IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Fall 2013 - 54

"Multiple Pathways" to
Transform Gender Relations
Electricity and Network
Technologies
Multiple pathways to address gender
equity through energy have been
identified. Jacobsen assesses four
network technologies - water, electricity, Internet and other telecenter
services, and mobile phones. She
concludes that electricity is "more
promising" as it substitutes for
physical labor and complements a
wide range of productive activities.
Internet services, while minimally
utilized by women in low-income

their roles" [22, p. 948]. According to Skutsch there needs to be a
clearer definition of gender goals.
She identifies three main elements:
improvement of women's welfare,
increasing women's economic productivity, and women's empowerment. The goal of improving
women's welfare can be achieved
"without fundamentally changing
their role or the balance of responsibilities in the family." Similarly,
the goal of increasing women's economic productivity is also "in most
cases an extension, and improvement, or upscaling of an existing situation, rather than a radical

The importance of making use
of women's traditional knowledge
was evident.
countries, significantly reduce transaction costs on information flows.
Mobile phones, however, reduce the
physical labor of travel (to access
information, for example), reduce
the costs of money transfers, and
increase the ability of women entrepreneurs to coordinate their family
work and their working lives. Given
their relatively low cost and multiple uses, mobile phones are widely
used in many poor rural communities in Asia. But significantly,
Jacobsen concludes, the question of
how changes in gender equity can
be credited to any one or any set
of technologies "may be ultimately
unanswerable given the holistic
nature of transformation" [21, p. 31].
Beyond Traditional Roles
towards Women's Empowerment
Skutsch points out that because
access to energy services is primarily a welfare function, it does not
challenge systemic gender inequity,
nor does ittransform gender relations. "A welfare approach aims
to lighten women's daily problems, but not structurally to change
54

change in women's position." The
goal of women's "empowerment,"
however, presupposes a transformation in gender roles and relations
to enable women "to break through
tradition if they wish to, and to take
on new roles and challenges," and
may not always be a realistic goal
in energy as they are rarely the
"steering objectives or outcomes"
of energy projects, according to
Skutsch [23, pp. 39-40].
Clancy concurs with Skutsch
and examines the evidence supporting whether or not there are
changes in gender relations and
finds that the evidence is mixed.
While in Sri Lanka, men were
found to share household work
such as ironing after household
electrification; in Bangladesh no
changes in the gender division of
labor were found. Therefore the
"[a]ccess to modern energy appears
to enable women to fulfill their traditional roles (to their satisfaction
and wellbeing) rather than bringing
significant transformation in gender roles" [24, p. 21]. Clancy concludes that "energy access alone is

not sufficient, and other contextual
factors such as legal and policy
frameworks are needed to support
such a change" [24, p. 21].
Increasing the "Economic
Worth" of Women's Labor
While these multiple pathways
are interdependent and overlap, it
is worth asking if some pathways
are more conducive to enabling
the transformation of gender relations. Kelkar and Nathan propose
that a key factor to promote the
rural fuel transition in Asia, "is to
increase the productivity of women's income-earning labor in order
to bring about an economic worth
in the use of women's labor and
thus induce a change in the household energy use system" [25, p. 25].
They use research conducted in
China and other parts of rural
Asia, which found that when there
were opportunities for women to
significantly participate in incomeearning activities, this was a strong
incentive to economize on women's
unpaid labor time in fuel collection
and other household tasks.
In China the improved stoves
program has been most successful
in villages where women have significantly participated in incomeearning activities in industry and
the commercial production of livestock and vegetables. The drive
to economize on women's labor
in fuel collection and housework
resulted in a high adoption rate of
improved stoves. Similarly studies
on microcredit in Bangladesh have
found that women are more likely
to assert their role in household
decision making, with increases in
their economic activity and income.
Causality
However, the causality can also
work both ways. When women have
a higher economic and social status,
they can (and in many instances do)
exert greater influence on public
policy and expenditures, including
related to access to (energy) services, and energy use. For example,

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

FALL 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Fall 2013