This Thursday, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) will celebrate International Girls in ICT Day, which takes place annually during the last week of April, with a focus on access and security as key elements to engage the next generation with information technology and the communication. (TIC). This year’s theme reflects the world’s shared interest in empowering young men and girls to safely benefit from an active digital life.
For this reason, from Mexico, several organizations and communities will carry out this Thursday, April 28, the event Girls in ICT (Information and Communication Technologies, for its acronym in English) – Mexico: Internet access and security. This will take place in the Franz Mayer Museum in face-to-face mode, from 3:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Regarding this program that will bring together a large group of women who work in the area, El Economista was able to talk with two of the members of this team, to reflect on the subject and give more details towards the event.
An inequitable world in ICT
In the world for many years we have practically 50% men and 50% women, but that is not reflected under any circumstances in the professions that involve a university career, even at upper secondary levels, says Candy Flores-Gracia, City manager of iron hack
She explains that as we advance in school age, the dropout of women is greater due to several factors. “From a very young age, women must have household activities, they have to walk certain distances and it is not the same to have to walk in the dark if you are on an evening shift, this causes many to drop out. If we add to that the fact that the girls who manage to overcome all these barriers have to continue doing activities associated with gender roles and then do their homework, the wear and tear is impressive”.
Flores-Gracia is forceful, for a woman, the most natural thing until now is to desert. “From the outset, we girls are being relegated and we are not competing fairly with people who are of a different gender from us.”
He said that a next barrier comes when choosing a career, “for hard sciences, for example, one faces experiences such as not being able to dress as one wants because it does not ‘distract’ one’s classmates, being constantly questioned as to why a place there, in short, all the time there are sexist and misogynistic comments. This becomes very complicated.” But what happens if spaces really begin to be created where women can feel safe on these issues?
The specialist assures that we have to teach the girls that “we are a lot, we are super cool and we could be mentors. Until recently we had not understood the need for spaces where women share information and inspire many more girls, teach them that they are not alone under any circumstances, that has changed”.
be inspirational
Emelyn Medina, director of Metaverse Land and coordinator of Girls in ICT Mexico for the ICUexplains that the idea is to be able to formally replicate what the International Telecommunications Union said in 2010, when they noted that the contributions we have as women in matters of science and technology are very innovative, but the struggle of having to show that we can.
“Of the 100% of people who are dedicated to science, technology and innovation, only 12% are women and this 12% is making a greater contribution than the rest in comparison, we have the nature to create, to give life to our projects”.
She said that if we don’t create these types of forums where we can encourage people to start getting involved and supporting each other from a very young age, we won’t be able to eliminate the gender gap. Interestingly today according to the figures, there are more women with Internet access in Mexicobut that does not imply that we use it optimally, the vast majority of content on the web is designed for men and that causes a lack of motivation around all these topics.
He assures that it is not about being against men but about being able to identify that we are part of a system that seeks to team up. “See ourselves as a complementary process and dignify the existence of human beings on the planet.”
event details
The participants explained that it is a great panel to discuss what happens when harassment occurs online, or when inappropriate content is sent? Perhaps as adults, in the best of cases, we can put a stop, but when we don’t have that training or the tools to be able to put a stop, we are at imminent risk.
With the acceleration of digitization, many people began to use the Internet in other ways that they had not explored, some took over the screens, but an environment that should be mine became shared and not always for the agreed purposes.
For this reason, this group of professionals wants to formulate collective responses, “to stop being digitally illiterate, to address issues such as equal access, accessibility, work and school environments and online security, being the core of the project”, Medina points out.
For her part, Flores-Gracia concludes that there are many women working on these issues, but they are not yet fully articulated, “precisely these types of spaces are what we still need to understand the needs, each community from its trench has understood such as attacking certain problems and attending to a specific sector, now we have to know how together we can push for this to change in the short term and constantly”.
Girls in ICT
- Thursday, April 28, 2022
- 3:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
- Franz Mayer Museum, Mexico City
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