Setting the scope: the gender-equality, youth and digitalisation nexus

• Author: European Institute for Gender Equality (EU body or agency)
• Pages: 15-19

1. Setting the scope: the gender-equality, youth and digitalisation nexus

15

Gender equality and youth: opportunities and risks of digitalisation

1. Setting the scope: the gender-equality,

youth and digitalisation nexus

(15) See Section 3. What do we know about youths access to and use of digital technologies?

With the development of ICT, the last two dec-

ades have seen a profound shift in the way in-

formation is produced, stored, accessed and ex-

changed, leading to what is often referred to as

the digital revolution (Gurumurthy, 2014).

Digitalisation, understood as the process by

which domains of social life are restructured

around digital communication, technology and

media infrastructures, increasingly permeates all

aspects of European societies, economies, cul-

tures, institutions and political struc tures. In do-

ing so, digitalisation is profoundly transforming

the way individuals perform daily t asks and ex-

perience interaction, including in the domain of

work, finances, health, education, entertainment,

social activities and political governance.

Far from being solely a technological phenome-

non, digitalisation is also a social phenomenon.

As such, it is both shaped by and is shaping other

social constructs such as gender. Digitalisation is

evolving in the context of a Western-based bina-

ry opposition between nature and culture, fem-

inine and masculine, which typically associates

scientific and technological development s with

masculinity. Historically, this has contributed to

the association of men with machines and the

emergence of a deep-rooted cultural stereotype

of women as technically incompetent or invisible

in technical spheres (Wajcman, 2010).

Similarly, digitalisation is producing effects on

gender roles and gender relations that are deep

and far-reaching. With the emergence of digital

spaces characterised by instant communication

technology and the constant use of and access to

social media, the line between what constitutes

private versus public space has been reshaped

and blurred. In that regard, digitalisation is giving

new relevance to the feminist arguments that the

public and private are inseparable and that per-

sonal mat ters are political in essence (Hanisch,

Firestone, & Koedt, 1970; Weinstein, 2014). One

key example is how sharing individual testimo-

nies of oppression under one rallying hashtag

(e.g. the #MeToo movement) highlights the col-

lective dimension of gender inequality and the

interplay between individual and collective expe-

rience (Baer, 2016).

Over the past two decades, researchers and fem-

inist scholars have explored to what extent digital

technologies in general and the internet in par-

ticular could provide an opportunit y to transcend

inequalities based on gender, age, race, abilit y

and other s tructural inequalities (Mainsah, 2011).

However, online spaces have also been shown to

reproduce unequal power structures obser ved in

the physical wor ld. For example, digital plat forms

appear as spaces of empowerment and identity

formation, but also as sites of surveillance and

self-monitoring, especially in terms of gender

norms linked to physical appearance (Baer, 2016;

Carstensen, 2013; Consalvo & Paasonen, 2002;

Levi-Sanchez & Toupin, 2014). The impact that

digital media and the internet are likely to have

on the welfare and social capital of individuals is

now understood to depend on a series of com-

plex factors ranging from personal charac teris-

tics, socioeconomic background, usage habits

and content (Shah, Kwak, and Holbert 2001).

Understanding the opportunities and risks that

digital technologies present in the context of the

pursuit of gender equality is a prerequisite for

societies to effectively harness the related op-

portunities and mitigate the risks, especially for

youth. Young people are the most skilled users

of digital technologies (15) in Europe. Due to mo-

bile phones, their access to the internet and so-

cial media has become more personal and more

private as compared to that of the first internet

users (Unicef, 2017). What is often referred to as