WINTER 2000
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IN PRINT
Getting Women Online: Experience
The Internet is so much a part of my daily life that I sometimes forget for a while that I’m an exception. I’ve been working with computers since I was around 13 (early eighties), and I’ve been online since 1993. I met my partner through the Internet and then emigrated from Canada to The Netherlands. Ninety-five percent of my work is done through the Net. Probably 80% of my contact with family, friends, and colleagues is done through the Net. I get up in the morning, walk the dogs, make coffee, and sit at the computer. The Internet provides me with an income, a means of communicating with my family and friends back in Canada, a research tool for my various projects, and of course, entertainment, in the form of the many computer games I’ve downloaded and updated. :-) So it’s sometimes difficult for me to remember that there are actually people right in my own neighbourhood who’ve never sent an e-mail, or whose eyes glaze over when someone (potentially even me!) tries to explain the various sections of a URL. :-)
This "forgetfulness" or lack of focused awareness on my part is very important. It’s important because it’s something not unique to me. It’s something any experienced Internetters and computer-literate people have to work through when we start talking about increasing Internet access, getting more women online, training and teaching. We have to be very careful about our assumptions when we’re thinking about how and why women want and need to get online, as well as what specific kind of training they want and need.
I have a great deal of small group and one-on-one experience in teaching people, primarily women, how to use computers and the Internet. I’ve worked with Women’space for, gosh, I don’t know how long now, and I’ve worked with the United Nations Platform for Action Committee, Manitoba and Women’s Studies, University of Manitoba doing a few training workshops. I’ve worked with a few small businesses and organisations with mostly female staff. So when I do get past my forgetfulness to remember that the knowledge I have isn’t a natural given (like breathing), the work I do involves getting right down to basics. And THAT, may I respectfully suggest, is what we all need to be doing.
What really interests me here are the details of implementation, the content of workshops, the logistics of training. Women who want Internet access are definitely not a uniform group, and their motives and needs range wildly. I’ve taught women who’d never used a mouse before, and I’ve spoken with women whose knowledge was greater than mine, but who just wanted to know where they could get the equipment cheap. Some women want Internet access so they can do research, some want to network with other women and organisations, some just want a cheaper way to talk to their friends on the other side of the country or the world. All of these needs demand a different kind of teaching process, with a different goal in mind. Part of what I do when I’m teaching is try to give women the tools and skills which will enable them to go on and teach themselves. Part of what I do is simply give women the confidence they need to explore, to experiment, to figure out what they want and then to go get it.
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Let me tell you about a public service announcement which has been airing on TV here lately (I just love the PSAs in this country! There’s also a really good one about dog ownership, but I suspect that’s not relevant here :-) ). A young woman is interviewing a woman of about 65 years or so.
Woman with Watch: (examines her watch, touches it, looks puzzled) No, not really, I just know that it works.
Woman with Watch: (glances at her watch and speaks confidently) Two-thirty.
Interviewer: And you trust your watch?
Woman with Watch: Yes
Interviewer: Even though you don’t know how it works?
Woman with Watch: Yes, of course.
Interviewer: (turning to camera) That’s what the Internet is like. You don’t always have to know how everything works.
It loses something in the translation. :-) But I think that the message is very important for those of us who want to help more women to get online. Stick to the basics. To use a watch, you just have to know how to wind it (or replace the battery) and how to read the time. Using the Internet requires a few more basics, of course, but that’s what they are: basics. If you can use e-mail, use a browser, and have some confidence in your ability to learn, you can teach yourself the rest of the Internet. Those are the basic skills that women need to use their Internet access.
Getting that access, on the other hand, is trickier. A few months ago, I read an article about an Internet survey which said that some huge amount of women have access to the Internet. Unfortunately, the article said, the numbers were inflated by the methodology. Women who lived in a house where a computer and modem were present were said to have Internet access. Women who lived within a certain number of blocks from a library with a public access terminal were said to have Internet access. Um, guys? I don’t think so. Nope.
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Here’s what access for women is not:
- It is not living in a house with a computer and modem when your husband/partner/son/father is always using the computer.
- It is not living one block from a public access terminal when you have no idea that terminal exists. Or how to use it. Or access to someone who’ll teach you.
- It is not being a female student at a school or university with free access where the computer lab is run by guys who’d rather play Carmageddon or hit on you than teach you the very simplest thing about how to use e-mail.
- It is not having enough money to sit in an Internet cafe and then desperately try to shield your screen from the crowds of people while you try to find the address of a women’s shelter, or information on herpes.
- It is not going to your local library to do research on a public access terminal, just to find that the one or two terminals are pretty much permanently occupied by people downloading games or checking out porn sites.
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Here’s what access for women must include:
- Privacy
- Respectful and patient teachers preferably women teachers
- A clear grasp of the basics of using the Internet
- Time and confidence and freedom to explore and experiment
- A clear understanding of what the Internet can provide
A big problem still is that there’s such a big Internet mystique. It’s amazing how many women really believe that to access the Internet, they have to have a cable modem, the latest Pentium, a degree in computer science, and divine powers of concentration and mathematical abilities. Or they think that there’s really no point on getting Internet access because the Internet is just a conglomeration of advertising, porn, pedophiles, and con artists. Where do we learn this? Oh, well, media, for sure, and the Big Boys, and anyone who is invested in trying to recapture the old status quo (men on top).
But we know better, right? :-) Yeah, you’ve got the harassers, and the weirdos, and the hard-core porn, and the KKK but not in any greater measure than you’d find at your local bar. They’re all problems we have to address, just as we’re addressing them in the actual world. Any negatives found online are also found in our very own neighbourhoods. If women have the confidence to walk down the the grocery store, they have the confidence they need to get online. It’s just a matter of figuring out what you want from the Internet, which of your needs the Internet can meet.
And that brings me to my next point. Why are we so determined to get women online? Are we just doing it for ourselves, because we feel lonely out there? (And I sure don’t know why we’d feel lonely, since there are so many women online who are doing so many amazing things!) Or are we actually looking at each woman, at each women’s organisation, as a separate individual or entity with her or its own needs and requirements? Because I’ll tell ya, coffee machines and fax machines are really great inventions, but not everyone needs to send faxes, and not everyone drinks coffee.
I worked my butt off to get two non-profit organisations online. Some of their reasons were similar, and some were very different. They were both swayed by the idea of e-mail, since it really, truly cuts down on long-distance calls. But one organisation wanted to use the Internet to cement existing alliances and create new ones, while the other wanted to make information available to its clients, and provide a resource. Those are two very different approaches, requiring different teaching methods on my part.
Are we, as women online who want to get more women online, prepared to look at the differences between women, organisations, and communities? Are we prepared to tailor our approach every time we meet with someone new? Are we strong enough and courageous enough to say to the funders: "We want this money, but we can’t give you a cut-and-dried proposal because that’s not going to be helpful to the women we’re trying to reach"? Are the funders smart enough and brave enough to answer: "We trust your judgment. Take this money, let us know what you do with it, and do your work in the way most suited to the people you’re helping"?
I hope so. I hope we can use our creativity and compassion and good judgment and energy to help women get online and show them how to teach themselves to go further.
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