Communication, information technology, and other researchers from Europe, Africa, Brazil, and Canada provide 15 essays that examine the adoption of information technologies by women as a means to overcome gender inequalities and increase empowerment. They discuss the potential of blogs for self-empowerment by Chinese women; how female fan identity is constructed in mixed-gender online platforms, focusing on fans of the show “Lost”; how bloggers in Zambia online publications represent women politicians, dis-empowering and excluding them from public spaces; gendered access and usage of media and information technology in Kenya; information technology accessibility, uses, and perceptions by rural women in Portugal; and the use of public demand aggregation of information technology content, namely an e-government services, to bridge the gender gap.
– ProtoView Reviews
Overcoming Gender Inequalities through Technology Integration explores novel ways to even the gender gap using the latest advancements. The book casts a special eye on gender inequities in developing countries, but is applicable to all nations working toward rectifying gender inequality. The book covers many different topics including cultural change, digital divide, feminism, gender equality, human rights, information communication technologies, self-empowerment, and social justice. The book contains 15 chapters, most of which take the form of case studies of female empowerment in the developing world. Not only do these case studies make the information infinitely more readable, they also make the information compelling in a useful way. The use of real stories of women on the ground in developing countries is infinitely useful in understanding the challenges and opportunities presented by our changing world.
Another positive is that many of the 15 chapters are authored by women in developing nations that include Zambia, Kenya, Ghana, and Nigeria. Further, the Editorial Advisory Board, with nearly 30 academics, is made up in significant portion of female academics from developing nations. This is important and adds credibility to the work. It is a common practice for western researchers to conduct “flyover research,” or research on societies and countries that they may not have intimate familiarity with. This is not the case in many of the works contained in this book, and the work is better for it. [...].
Overall, this book is a useful resource that allows researchers and students alike to understand the impacts of an emerging technology. This book is highly recommended for academic and public libraries.
– Sara Mofford, ARBA Reviews