Gender, science and technology,
Report of the expert group
meeting organized by United Nations Division for the Advancement of
Women (DAW), part of UN Women
in cooperation with United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Paris, France,
28 September – 1 October 2010
International Women's Day (8 March) is an occasion marked by
women's groups around the world. This date is also commemorated
at the United Nations and is designated in many countries as a
national holiday. When women on all continents, often divided by
national boundaries and by ethnic, linguistic, cultural,
economic and political differences, come together to celebrate
their Day, they can look back to a tradition that represents at
least nine decades of struggle for equality, justice, peace and
development.
International Women's Day is the story of ordinary women as
makers of history; it is rooted in the centuries-old struggle of
women to participate in society on an equal footing with men. In
ancient Greece, Lysistrata initiated a sexual strike against men
in order to end war; during the French Revolution, Parisian
women calling for "liberty, equality, fraternity" marched on
Versailles to demand women's suffrage.
The idea of an International Women's Day first arose at the
turn of the century, which in the industrialized world was a
period of expansion and turbulence, booming population growth
and radical ideologies. Following is a brief chronology of the
most important events:
1909
In accordance with a declaration by the Socialist Party of
America, the first National Woman's Day was observed across the
United States on 28 February. Women continued to celebrate it on
the last Sunday of that month through 1913.
1910
The Socialist International, meeting in Copenhagen,
established a Women's Day, international in character, to honour
the movement for women's rights and to assist in achieving
universal suffrage for women. The proposal was greeted with
unanimous approval by the conference of over 100 women from 17
countries, which included the first three women elected to the
Finnish parliament. No fixed date was selected for the
observance.
1911
As a result of the decision taken at Copenhagen the previous
year, International Women's Day was marked for the first time
(19 March) in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, where
more than one million women and men attended rallies. In
addition to the right to vote and to hold public office, they
demanded the right to work, to vocational training and to an end
to discrimination on the job.
Less than a week later, on 25 March, the tragic Triangle Fire
in New York City took the lives of more than 140 working girls,
most of them Italian and Jewish immigrants. This event had a
significant impact on labour legislation in the United States,
and the working conditions leading up to the disaster were
invoked during subsequent observances of International Women's
Day.
1913-1914
As part of the peace movement brewing on the eve of World War
I, Russian women observed their first International Women's Day
on the last Sunday in February 1913. Elsewhere in Europe, on or
around 8 March of the following year, women held rallies either
to protest the war or to express solidarity with their sisters.
1917
With 2 million Russian soldiers dead in the war, Russian
women again chose the last Sunday in February to strike for
"bread and peace". Political leaders opposed the timing of the
strike, but the women went on anyway. The rest is history: Four
days later the Czar was forced to abdicate and the provisional
Government granted women the right to vote. That historic Sunday
fell on 23 February on the Julian calendar then in use in
Russia, but on 8 March on the Gregorian calendar in use
elsewhere.
Since those early years, International Women's Day has
assumed a new global dimension for women in developed and
developing countries alike. The growing international women's
movement, which has been strengthened by four global United
Nations women's conferences, has helped make the commemoration a
rallying point for coordinated efforts to demand women's rights
and participation in the political and economic process.
Increasingly, International Women's Day is a time to reflect on
progress made, to call for change and to celebrate acts of
courage and determination by ordinary women who have played an
extraordinary role in the history of women's rights.
The Role of the United Nations
Few causes promoted by the United Nations have generated more
intense and widespread support than the campaign to promote and
protect the equal rights of women. The Charter of the United
Nations, signed in San Francisco in 1945, was the first
international agreement to proclaim gender equality as a
fundamental human right. Since then, the Organization has helped
create a historic legacy of internationally agreed strategies,
standards, programmes and goals to advance the status of women
worldwide.
Over the years, United Nations action for the advancement of
women has taken four clear directions: promotion of legal
measures; mobilization of public opinion and international
action; training and research, including the compilation of
gender desegregated statistics; and direct assistance to
disadvantaged groups. Today a central organizing principle of
the work of the United Nations is that no enduring solution to
society's most threatening social, economic and political
problems can be found without the full participation, and the
full empowerment, of the world's women.
Capacity Building for e-Business: APEC Women’s e-Biz Training, 16-21 July
2007, Seoul, Korea
The WeBiz Training co-organized by ITU, the Women's e-Biz Training, the Asia
Pacific Women's Information Network Center (APWINC) and UN APCICT was held from
16 to 21 July 2007 in Seoul Korea. ITU also organized breakout sessions on
Empowering Home workers through ICTs, which produced, among others, country
reports and recommendations. Approximately 40 delegates (women entrepreneurs,
policy makers and regulators) from Asia Pacific countries participated in this
training whose objective was to support the build up of a women e-Business
network among women entrepreneurs and government policy makers. More information
on this can be found at
http://webiz.women.or.kr/
On the occasion of the International Women’s Day 2007, the
Gender Coordination Unit of the ILO International Training Centre is organising
a photo exhibition:
Broken bodies —
broken dreams: violence against women exposed through the courtesy of the UN
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Integrated Regional
Information Networks (OCHA/IRIN).
The photo exhibition is part of OCHA/IRIN’s ongoing campaign to
highlight the issues of violence against women through film, text and
photography. It has already been displayed in three international locations: New
York, Geneva and Nairobi.
The exhibition will be held at the campus of the International
Training Centre of the ILO, Turin (Italy) in Pavillion U-Thant from 7th to 18th
March 2007. The display area will include two short loop films:
Razor's Edge - the controversy of female genital
mutilation
Our bodies... Their battleground - Gender-based
violence during conflict.
The 20 photos and relative caption boards which compose the
exhibition offer a powerful testimony of the different types of gender-based
violence experienced by women and girls worldwide. Violence against women is a
pandemic, one that transcends the bounds of geography, race, culture, class and
religion. It touches virtually every community, in virtually every corner of the
globe. Too often sanctified by custom and reinforced by institutions, it thrives
on widespread impunity for perpetrators in what remains a patriarchal world that
is reluctant to grant women equal rights and protection from gender-based
violence.
The Gender Coordination Unit is grateful to OCHA/IRIN for
providing this opportunity. Special thanks to Karin Heisecke, Antonia Estrada,
Christopher Horwood for their availability.
Capacity Building for e-Business: APEC Women’s e-Biz
Training, 3-8 July 2006, Seoul, Korea
The APEC Women’s e-Biz Training 2006 was successfully held on 3-8 July 2006
in Seoul, Republic of Korea with more than 60 delegates (entrepreneurs, ICT
service providers, academe, and policy makers) from 20 countries participating.
ITU provided full fellowships to Bangladesh, Bhutan, Indonesia, Mongolia, Samoa
and Vietnam.
This workshop is a joint collaboration among ITU, UNESCAP, ADBI and APWINC.
The design of the workshop is a result of consultations among these four
co-organizers, facilitated by APWINC. As such, the training workshop considered
the entrepreneurial, gender, socio-economic and ICT (access, security,
e-applications, etc) aspects of e-Business.
The workshop produced a set of recommendations described in the attached
document.
Capacity Building for e-Business: APEC Women’s e-Biz Training, 24-30 July
2005, Seoul, Korea
BDT’s Asia Pacific Regional Office and the Special Initiative on Gender
Issues collaborated to support the APEC Women's e-Biz Training which was held on
24-30 July 2005 in Seoul, Korea. ITU supported the participation of
representatives from the Department of Information & Media, Ministry of
Information & Communications in Bhutan, the Directorate General of Posts and
Telecommunications, Department of Communication and Information, Directorate of
Bilateral Affairs, Directorate of International Affairs in Indonesia, the
Ministry of Communications, Transport Posts and Construction, Department of
Posts and Telecommunications in Laos, the Information and Communications
Technology Authority in Mongolia, and the Ministry of Information and
Communication in Nepal. In addition, the Senior Gender Adviser presented a paper
on “ICTs, Entrepreneurship and Women’s Well-being”.
The training, which was attended by 40 women from APEC member countries, was
hosted by the Ministry of Commerce, Energy and Industry, APEC and organized by
the Asian Pacific Women’s Information Network Center. The goal of the Initiative
APEC Women’s Participation in the Digital Economy, of which this training is an
element, is to promote Internet-based commercial opportunities for women
entrepreneurs in APEC region.
WSIS Thematic Meeting, Forum on ICTs & Gender, 24-25 June 2005, Seoul
(Korea)
Following the Forum on ICT and Gender: Optimizing Opportunities
held August 2003 in Malaysia as well as the outcome of Women’s World 2005, to be
held 19-24 June in Korea, this WSIS preparatory meeting, Forum on ICT and
Gender, will discuss ICTs & Gender focusing on e-Governance and the Digital
Solidarity Fund. Various stakeholders from international organizations,
nongovernmental organization and academia will address these issues from a
gender perspective.
WGGI comprised of
representatives from Member States, the private sector, the
United Nations, international and regional organizations, NGOs,
academia and staff from ITU-D. This Group has assumed several
tasks, one of which is to sensitize the ICT community about the
need for, and importance of, gender sensitive programmes and
policies. The primary work of the group is assumed by the
Steering Committee.
The
Steering Committee of the WGGI is composed of the Chair, five Vice Chairs
and several members. The Steering Committee works closely with the ITU’s Senior
Gender Advisor who acts as Secretary to the Group. The Committee meets once a
year to review activities and provide input on issues related to the mandate of
the WGGI. Six Programme Committees are also organized under specific thematic
issues.
