Gender Inequality

The global financial crisis is on everyone's lips. With first hand reports of job losses, house foreclosures and citizens living on credit card debt, the impact of the crisis on the individual worker in the developed world is clear. In Africa, there have been threats of closures and retrenchments in the Zambian copper mines and Botswana's diamond mines, amongst others. But the impact on the individual citizen and African women in particular, given the existing gender inequalities, has not been well documented.

The broad argument made in global and local discourse about microbicides centers around the concept of "female control" over HIV prevention via virginal inserted microbicides. This argument positions women as subordinate to men in sexual choice-making and in decision making about HIV prevention during sex- particularly a lack of control over choosing to use a male condom.

Whilst the argument of gender power imbalances maybe supported through research, it does not allow that the factor inherent in female disempowerment over sexual choice-making and HIV prevention are readily addressed by microbicides technology.

The PEI Advisory Council on the Status of Women released a policy document today that examines the issue of women's unpaid work and makes recommendations for change.  The release of this policy document reflects the Advisory Council's concern about the continuing inequities that result from the undervaluing of women's unpaid work.

The ICT industry is losing the talent of skilled women who can bring to it a richness and diversity of thought and perspective and can help alleviate the shortage of skills, which is exacerbated by their lack of participation.  Without women as an integral part of the workforce, the ICT industry is bereft of many potential contributors to the formulation of government and research policy and the development of technology that benefits communities as a whole; it is also deprived of a broader set of perspectives in the design of critical information systems.