Gender inequities in technology in developing nations: Females and computers in traditional cultures

The acceptance of innovations, including computer technology in traditional non-Western societies, has generally been a difficult struggle, especially with females, when these innovations challenge or imply changes to long-held customary designations of functions along gender lines. The introduction of computers in traditional cultures has customarily met with such apprehension and reservation. When they have been accepted, computers have solely been the domain of males, a mentality rooted in the belief that anything mechanical is male, and also in the myths concerning the technological competence of females. An understanding of computer technology and its socio-cultural, political and economic consequences in developing, traditional user nations may shed some light on impediments for females as they venture into this traditional, cultural, gender-biased world of technology.