Where are the girls online? The Consequences of the Gender Digital Divide
Sarita is a 12-year-old girl very excited that she suddenly doesn’t have to go to school anymore and is very excited about an extended holiday! However, as the days pass, she begins to notice that her parents are constantly worrying about whether their savings will last after this month, especially because their business has dried up since the lockdown began. To make matters worse, her school teacher has begun sending lessons and assignments every other day on WhatsApp to her father’s phone, the only one in the house, but she has to share it with her elder brother as well as her parents, who’ve moved their vegetable selling business online. This makes it very difficult for her to be able to stay up-to-date with the lessons. She even overheard her parents discussing that they may pull her out of school for this year since they can’t afford the school fees for both their children. All of a sudden, the extended holiday doesn’t seem so appealing anymore…
This is an all too familiar experience for millions of children (especially girls) across the globe ever since the COVID-19 pandemic compelled governments to shut down schools and educational spaces under strict lockdowns. In India, the lockdown exposed unforeseen problems when schools were expected to move towards online schooling because of the pre-existing concern about maintaining low drop-out rates of female students. Girls already struggled to stay in school because of various forms of social opposition that is evident in the worryingly large gender gap in education. When they’re suddenly expected to study online within the confines of their homes and surrounded by sometimes unsupportive family members, we can safely assume that it’s going to become a lot harder for them to return back to school in a post-lockdown world.
Pre-existing conditions that are exacerbated during a pandemic
The Internet is supposed to be the next great equaliser but we also often rely on it easily as the panacea to a host of social problems. Specialists have only recently begun highlighting how digital solutions to complex social problems often increases the gaps between the ‘digital haves and have nots’. Currently, India has the second-highest number of Internet users in the world. However, the country also possesses the highest gender digital divide in the world, with only 33% of women across the country being able to access to the Internet as compared to 67% of male users.
What does this mean beyond numbers? Walking through a slum in the city or a gathering spot in a village, it’s easy to spot the various groups of young boys huddled around a smartphone, playing the latest videogame or watching a viral video. However, the chances of coming across a similar sighting of young girls is highly unlikely. In many lower income and rural households, digital technology use is controlled by and accessible to only male members, who are also more likely to be literate enough to use those devices. There’s also the opposition from traditional factions within society who wish to maintain social hierarchies where educating young girls is just not a priority. Mix these two worrying trends up and you have incidents like the infamous case of a khap panchayat in Uttar Pradesh issuing a ban against young girls from using mobile phones in their village. Can you imagine how female students can continue learning in such environments?
Gender roles within the household also adversely affect a girl student’s ability to concentrate on schoolwork at home. Anecdotal information points towards an emerging trend that many girls spending more time on completing domestic work than attending online classes; parents do not see the value in online classes for which they have to purchase even costlier data packages every month during the lockdown. While this may sound like a cruel choice, it is one that many parents are willing to make. Girls may also have to take up jobs to supplement the family income during these difficult financial times, effectively putting an end to their education.
An Adivasi girl tending to her family business during the lockdown in rural Maharashtra. Source-People’s Archive of Rural India.
How can we move forward?
As depressing as this entire picture is, it has taken a global pandemic to bring up the digital divide into the mainstream focus today. We all know that it’s going to take a long time for public spaces to function smoothly again and till then, schools across the country are readying themselves to use a hybrid model of online and offline education.
This may be a large-scale problem; however, it requires localised and unique solutions. In many parts of the country, teachers are engaging in innovative learning platforms to make sure that their students stay in touch and do not lose out on education simply because their learning environment has changed. There also needs to be an official data collection exercise that authorities should carry out to understand the demographics of those who have access to devices and mobile internet data that can help them suggest better technologies which are more easily accessible to all students, irrespective of their gender or family income. In the age of the Internet revolution, the opportunities an education provides cannot be denied to a child simply because she cannot access the Internet.