6Time and money 6 Low Confidence 7 Negative experience 7 Future for women in information society 7 Conclusion 8 References 8 Introduction With the advent of the knowledge society or the information society, the world has changed in many ways. The rise of the information society has provided opportunities for people across the world and particularly women to enter the global workforce in larger numbers. As Thomas Friedman, celebrated author and cheerleader for globalization, puts it, the world is “flat” meaning that there are lesser entry barriers to the global workforce and the opportunities available for people from across the global economy. This is not only a technological barrier but a cultural barrier which seems to be removed from a greater part of the globe. This is because there are still place where the opportunity is not same for women in the different sectors of the society. This is both due to cultural and religious barriers. The women in some societies are still not considered an equally capable part of the society. In other societies the discrimination is solely based on religious belief. Although it can be argued that religion is used more as an excuse to use the cultural discrimination. Thus the women in these regions are not given the same opportunities which are given to men. This phenomenon is also common in the western culture and is usually referred to as the glass ceiling. This means that after a certain point in their career women are not given the same opportunities as compared to other colleagues who are male. This gender discrimination is faced by females in developed part of the world in later parts of their career. The most common examples can be found by statistical analysis of number of women in lower management as compared to executive management. The statistics show that number of women in executive management fall drastically showing that females have to face a glass ceiling when competing for executive level positions. Most women have benefited from the knowledge society as unlike the manufacturing jobs of earlier times, they do not need the muscle power to work in the information sector and instead need only the mental aptitude and knowledge skills to succeed. This has opened up an entirely new sector for females to contribute to the society and compete with men on equal basis. In previous era man had always dominated women because of their superior physical strength. This dominance was a big cultural aspect to our society because most tasks required great physical labour. Thus women were only left in role which required lesser dominance and not given an equal status. Thus the creation of jobs which can be performed by women and men on an equal basis is one of the major reasons behind the increased independence of females in the last few decades. However, the rise of the information society has thrown up its own challenges in the areas of family and societal relationships. The rise of the nuclear family and the consequent extra stress on women to manage work and home and balance these lives has indeed been something of a challenge. Further, the increase in atrocities on women has been attributed to the easy way in which traffickers and abusers finding it easy to prey upon women thanks to the easy availability of information about women online and the way in which the online networks lend themselves to befriending women and luring them into dangerous situations. The online social networks such as Facebook have been instrumental in providing information to unwanted people. The advocates of Facebook usually argue that there are settings in Facebook which disable access to unwanted people. However they fail to realize that until something bad actually happens not everyone feels threatened. This paper focuses on the positive and negative effects of the information society on women and outlines some specific instances in which women have benefited as well as been exploited due to the rise of the information society. This paper would thus analyze different ways that the information society has improved the life of the average women. The scope of the paper would be on women overall rather than in a specific part of the world. This is because there are still abnormalities to the rule. Therefore a more generic review would be most relevant to this topic. Information Society Explained The information society is the word used for the modern society built in developed countries. In these developed countries information is a very important part of everyday life and is considered an important economic and political activity (Webster, 2002). The transfer of knowledge in such a society is an integral economic activity and thus it can be said that in such a society knowledge is considered a commodity. The transfer of this knowledge can lead to political and social issues and solutions. Thus there is also a continuous struggle to control and manipulate knowledge for personal gains. The previous age was known as the industrial age because the world revolved around the industrial power of the machine. Similarly in the age the world revolves around the informative power of the computer. There are many different names given to the information society by different scholars and researchers e.g. post-industrial and knowledge societies. There is no consensus when it comes to a clear definition of information society (Webster, 2002). This is because there is no certain time frame which can be associated with the starting of the information society. Most theorist and researcher agree that the first signs of this information society can be traced back to the revolutions gained by science in the 1970’s. Moreover there is also misconception on what actually consists of the information society. In order words what’s the main channel of communication of this information society or in other words on which the information society is built. It is popular opinion that information society is based upon the internet. However one cannot deny the fact that information society has been influenced by other Medias many years before the internet was actually invested (Garnham, 2004). These include devices built upon satellite media such as television, radio etc. Researchers over the years have blamed the information society for totally changing the dynamic of the labor market for the worse. According to many different research studies, immaterial labor has increased after the advent of information of society (Gingrich & Negri, 2006). Thus people have jobs which do not directly contribute to the product of goods of services rather just manage information. A very good example of this immaterial labor is the job of a news caster. The biggest disadvantage of this model is the reduction in importance of the jobs which do actual labor. Thus we can say that in this information society a job which only manages can pay much more than a job doing the actual work. In the modern world the closest example to a perfect information society is the Japanese society. One of the most important features of their way of life which makes them information based is their heavy reliance on automated systems. Moreover most jobs in their society are services based which is also an important aspect of an information based society (Garnham, 2004). Another important aspect is the communication channel. Almost everything in that society is communicated online ranging from a Job description to a barbers appointment. The Rise of the Information Society: What it means for Women There have been many different studies conducted on the discrimination when it comes to distribution of opportunities among genders. The access to information technology has also been restricted to the female population in many regions of the world (Garnham, 2004). Even in the most advanced regions of the world computer usage is more common among men as compared to women. According to surveys conducted by the UK National Statistics office there is a still wide gap between internet usage by women and men (Goulding & Spacey, 2002). Only 45 percent are using computers whereas the percentage of men lies at a high of 57 percent. The difference reduces drastically in the younger population which shows that the situation is improving. According to NOP women are more likely users of the internet in ages under twenty five years old. This also shows that the reduced usage of the internet in older women maybe due to reduced participation in the workforce as compared to males. This is because older women have not received the same levels of training in regard to internet usage (Goulding & Spacey, 2002). Therefore it cannot be said that there is any lack of capability. On the contrary there are a number of different factors which affect the usage of computers in women. The availability of computers along with the required level of training is one of those factors. The increase in the younger population in regard to computer usage has increased the amount of females being employed jobs. This is because the computer skills are an essential part of every job in the information society (Goulding & Spacey, 2002). Opportunities and Challenges The following are some of the challenges being faced by women in the information society: Time and money As with other problems being faced by the world of today, women participation in the information society is also affected by finance. Different researchers have found that this is one of the biggest issues being faced by women who wish to participate in the information society. One of the main contributors to this issue is the lower disposable income of women as compared to men (Goulding & Spacey, 2002). The prices of computer hardware and internet service providers have fallen over the last decade. These prices however are still significantly higher in many countries. Low Confidence The women have in general a lower confidence level when it comes to computers. This is mainly because of cultural barriers rather than lacks in capability. Women are made to think through social stereotyping that they are not good with computers. These can further make them decide against taking up permanent careers in computer education. Negative experience There has been research into the negative experience that many women have with the internet and how it can affect their long term career orientation in the information society. The harassment of female users in the chat rooms and discussion boards is one of the main reasons that females try to avoid internet usage. This is also important because most computer communication revolved around chatting almost half a decade ago. Moreover the random availability of pornography on the internet also discourages many women to try and use the computer. These bad experiences can leave a permanent bad and negative impression which keeps them away and dormant in the information society. Future for women in information society The situation has improved over the last few decades when we talking with regard to female participation in the workforce. From the discussion it can be easily concluded that the increase strength of the information society is one of the major reasons that female participation has increased over the last few decades. Thus it can be said that information society is a major reasons behind the increased role of females in our workplace and society as a whole. The role of information technologies is increasing day by day. It can be easily concluded that the world is becoming more and more mechanized. Even for very trivial tasks people now rely on information technology. Therefore the information society would become only stronger in the near future. With the increased role of information society in our lives, the role of females would also increase. This is because in perfect information society there is no difference on basis of gender rather on capabilities. Moreover from a totally humanitarian perspective, the discrimination against women when it comes to employment would also decrease in the future. Conclusion The demand of educated labour has increased in different industries over the last few years. The level of education in women today is no less than men. Thus the demand for female educated people is high in the information society. To become an active part of the information society women must overcome their fears and taboos. The role of governments in providing equal opportunities to women in developing countries cannot be denied as well. References Goulding, A & Spacey, R. (2002). Women and the Information Society: barriers and participation. 68th IFLA Council and General Conference Webster, F., (2002) Theories of the Information Society. London: Routledge Veneris, Y. (1990). Modeling the transition from the Industrial to the Informational Revolution, Environment and Planning Veneris,Y., (1984). The Informational Revolution, Cybernetics and Urban Modelling. University of NC Touraine, A., (1988). Return of the Actor. Minnesota Stehr, N. (2002). Knowledge & Economic Conduct. University of Toronto Press Webster, F. (2002). Theories of the Information Society. Cambridge  Drucker, P (1969). The Age of Discontinuity. London: Heinemann Porat, M. (1977) The Information Economy. Washington, DC: US Department of Commerce Haug, W. F. (2003) High-Tech-Kapitalismus. Hamburg: Argument. Garnham, N. (2004). Information Society Theory as Ideology. The Information Society Reader: London Dijk, J.V., (2006). The Network Society. London, Sage Read More