Mobiles reinforce unequal gender relations in Zambia

Mobile phones affect more than just communications. They can also reinforce society's unequal power relations. A three-year study in Zambia looks at this, partly in terms of relationships between husbands and wives.

The study found that mobile phone access and use has positive impacts for women. They benefit from faster, cheaper communication and a strengthening of family, friend and business-related social networks. However, mobile phones also provide a new focal point for social conflict between spouses and can reinforce traditional gender power differences. This happens as some husbands determine how wives use their phones, and even whether or not they are allowed to continue owning a mobile.

Interviewees consistently reported problems of insecurity, insensitivity, mistrust and jealousy, which sometimes resulted in physical and verbal abuse, particularly by men towards their wives:

• Some husbands accuse their wives of infidelity, thinking they use their mobile phones to communicate with lovers. They inspect call records on the mobile phones for proof, and some order their wives to sell their phones.
• In a widely publicised case in the Zambian media, a man reportedly beat his wife because he suspected her of having an extra-marital affair after she refused to let him check her calls and text messages.
• Men often demand that their wives make and answer calls in their presence, although they refuse to do the same.
• There are popular songs referring to the social difficulties that mobile phones have introduced between men and women. They are light-hearted but carry an important message about the way this new technology is adversely affecting gender relations.

These findings suggest that new technologies have become another aspect of oppression of women by men, and a source of inequality between them. These inequalities are not just social: mobile phones can also reinforce economic gender differentials. Handsets and airtime are still expensive, and women may be less able than men to afford their use. However, insufficient official statistics on a range of gender concerns relating to technology mean that these new developments are difficult to analyse.

For women, the social and economic advantages of accessing and using a mobile phone far outweigh the disadvantages. But those promoting and making policies for mobile phones must understand that these new technologies create problems as well as solutions. These problems must be recognised if they are to be addressed. Among other things, this will require much greater gender awareness in policies and projects.

Kutoma J. Wakunuma
Sheffield Hallam University, Sheaf Building 4114, Howard Street, S1 1WB, Sheffield, UK
k.j.wakunuma@shu.ac.uk

See also

The Internet and Mobile Telephony: Implications for Women's Development and Empowerment in Zambia, Gender, ICTs and Development workshop paper, 2006 (PPT)
www.womenictenterprise.org/manworkshop.htm

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