Demos recently partnered with Plan UK at an event to mark the launch their new report Because I am a Girl: Digital and Urban Frontiers. The report analyses two trends subject to explosive growth in recent years; new technologies and urbanisation - both of which are both shaping the lives of young women in developing countries to a profound extent.  But the event also exposed a surprising number of parallels with the UK context.

Each month, five million people move to the cities of the developing world, and it is estimated that by 2030 approximately 1.5 billion girls will live in cities. It is in these cities that women will have the best chance of accessing technology, but they still lag far behind men in terms of the opportunities they are given to do so.

The everyday reality of this ‘gender IT gap’ was reinforced by young women participating in Thursday’s event via a video link-up in Nairobi. They explained that they simply weren’t allowed the same access to technology as the boys at their school; devices such as mobile phones were seen the preserve of young men not young women.

This is a problem not simply because girls won’t have the chance to develop the skills they need to be confident users in the future, but also because digital participation is an increasingly vital dimension of citizenship. Technology is now integral to the things we are most occupied with in our teenage years; learning, socializing and making the transition to employment. Technology is also offering an important platform for young women to be agents of social change.

In previous Demos research we have profiled young women in Europe and UK who were using digital tools such as online videos to solve social problems, tell their stories, challenge formal politics and contribute to popular culture.

While the opportunities to do this are in far more plentiful supply in the UK than in the developing world, we should beware complacency when it comes to girls and technology. In this country, girls continue to lag behind boys in many areas of IT when it comes to access, usage and confidence.  In her new book Delusions of Gender, Cordelia Fine draws on an extensive body of evidence to show how gender stereotypes about ‘innate aptitude’ can shape female interest and confidence in a supposedly male domain. This is particularly the case in fields like technology and computer science. Implicit messaging about where girls ‘belong’ all too often determine whether they are allowed participate.

For that reason we need to start subverting expectations and modelling counter-cultural ways of girls using ICT at home and internationally. For young women in developing countries this will also help pave the way towards their economic inclusion and full participation in public life.

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