This century is called the century of technologies. With the improvement of modern science day by day the use of technologies in different aspects of life is increasing. People are using different types of technologies in doing different types of tasks and becoming dependent on technologies everyday more and more. In modern days the use of different technologies like internet, DFS, mobile phone etc are not being limited just inside urban areas, rather it is spreading all over in the rural areas too. Day by day, the rural people are also coming to know about using the technologies and enjoying the advantages. So, in present days, the people from rural areas are also showing interest in using the technologies.
But there still a question remains, are the women of rural areas enjoying the technologies as much as the men or the other women from urban areas? The answer is no. The women from rural areas are not much accessible to the technologies in comparison to the men. There are several reasons for this. Let’s discuss them first:
- Expensive: Even with the evolution of science, still in some underdeveloped countries of the third world like Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Maldives, Pakistan etc, the cost of having and maintaining the technologies is very high. Most of the middle class, lower middle class and all of the lower class people from rural areas can not afford them. Using technologies are like a luxury to them. Again most of these countries are facing a big amount of gender discrmination in even present days also. So, naturally they think that luxurious and advantageous things are meant for men only. So, whatever little technology they afford, mostly the men enjoy them and women get deprived.
- Illiteracy: Because of the gender discrimonation problem, most of the rural women are deprived of education. For lack of education, naturally they are not aware enough about their rights, advantages, opportunities and technologies. The lack of knowledge about technologies and their uses keep them aside from using them.
- Lack of Interest: Most of the rural women don’t go outside of their zone much and do not have the ideas on what is going on in the world around them. Keeping themselves inside the house and area, make them self congested. So, the new technologies and their advantages don’t attract them much. They do not feel much interested in using the technologies and thus the technologies aren’t really accessible to them.
- Lack of Awareness: Normally rural women play a vital role in our economy. They take part in cultivating lands, farm different animals and do a lot of other stuff to maintain their family. By this they are not only maintaining the expenses of their family but also giving a big contribution in our economical growth and social development. If they could use the technologies and utilize them properly, a huge amount of labour could be saved. They could do their tasks more frequently, comfortably and could enjoy their work. Technology could become a substitute or an alternative to their hard labour. But most of the rural women are not aware of all these things. They don’t have ideas about the advantages and opportunities they are missing by not using modern technologies.
- Not Available: The development of technologies and their availability is not the same in rural areas like the urban ones. For many people, technology is like a thing from another planet. They are not much available in rural areas and especially among the general people. When it is very much unavailable for the general mass, the women are more far from them than others. Frequent availability of technologies in rural areas could change the scenario at least.
From the above discussion it is clear that like many other things the women, specially the rural women are also deprived of using the technologies. If they could use them, they could contribute more and more to their families, economy and society. Mainly the rural women face three obstacles at the same time. They are women, rural and digitization. While women from urban areas are coming forward facing the problems, using the technologies, taking advantage of them and enjoying using them, the women from rural areas are still left behind. It has now become a want of time to make the women from rural areas aware of the things, motivate them for using technologies, make them understand the usefulness and create interest in them. Thus more than half of the problems will be solved. Women from rural areas will come forward like the women of the urban world and we will get a literate society. In present days the Government and different associations, NGOs are taking initiatives for the rural women to make them well aware of the technologies. Things are actually getting changed gradually. The picture from the past to present is not the same anymore. But still there is a long way to go. With the higher population, and most of the population living in rural areas, the number of women from rural areas are higher. So, making them aware about technologies and using them is not an easy task. It needs time and manpower. Hopefully, those days are not very far when the technologies like internet, DFS, mobile phones will be accessible also to the women from rural areas.