Knowledge, Technology & Development: A Gendered Perspective

Shirley M. Malcom, PhD
Director, Education and Human Resources Programs
American Association for the Advancement of Science

What do we see when we look at a picture, an issue or a problem? What we see depends on the perspective and experiences that we bring to that picture, issue or problem.

In a psychology class many years ago, I learned about a group of people who were not fooled by an optical illusion which fooled almost all the rest of us. When asked to judge two lines of identical length, but with arrows at the ends pointing in opposite directions, we characteristically `see' line (b) to be longer than (a), because of the pattern of which it is a part.

(a) <--------------->
(b) >---------------<

In a classic work by Segall, Campbell and Herskovits, The Influence of Culture on Visual Perception (1966), groups who lived with few lines were found to be less susceptible to the illusion. A part of their culture, the way they were raised, the world in which they lived, left them free of the perceptual bias that had caught me. I learned that in a rounded world, having homes without corners, using few straight lines, their perception of the lines and the pattern was different from mine.

Perspective matters - not only in terms of who is doing the observing but also the vantage point that they have. Viewed from space, the world is a very different place. I still remember my own reactions to the pictures of the earth from space: The big blue marble sticks in my mind as the catch phrase that was used to describe its appearance. In that instant, the notion of one earth, interlinked ecosystems, and the dynamic character of the earth's systems all became very real to me. I'm sure this was the case for many other people as well. You can see weather patterns moving across the globe, affecting worldwide weather.

The view from space did not include the borders and the boundaries of the nation-states that we are so used to seeing in our atlas views of the world. People, as well as weather and radio waves, satellite signals, flora and fauna, capital and information all move across these borders, unknowing, unseeing, and unheeding the lines drawn by the planet's human inhabitants.

As we come closer to the earth we begin to see more details - the lights of the cities, the shape of storms, even the movement of waves of refugees seeking to escape the wars and conflicts around them.

The World Through Women's Eyes

One of the slogans emerging from the recent World Conference on Women urged us to "look at the world through women's eyes." A news story made clear to me how very different the world can seem and how different the response to it can be for men and women. This "ground truthing" emerged in a report about refugees from armed conflict and its displacement on one particular family. The picture was that of a woman, her husband and their eight children. He squatted on the ground, his head in his hands, the pain and distress of their situation etched in his face, separated from his land and his livelihood. She, on the other hand, was in constant motion: organizing their space; setting up camp; finding fuel, food and water; preparing the food; feeding and caring for the children, and mobilizing them, as possible, to assist in these tasks.

There are multiple stories in these pictures: too many people in too small a space; the lack of sanitary conditions; the spread of disease and loss of life; the orphaning of children; the degradation of the environment; as well as the individual, human stories of these people and those trying to assist them in their survival. Her focus on the family's immediate needs and survival could not be postponed even as her family was displaced.

There were deeper implications as well: about the peace we continue to seek; the challenges of development that we have yet to meet; the tools that science and technology can provide in helping address these challenges; the worldwide responsibility to address development issues; and the fact that our efforts at development are likely doomed to failure without attention to and active participation of women.

Women's reality as well as men's must be central to our vision and to development.

Science and technology must be engaged as tools to accomplish sustainable human development.

Education in science and technology is crucial to realizing sustainable human development. Information and communication technology must be available to support education and development.

Women must have access to the education and technologies essential for development.

Within a favorable international climate, the development of its people is how a country's development ultimately is achieved and sustained. Education is a key aspect of human development, including education in science and technology. Such education, I believe, responds to the visions for development and sustainability of our earth and for the people who inhabit it. I want to emphasize the importance of knowledge, and especially of science and technology and emphasize what it can mean to those most in need.

Beginning in 1993 I had an opportunity to serve with a group exploring the gender dimensions of science and technology for sustainable human development. This work was done by eight commissioners and eight advisors under the umbrella of the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development. The Gender Working Group took on as its assignment to contribute to the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing by articulating the links between gender, science, technology and development. The first thing we had to do was pursue the scholarly roots of this intersection and convince ourselves and each other that this intersection existed, and figure out what it might look like. A book published by IDRC and UNIFEM, Missing Links, summarizes much of what we learned.

Women's Reality: A Case for Science & Technology Education

Why women? Because they, that is we, and those for whom we care, the young and the old, are the overwhelming proportion of the poor; because women are over half the world's population; because we cannot afford to ignore these talents; because women's roles and responsibilities in family and community place us at the center of sustainable development issues.

In many parts of the world, it is the women who have responsibility for food security. Women carry most of the responsibility of reproduction and family maintenance. Women are the care givers, the gatherers of fuel and water. In addition, our efforts within the Gender Working Group pointed out that a substantial amount of local traditional knowledge is held by women, especially in the areas of agriculture, environmental resource management, and health.

Given the areas of women's responsibilities, it should be easy to conclude there is a major role for science and technology to play, and yet discussions of women in development often move forward with no input on the possible role of science and technology.

Those of us from science and engineering are often on the margins of national and international discussions on women in development. Discussions and strategies about development have been advanced without considerations of women, without the involvement of women, without an understanding of their effects on women, without the understanding of the need to consider women's roles and responsibilities in the family and in the life of the community.

Whether science-based development or not, it is hard to see how it can be effectively mounted or expected to succeed without women. Yet, this is what has been done: again and again the pressing problems of the world have been tackled with women on the margins. Whether the issues are those of population growth or environment, getting knowledge to women is part of the solution. While we recognize the need for continuing research for contraceptive options, we also have come to understand the links between higher female literacy rates and lower fertility rates. UNICEF's "Strategies to Promote Girls' Education," points out this link between population and the education of women and the effects on the other social indicators: links between the education of mothers and healthier families, and the education of mothers and their commitment to the education of their children. Education provides the knowledge and skills that contribute to and benefit from development efforts, especially in areas of health, nutrition, water and sanitation, and the environment. The links to science and technology in these areas are obvious.

Then there are the links in the other direction as well. The same report pointed out the link between countries with large gender gaps in primary education, and its correlation with lower GNP. It is not clear to me whether this is considered cause or effect.

There are many in this audience who are concerned about species diversity. There is much in the research that points out that indigenous knowledge systems are gendered, and that within women's indigenous knowledge systems are understandings of utilization of species and forest products that are extensive and that would be valuable to the rest of the world if they were tapped. (See Missing Links, 1995)

Connecting Local and Global Concerns

There are opportunities for connecting modern science and indigenous knowledge to the betterment of all: For example, using the local knowledge that women have about food characteristics and species characteristics and varieties, and issues such as taste, storage characteristics, etc., to be able to select and utilize modern techniques of biotechnology, and put together the characteristics, or the selection of characteristics, which these women desire, which they are willing to use, and which are likely to be incorporable into the life of the community.

At the same time, we ought to be able to acknowledge these local communities and compensate them for their contribution to our knowledge base and to our product base.

Beyond concern for the daily basics of food, shelter, water, fuels, and health maintenance, we must build local capacity and infrastructure to address long-term problems. Basic education in science and technology is needed for all, women as well as men, this in the context of schools as well as in the context of something called "public communication" or "public understanding." We need to tap into our old technologies as well as the new ones, and look for the opportunities to use these as the basis of educating for basic literacy as well as continuously educating about science and technology essential for development.

We must recognize the role of women as scientists and engineers, and the value that they play in policy-making and decision-making roles in science and technology. The discussion is different when women are at the table: Meeting the needs of women as well as men in development; balancing the desire for cash crops and the concerns of subsistence, that is, the food we sell as well as the food that we eat; melding the advantages of modern science and local knowledge systems. A recent survey by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in cooperation with the International Women's Tribune Center, identified scores of initiatives aimed at realizing gender equity in science and technology and at helping to make science and technology education more available. The scattered projects do not add up to a world strategy, however, even as they point out promising areas of work. We must mount efforts on a larger scale, building on local practices and utilizing the powerful information and communication technologies.

New Tools - New Possibilities

The new information and communication technologies have given us remarkable tools to achieve this enhanced vision of inclusive development strategies. These tools, along with an expanded understanding of the power of knowledge, wisely applied, have the potential to transform our rhetoric into reality, our pilot projects into large scale but locally responsive campaigns.

We can only achieve these ends if we provide access to technology to close the gap between information "haves" and "have nots;"

This conference is convened around the belief that knowledge matters and that access to knowledge matters in achieving sustainable human development. I want to add that perspective matters; unless the perspectives of women are empowered, informed, and added to the vision and implementation of development, we will not achieve our goals. We must make the tools of development, of information and connection available to women, as though our world depended on it.

Psychology, Lindzey, G, R.F. Thompson, B. Spring, Worth Publishing, 1988.
Missing Links: Gender Equity in Science and Technology Development, Gender Working Group, United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development, IDRC, ITP and UNIFEM, 1995.
" The Gender Dimension of Science and Technology," Harding, S., and E. McGregor, in World Science Report, UNESCO, 1996.
Science, Technology and Women: A World Perspective, Malcom, S.M., H. Morita-Lou, P. Boulware, and S.M. Burns, AAAS, 1985.
Global Linkages for Science Literacy Project: Reports from the Field on Promising Strategies for Educating Girls and Women in Science, Mathematics, & Technology, George, Y.S., A. Mastrangelo Gittler, and N. Bell, A report to Carnegie Corporation of New York, 1997.


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This page was last updated on June 23, 1999.

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