De-myth-tifying the gender digital divide in Latin America: libraries as intermediaries in bridging the gap

Abstract

For decades, the gender digital divide has been observed as a concept and a construct throughout countries all over the world. It persists with particular belligerence in areas like Latin America, where myths surrounding its existence have perpetuated disparities in men’s and women’s access to and use of the internet and information and communications technologies (ICTs). In this paper, the author reveals that in order for the gender digital divide to be rectified, it must first be ‘de-myth-tified’, and claims about the divide as nonexistent, unimportant, or due to women’s inherent technophobia systematically discredited. It is then argued that, by exposing the true nature of the divide, spaces are created for libraries to take on a new role in Latin America, as advocates for gender equality in technology and information. Possibilities for improving policy, education, and innovation are explored, with a call for further research in the field. Second Place DJIM Best Article Award.

Gender Digital Divide and Education in Latin America: A Literature Review

“…Today, less than 50% of the population of the so-called Global South nations do not have internet access, compared with 90% in the most advanced regions or countries from the Global North [31], p. 2. Within the first-mentioned group of countries, Latin America represents the region that has advanced the most, since great efforts were made to provide internet access during the 2000s [9]. However, these macro data do not correspond with the reality of Latin American households that barely have access to broadband [31].…”

“…Moreover, it is considered one of the most unequal regions in the world, so the digital divide is accentuated by the pre-existing inequalities in the region itself. The authors of [9] highlight that the fact that the region is considered to have made notable progress in accessibility is one of the reasons why not enough studies have been carried out in the region on the digital divide. Other authors add that the digital divide measurement model has been designed from the countries of the global North and that it is necessary to build a concept from the realities of the countries or regions of the Global South [10].…”

“…Bull [9] Existing inequalities or gender gaps and stereotypes mark less access and use of ICTs in terms of gender due to the patriarchal model of society.…”

“…In all these studies, either the focus or the gender bias appears, since they are located in the second generation of analysis; that is to say, from the second-order digital divide or from the perspectives of inclusion and the threedimensional division of the digital divide [20,21] that integrate the gender component as a sociodemographic element or dependent variable. Other investigations have directly addressed the issue of the digital gender gap from the perspective of second-generation studies on the digital gap [6,8,9,21,33,34,36,52]. Lastly, it is worth mentioning that other studies can be placed within a poststructuralist and critical approach that invites reflection on the masculine within the sciences of the computing and cybernetics, as well as how to rethink and demystify the concept of the digital gender gap [9,33,51].…”

“…The promotion of research on digital gender exclusion is a strong workspace in Spain, the UK, Canada and the US, but in Latin America the production is scarce, little cited and disjointed, as well as the global articulation of groups of discussion around the subject [6,7]. In fact, one of the findings in the research made at Universidade Estadual Paulista, which included the most cited literature in English, Spanish and Portuguese in the domain of the digital divide, was that Latin America does not research on the problems of digital divide related to gender and it highlights that the fact that the region is considered to have made notable progress in accessibility is one of the reasons why not enough studies have been carried out in the region on the digital divide [8,9]. Other author adds that the digital divide measurement model has been designed from the countries of the global North and that it is necessary to build a concept from the realities of the countries or regions of the Global South [10].…”