Why gender equality in technology is more urgent than ever

While the digital world holds promises to advance social and economic outcomes for women and girls, it simultaneously poses challenges that can exacerbate existing inequalities and vulnerabilities.

The 67th session of the Commission on the Status of Women, or CSW67, held last year highlighted that progress toward gender equality in technology and innovation remains slow. As of 2022, 63% of women were using the internet globally, compared with 69% of men. In low-income countries, the number of women connected stands at just 20%.

However gender inequality in technology stretches beyond the issue of connectivity. Globally, 16% to 58% of women have experienced online or tech-facilitated gender-based violence, while some 85% of women have witnessed harassment and online violence against other women. The advent of artificial intelligence poses additional challenges — with systems often reflecting gender biases and reinforcing harmful stereotypes.

“Digitalization is a two-sided coin. And that when the coin lands on the bad side, we see that we have digital tools and services that are overlaid on social, cultural, and economic inequalities, on gender stereotypes, and have an amplifying effect on these negative trends,” said Hélène Molinier, adviser for digital gender equality cooperation at UN Women and the thematic lead for the Action Coalition on Technology and Innovation.

Speaking with Devex, Molinier elaborated on current gaps and challenges, why the issue is so urgent, and the role of digital governance in addressing the situation.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Last year, CSW67 brought to our attention that progress toward gender equality in technology and innovation continues to be far too slow. How has the situation evolved, a year on?

Last year was the first time gender equality in technology and innovation was brought to CSW. It helped us better prepare for this year, which finds the world at a crossroads. For example, 2024 is an election year for half of the world. CSW helped us put the spotlight on the unprecedented wave of gendered disinformation and sexist hate speech, and how that is going to impact elections, women voters, and women candidates. Hopefully, CSW has helped mobilize stakeholders to fight this wave and prevent it from disrupting democratic processes and women’s participation.

Another important thing that we see this year is the discussions about AI. It took Instagram years to reach 100 million users, while it took ChatGPT two months. With generative AI, we have emerging technology that is released faster than at any point in history. It is creating one of the most challenging technological shifts of the century. If we don't learn from past years or from CSW recommendations, then the bad side of the coin for AI will bring bias and harmful use at an exponential rate for women and girls.

What are the main barriers that prevent women and girls from accessing and utilizing digital tools effectively?

First, it's important not just to see women and girls as users of technology. Women are rarely viewed and empowered as creators of technology, promoters, and decision-makers in that field, which limits their ability to create technology that responds to the needs and priorities of women and girls. That's how we ended up with technology that is less used by women — it’s not relevant to their needs.

One assumption is that the use of digital tools will increase for everyone with universal internet access. But what we see is that 76% of the population living in least developed countries are covered by mobile broadband signal, but only 25% are online. And out of those 25%, men are 52% more likely to be online than women. So, infrastructure alone is not sufficient to reach meaningful access for women. Other critical factors are affordability, digital literacy, privacy, safety, content, relevance, ownership, awareness about tools, agency, or even access to electricity.

Gender social norms also influence whether and how women and girls can use digital tools and services, for reasons such as obstacles limiting girls’ education. There is not a singular, universal type of gender digital divide but a confluence of context-dependent factors. This needs to be taken into account when trying to remove barriers.

You mentioned that AI systems might bring gender-based biases. What measures can be taken to mitigate these and ensure AI promotes equality?

Gender-biased technology affects individuals but also contributes to setbacks in gender equality and women’s empowerment at large. At CSW, we referenced a study that was done around 133 AI systems across industries, and what we found is that about 44% of them demonstrated gender bias, and 25% exhibited both gender and racial bias.

It is very hard to unbias an AI system that is already out there, and that's why the discussion on governance is so important. Right now, there is no mechanism to constrain developers from releasing AI systems before they are ready and safe.

There’s a need for a global multistakeholder governance model that prevents and redresses when AI systems exhibit gender or racial bias or reinforce harmful stereotypes. But we also want the governance discussion to be on how we reshape the AI ecosystem because there are also broader considerations, such as the disruption of industries and labor markets, the propensity for emerging technology to be used as a tool of oppression, the sustainability of the AI supply chain, or the impact of AI on future generations.

We also want to call for building a more multidisciplinary approach to the field of AI and to develop technology in general so that it’s not only made by engineers and IT specialists. We also have to involve people with social science backgrounds at the table, as well as civil society organizations. Because of the impact of AI, we need to have everyone at the table.

What are the current gaps in digital governance when it comes to addressing the current situation, and where do we need action?  

The first gap is the lack of reference to gender equality, women’s rights, and women’s empowerment. Half of the world's digital strategies fail to include a gender perspective. And even when they do, it's with various degrees of thoroughness and analysis. And so it calls on the lack of political prioritization of this topic, but it also shows why we have a digital gender divide because if we don't put people, inclusion, equity, and equality at the center of the digital policies then it's no surprise that we are in the situation that we are in.

We need commitment to include gender equality into digital governance discussions and focus on addressing the root causes, not just talk about the consequences that we see around digital divides.

A lot of focus is on actions to redress harm. But we also need to focus on prevention, and we need to use governance discussions to look at questions of power and inequality. Because in the current AI architecture, for example, we have power concentrated in the hands of a few corporations, a few states, and a few individuals. If we don't address this power concentration, we will continue having tools and systems that are being developed that are discriminatory, and don't reflect more than half of the world's population.

You have recently authored UN Women’s Global Digital Compact position paper “Placing Gender Equality at the Heart of the Global Digital Compact.” What are the key recommendations?

The main one is that we need to prioritize gender perspective in digital cooperation. Not just because it's going to be beneficial for women and girls, but because it would set countries on a path for a more inclusive future for everyone.

We recommend two approaches across all parts of GDC. One is the inclusion of a standalone goal on gender equality that elevates three topics that we feel need to be prioritized across every dimension of the GDC: making sure that we have freedom from technology-facilitated gender-based violence and discrimination; that we have equitable educational and economic opportunities; and that there is equal voice, leadership, and participation.

The second approach is the robust mainstreaming of gender considerations across all parts of the framework. This is building on the 2030 Agenda, where member states chose to mainstream gender perspectives across all the SDGs, but also decided to have SDG 5 as a stand-alone focus on gender equality.

Other recommendations of the paper include building bridges between tech and gender experts, increasing women’s participation and leadership in tech, and developing tech within a regulatory framework that prioritizes, protects, and promotes human rights by default.

What’s your call to action for the global development community when it comes to addressing the digital gender divide?

We cannot let the hard work and progress of these last decades on gender equality be taken away by biased technology, or by digital tools that will not be accessible to the most marginalized and make us fail our pledge to leave no one behind. I think that CSW67 showed that global consensus exists to join forces and take ambitious action to bridge the gender digital divide. What we need now is political engagement at the highest level, so that these recommendations will be included in every digital governance discussion, including the GDC negotiation, and reflected in national policies.  

Visit Ctrl Shift Equality — a series produced by Devex in partnership with UN Women and the Generation Equality Action Coalitions on Technology and Innovation for Gender Equality, and Gender-Based Violence.

To learn more about the multi-stakeholder commitments made to the Generation Equality Action Coalitions, click here.