The Utilization of Electronic Communication

and Women Workers Movement

Lai Ngan Yin

(Committee for Asian Women)

First of all, I would like to apologize for not able to present my sharing in Korean. Secondly, I would like to thank the organizer for inviting CAW to participate in this meaningful workshop and to learn from your valuable experiences.

Lets spend few minutes to think about your life journey. Recall your memories or experiences of being a FEMALE at home, school, workplace and society. How do you feel as a female? What are your experiences of being female? Basically, the role of women is predetermined as subordinate to men. As a daughter, you enjoy very less privileges as a son does. As a woman, you are expected to marry a man who can support your living. As a woman worker, you are told that you shouldnt expect the same wage as men because you have husband to rely on. You are asked to leave the opportunities of training and promotion to the young men.

So, what is woman in our society?

Lets think about Electronic Communication and your daily life. When was your first time to operate a computer? How did you feel? What do you think of Internet, email, BBS, mailinglist etc. to you? How often do you use electronic communication? What is information to you? What is the relation between information technology and you?

In this male-dominant society, men control and enjoy much more resources than women. Women as subordinates to men are pointless to educate, train and develop her abilities. Womens role / work is being limited in non-technological areas. In school, boys are encouraged to learn science, engineering and technology. On the other hand, girls are asked to learn arts and home science. The education system and values have discouraged woman from exposing herself to science and technology. For women who come from poor families, they were forced to sacrifice studies for working in order to support their brothers studies. At workplace, women are recruited for clerical, service, production line etc. they are not expected to work at the managerial level. Training or learning opportunities always given to male workers. Once you married, you have double responsibilities as a worker and as a housewife. You can hardly have time and resources for self-improvement. In short, women are less exposed to (information) technology due to the values/roles imposed by the social systems and various social institutions.

Majorities recognize the importance of information in their daily activities. However, electronic communication as a tool to access to information is not common to women, especially women workers. As discussed, the educational background, personal experiences and profession have discouraged women from utilizing the technology. Electronic communication is more popular among the woman worker organizers, activists, NGOs staff, students, and those who used to it. To women workers, meeting with people and sharing have greater impact than searching in the Internet for information. They dont have the knowledge and skills to operate computer, easily get frustrated with the language and the flooded information in the Internet. Therefore, it is not very practical and effective to promote electronic communication among women workers.

The environment of utilizing electronic communication varies with countries. Therefore, the approaches and strategies shall be different. With limited resources, it is essential to ensure that the idea is implemented with maximum output. We shall identify the needs/objectives and target groups, as well as the forms of electronic communication that serve the needs. Step-by-step training need to be conducted, supplement with sufficient practice in work. Continuously exposure to the development of technology would be helpful to further develop the knowledge and skills.

In some occasions, the network groups of CAW raised the importance of information sharing and the utilization of electronic communication in their struggles. We realize that electronic communication, as a tool to collect and disseminate information is the most efficient way with least cost. Also, we found that it is relatively easy to start with network groups in East Asia. Mainly because the facilities are well built and the organizers are better equipped with knowledge and skills. We plan to set up networking on information to share the experiences in struggles, the situations of women workers, the current development that affect women workers, and to strengthen the linkage among the network groups. Other technical aspects that need to take into consideration are language, and mechanism of supplying and filtering information.

By training women worker organizers as a starting point in promoting electronic communication, we are hoping that they would train the women workers in their organizations. This would be a long process and the expectations of training women workers would different from training organizers. The expectations depend on their needs, cultural and educational backgrounds.

The establishment of organizations that specialised in utilizing information technology in social movements, such as Jinbonet, would very much improve the environment for promoting electronic communication. They can play a leading role in introducing information technology to local organizations, provide technical support and training to them.

In conclusion, initiatives shall be taken to overcome the existing constraints and limits. We may take this opportunity of gathering together to draw concrete plans to improve women participation in electronic communication.