Why India and UK?

The Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) takes into account the female share of parliamentary representation; proportions of legislators, senior officials, managers, professional and technical employees who are women; and the ratio of female to male earnings. It is generally assumed or implied that greater empowerment of women would reduce gender segregation. The Table 1 (GEM measure for UK and India) below shows the GEM for India and UK, highlights the breakdown of the components that make the GEM, i. e., the percentage of seats held by the parliament, per­centage of female legislators, senior officials, and managers, the percentage of female professional and technical workers, the ratio of estimated fe­male to male earned income. This data is derived from the UNDP report, 2009, however, we must mention that the GEM for India was not available on the UNDP report. This was only available from the report developed by the Ministry of women and child development, Government of India, 2009. The GEM scores measured by UNDP HDR 1998, were very low, and this is the reason why the Govt of India calculated the GEM using the indicators as given in the Table 2 (GEM scores for India, 1996, and 2006.)

UK is already higher in the ranks with regards to the GEM score and India is not, but India’s annual GDP growth (ranging from 5-7%) has been very promising. This clearly means British women are more empowered than Indian women. As it is evident in the case of Sweden and Japan, a higher empowerment does not necessarily relate to less segregation. The aim of our research is to find out whether Britain’s ICT sector is more gendered than India’s and whether this leads to more segregation in ICT relatedjobs. The variables that are used in the research are education, recruit­ment practices, salary, work-life balance, employ­ment practices, changing gender relations, op­portunities for progression, retention rates.

The Table 2 below shows the GEM scores for India, 2006 and 1996. It is interesting to note that the scores are highest for PI at 0.573 and lowest for PoERI at 0.231 in 1996. The increase has been smallest for PI from 0.573 in 1996 to.625 in 2006 and the largest for EI from 0.443 in 1996 to 0.546 in 2006.

Women’s Contribution to Science, Engineering and Technology: Historical Analysis

Women’s theoretical engagement with western sci­ence has been philosophically varied ranging from

gnosticism and alchemy through to Cartesianism and Newtonian theory.(Rowbotham,1995) If we look at the literature of women who contributed to the development of science and technology, it is not surprising that women have been obliterated from history; Sheila Rowbotham showed a new direction in the analysis of female approaches to technology.

“Rather than viewing history in terms of an undif­ferentiated structure of patriarchy, it is possible to see women emerging intellectually in some periods and forced into retreat in others” (Rowbotham 2006, pp 36)

Women’s contribution to science existed since 3000 BC. Women doctors were found in Egypt as early as 3000 BC and ancient babylonian women perfumers developed chemical techniques which were used amongst alchemists in Alexandria as early as the first century AD (Margaret Alic, 1986). Traditionally women played a key role in
food gathering, collecting fuel, finding nutrition for crops and animals, organic recycling, collec­tion fodder, producing, processing, marketing and preparing food along with performing other household duties. They had the ability to spot healthy plants and preserve their seeds for sow­ing for the next year. Alic mentioned the story of the Arab slave girl, called Tawaddud, whose intelligence and knowledge ‘outwitted the read­ers of the Koran, doctors of law, and medicine, scientists, and philosophers…’ (ibid) It has also been seen that in the Byzantine Empire, a succes­sion of women rulers were scientists.

“In China women engineers and Taoists ad­epts pushed science and technology forward at a steady rate… Women studied at the medical school in Baghdad and female alchemists followed the teachings of Maria the Jewess. If Moslem women scholars are not recorded in the historical text, their existence is at least testified to by stories from the Arabian Nights.” (M. Alic 1996, pp 47)

As Rowbotham points out historically, class has been a very important factor which enabled women to enter the world of science. The Byzan­tine Emperor Alexius’s daughter, Anna Comnena wrote a book called ‘TheAlexiad’ which contained detailed description of military technology and weapons. Also elsewhere in Japan, Empress Shotuku-Tenno produced the earliest printed docu­ments in any country (George Sharton, 1927). In the 11-12 century, Trotula of Salerno worked as a female physician and had several writings on women’s health, e. g. diseases of women, treat­ments for women (many of these were of Muslim origin), and women’s cosmetics. These texts were a major source of information on women’s health in medieval Europe. Secondly the crafts skills which the women possessed were also considered to be an important factor for women’s entry into this field. Textile crafts where women in many cultures spun silk, wool and linen were originally female trades and were closely related to domestic and household duties. Huang Tao P’o, well known as the ‘inventor of loom’ from China was the textile technologist who brought the knowledge of cotton growing, spinning and weaving from Hainan to the Yangtze (ibid). Thirdly, family connections were equally important in women’s contribution and entry into science. Hypatia ofAlexandria (AD 370) was the daughter of the well known astronomer and, mathematician, Theon. She designed a plane astrolabe for measuring the positions ofthe planets and the sun to calculate the time and zodiac sign.

There is also evidence that the famous math­ematician, Pythagoras of Samos, c.582-500 B. C formed a community of teachers and students. It was one of the teachers, Theano, who married Pythagoras (when he was old) was a renowned healer who believed that the ‘human body in microcosm reflected the macro universe.’ (ibid)

Nevertheless, women’s entry and contribution to science has a long history. However, as Swasti Mitter pointed out, “The technological innovations become commer­cially successful if and when the creator of the innovation could make use of political, economic and legal networks. Thus the dominant group in a society determines the shape and direction of a society’s techno-economic order — and the image of an inventor has almost always been male.” (Mitter, 1995, pp 4)