On Monday, International Women's Day, I joined a group of women, mostly with some connection to or interest in the technology industry (and a few brave men) to dive into a celebratory breakfast and talk about women and technology, writes Karlin Lillington

On Monday, International Women's Day, I joined a group of women, mostly with some connection to or interest in the technology industry (and a few brave men) to dive into a celebratory breakfast and talk about women and technology.

The "and" is important because, on a sunny morning in the new Digital Depot building within the Liberties-area Digital Hub, it was important to consider not just women who work within the technology sector but technology and its impact on women, the ways in which technology can challenge, limit or liberate women's lives everywhere.

I don't mean this just in the narrower sense of considering how information and communication technologies (ICTs) are already changing social and political fabrics for both men and women in the developing world, for example.

Nor do I mean we should focus primarily on the ways in which the technology sector, as employer, often creates more open and flexible workplaces that benefit women (and therefore, men, families and communities).

I mean in all senses. Technology and the developing knowledge economies are shaping our present and our future, for men and women. But women often stand outside the development process for ICTs, and are external to the policy-making that decides if, how and when they will be used.

Sometimes they stand outside these processes because of the societal gender issues that have been documented, studied, and not at all fully addressed even in the most open societies.

But they also stand outside because they choose not to step inside.

The late Dr Anita Borg, the extraordinary American technologist who worked tirelessly in the interest of women and technology as well as women in technology (www.anitaborg.org), described this issue well.

"In a knowledge economy, people with technical knowledge will impact the future of the world, and people without it will simply be impacted.

"A positive future depends on what technology is developed, who designs it, who builds it, who controls it, who uses it and how it's used. How can women help ensure and shape a positive future? By learning, knowing, and communicating about technology."

Addressing women, she continues: "Each of us must begin to pay attention to all the ways in which technology is affecting our lives. We must educate ourselves about current policy debates on matters such as Web access and privacy issues.

"We must learn about the technology being debated, express our opinions to our political representatives, and make sure our female representatives pay attention to the technical issues on the table."

Of course, the same is true for men, because men too - and politicians, as we've seen with the rather stilted reasons the Government has offered for pursuing electronic voting - often leave such debates to "the experts".

This is the same situation that we saw for the first few years - years! - of national debate on the increasingly serious situation here for broadband access. Far too many politicians - and policy-makers and citizens - saw this as something of no relevance or interest to them.

At last, we are seeing significant changes, but they still may have come too late, at a point where we have already fallen dangerously behind other states. The impact of our national indifference to this subject will not be seen now but in future years, when investments and jobs and indigenous entrepreneurial spirits go elsewhere.

The e-voting debate, such as it is, is not unconnected to what has happened with broadband. I listened to the Minister responsible, Mr Cullen, defend our rush towards e-voting with a comment to the effect of: "But maybe for once we can be first in the world to do something like this."

Let's set aside the fact that this is hardly an adequate reason for doing anything, especially something as controversial as switching an entire voting process to a computer-based system.

I'm appalled that we think e-voting will somehow compensate for the indifference that led to our being ranked so low in broadband tables, and has damaged us so terribly as a digital-era economic competitor in international report after international report.

When no one speaks out - especially when citizens do not speak out - others will make the decisions for them.

But get involved, prompt discussion and debate, and look at what has happened with e-voting - this rather dry topic has suddenly engaged the nation, and because of citizen disquiet, the State has at least been forced into a rethink, making some initial concessions.

Similarly, much of the advancement made with the broadband situation came from a citizen lobby group, IrelandOffline, which sought explanations, policy changes and generally made things uncomfortable for the powers that be. Getting informed and getting noisy creates change.

This is critical for women and technology issues. Right now, aside from a handful of studies, very little is understood globally about how women use or might use technologies differently, or how ICTs alter women's lives.

Women need to push to make sure that these things are better understood and the first step is, as Dr Borg says, for us all to step in and make sure we understand the issues, the technologies and the policies - and then voice our opinions to the policy-makers at all levels.

Such participatory democracy is crucial or others will make the decisions for us.

klillington@irish-times.ie

weblog: http://weblog.techno- culture.com