How is technology fighting for women?

Governments and entrepreneurs are constantly working and using technology to empower women. There are many apps like Bandhan Tod, SHEROES and Sister that help along with websites like WorkGenius. Ashish Mittal, Founder Director, Yugasa Software Labs Pvt Ltd, explains...

From the time where females were considered nothing but a man’s property to the modern times where most of humanity is fighting to give them the righteous respect and freedom they deserve, we have come a long way. In modern times, however, this fight has taken a new form. With the massive outbreak in the development and improvement of the technology sector, we now have a whole new and effective way of expressing our opinions and providing help.

Among all other problems the world faces, one of the most common ones is problems faced by women. Many women, young and small, face a number of problems on a daily basis. These injustices are based on the various stereotypical mentalities that have been around for decades, and in some cases, centuries.

This article is a cruel highlight of some of the major problems women are facing and how technology is helping in fixing them. It will be a clear showcase of how much technology can change the way we do things, and how much it matters.

We will start by stating the problems and then how we are using technology to try and fix them.

The problems women are facing:

1. Forced and Early marriages

2. Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault

3. Poor Period practices

4. The Wage Gap and Gender Inequality

1. Forced and Early Marriages

Marriage is considered holy in almost every culture. It is a beautiful moment where two people, regardless of their gender, bow to be together and love, care and respect each other. It is truly something beautiful.

That is until you look at the horrors it can produce.

There are several cases where women are forced to marry someone they don’t want to marry. In certain cases, they might not even know about the person. Furthermore, many of these marriages happen when girls are young. They are forced to live and serve men twice and thrice their age.

A quote from the United Nations states, “Globally, around 2017, an estimated 21 percent of women between 20 and 24 years of age reported that they were married or in an informal union before age 18”.

In eastern states like Bihar, nearly two-thirds of girls in some of its rural areas are married before the legal age of 18.

Bandhan Tod 2.0: In 2017, a Mobile app named Bandhan Tod was launched by Gender Alliance- a collective group of more than 270 charities in Bihar mainly focused on gender rights. It was backed by the United Nations Population Fund.

Bandhan Tod is a Hindi phrase for "break the binds", the app includes classes on child marriage and dowries. It has an SOS button, which when activated sends an alert to partners in every district. The latest release of the app not only caters to cases of child marriage and domestic violence but also feature 'Chuppi Tod', a feature meant for airing the grievances related to sexual harassment.

The app wants to give girls and women in rural areas, "a voice, a platform to take out their anger and frustration" when they feel helpless. The 'Chuppi Tod' tab has three components, a user can use the public forum to discuss an issue; can message privately after which a counselor will get back to her and help solve her problem; or raise SOS, which sends alert to the team. The app helped many girls including a 13-year-old schoolgirl in Darbhanga district of Bihar from becoming a victim of child marriage after she raised an SOS alert.

The app is only available in Hindi and can be downloaded by any user regardless of the area (rural/urban) making the app expect more outreach.

2. Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault

Members within a family are supposed to be living happily. But, in India, male members are often treated as more dominating in society. This thinking many-a-times results in Domestic violence, it is violence suffered by a woman by male members of her family or relatives.

Women are also facing many horrors of the society including Sexual Violence, Eve teasing, Sexual assault, and rape.

To help women cope with these crimes, technology entrepreneurs and Govt have constantly been working and trying to making them capable to move around with confidence.

SHEROES: SHEROES is an app exclusively for Indian women. It is a social networking and personal app dedicated to women. The app can be used to share interests through videos and posts just like a normal social media application. The specialty about the app is, it has a dedicated free women helpline which can be used to get free health advice, legal, or relationship advice. SHEROES have expert counselors on boyfriend, husband, or other family issues. Their conversation is completely confidential and free of cost.

The app has communities like Health, Career and Education, Beauty, and Parenting and BabyCare. The user can follow her interest and get tips about anything related to the topic.

Sister: Safety app for women—Sister is a personal safety app for women living anywhere in the world. The app uses real-time location to prevent potential threats and respond in case of an emergency.

The user can choose some trusted contacts, such as friends or family members, and can share live location whenever they walk home at night or when they feel unsafe. The user's location will be shared through the app, by WhatsApp or SMS.

As soon you will arrive safely to the destination you can stop sharing your location and notify your trusted contacts by entering your safety PIN, which means no one other than you can turn this feature off.

The app provides a special feature of a deterrent alarm that will sound if you don't confirm your arrival as you estimated. The app features a danger button when pressed will send your real-time location to your trusted contacts and notify the emergency services about your situation. Danger button can be activated in many ways including long-pressing the volume up key.

3. Poor Period Practices

Growing is a part of nature and we must praise that. As we grow older we see many changes happening to our bodies.

But, Young girls in India are completely unprepared at the set of menarche. According to a study, around 84% of the adolescent girls interviewed said that they were taken by surprise when they got their first period. Also, Most of the women in rural areas are forced to use unhygienic menstrual practices.

However, some organizations are working to minimize the ignorance and superstition among young girls and trying to provide crucial information on menstruation.

There are many applications available online which helps in tracking periods, cycles, ovulation, and can be beneficial for maintaining hygienic menstrual practices.

Period Tracker—Period Calendar Ovulation Tracker: This Android and iOS mobile app is rated #1 in Health and Fitness in over 43 countries. It provides features to track ovulation and tell whether the user has irregular periods or regular periods.

The app is like a personal period diary and can also be used to record cervical mucus, BMI, sexual activity, weight, temperature, symptoms, or moods.

The app uses Google account data backup and restoration which means you will never lose your data.

4. The Wage Gap and Gender Inequality

While women account for nearly half of the population of Asia Pacific, we will be surprised to know that they only contribute 36 percent of GDP. However, work-from-home practices are not formally counted in GDP measures, which will be around 15% of the region's GDP. In rural India, where women are considered less capable in comparison to men, we can still see women working more than men in day-to-day work. On average, women spend 2.5 times more hours on unpaid care and domestic works than men.

Digital technologies can help overcome some of these challenges.

For example, the growth of the digital economy is creating opportunities for remote and flexible work. In many cases, women are even earning more by working online than men.

WorkGenius: It is a digital employment site that claims a 26% increase in women's salaries. These types of work opportunities can help women manage many responsibilities at home and work.

Sometimes, these interventions and disruptions increase the risk of a gendered division of labor and will also create double burden on women. Further, 'gig-work' offers few career progression and opportunities, beyond income.

However, according to a recent study by Open University in Partnership with IT trade association firm of India, NASSCOM, India tops the list in terms of women in Technology with a higher proportion of women in tech (35%), far higher than their female contemporaries in the UK (17%) and the US (20%).

According to NASSCOM, about 60% of Indian IT firms have 20%, women, at the C-Suite level. Companies reported a 4.5% higher proportion of women aged between 30 and 35 in C-Suite roles than men.

It is fascinating to see the progress India has made in empowering women in Technology, but the reality is that there is still a considerable amount of work to be done in this sector. The only question is, are we doing enough?