One of the most gratifying things a writer can experience is when their work generates a discussion and even better when something new is learned. That happened to me last week after writing a light hearted piece about biking down African roads and seeing women walking ramrod straight carrying almost imaginable loads on their heads.
Diane, an old friend from the cath labs in New Jersey, jokingly pointed out, as she is frequently known to do, that it was “all so surreal that these pictures are from 2023! No bending their heads to check their phones.”
That’s clever I thought and made a mental note to use that somewhere. Trying to recollect, I don’t recall seeing any women along the road with cell phones to their ears. Quite a few men yes, but no women.
It turns out, however, a woman’s access to a mobile phone in Sub-Saharan Africa is a pretty big deal. When I first thought about this issue I thought social media, but I was so wrong. Availability of smartphones, though still limited and subject to gender bias, provides African women with a method of leapfrogging the traditionally inferior educational norms and discrimination.
Karen, a film maker and educator, from Vancouver, B.C. and former Tour D’Africa rider who not only provided me with invaluable pre-ride preparation for my own tour, she was also the first to point out my knowledge deficit regarding cell phones in poor African villages.
“But you know,” she said, “ phones in those countries carry a different weight, especially for women. There is an app that tells you where the nearest clean water is, for instance. A phone allows women to be entrepreneurs and do business where face to face meetings with men are not appropriate. It connects women to health care, to education . . . It opens the world up to women who would otherwise know only the village around them. They are not wasting time on that phone. Oh, and I believe phones and plans are sometimes shared in a village, family or a group of village women. It’s something a woman might use a micro-loan for so that she can use it to start a business. Some of their businesses include phone rentals”.
Indeed, Women’s Empowerment? There’s a (Mobile) App For That, and it can be found at blogs.world bank.org. The article referenced here is 10 years old so a bit dated but helps explain the problem. “I have come to see the mobile phone as one of the most powerful tools for development, and in particular furthering development aims for women.” writes Alice Newton in 2012, “Not everyone agrees. . . try fundraising for projects to get more phones in the hands of women in the developing world, and many people will think you’re mad. . . Shouldn’t all that (aid money) be going to things like increasing food, production, medical care, or skills training? But through a mobile phone, a woman can increase her crop fields, go through childbirth with less danger, or become an entrepreneur, because of her increased ability to access information, services, and networks.”
I was discussing these issues with my thirty-year-old daughter who was concerned about the age of the above information so, within seconds, pulled up two more recent relevant articles on her smartphone.
The first article published in a 2020 issue in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported that, “An international team of researchers has found evidence that shows giving women in sub-Saharan Africa smartphones leads to increase use of contraception, increased HIV testing and lower infant mentality rates.”
The second was a 2019 article by Matt Shanghainese and Oliver Rowentree, from the non-profit Global System for Mobil Communication (GSMA). Very briefly summarized it says Mobil phones have had a profound impact in Africa but women have benefited less than men, a finding more pronounced in rural areas. The most important barriers are affordability, literacy and digital skills.
As I read this last article I was reminded of a campfire conversation I had with a man who shall go unidentified but suffice it to say was quite well ingrained in African history and society. While discussing the seemingly unequal burden the rural African women bore while raising children, maintaining the household, cooking , gardening and field work, etc.. He said, “and now we give them the extra burden of obtaining an education”. I honestly think he thought he was being sympathetic.
Well, that explains that!
“Oh boy,” Karen says “that’s a bit like saying slaves have so much work to do it would be a terrible burden to expect them to learn to read”.
Next week we will further explore the gender gap when writing about Men on Bikes. This is the topic I had planned before going down the rabbit hole with a cell phone. . . but, as long as I’m here let me tell you one more telefano story that, if we really stretch it may be applicable here.
In Costa Rica there is a small “Beach Side Church” which really isn’t on the beach. Nevertheless they have an imaginative marketing plan that involves putting up attention grabbing roadside signs. My favorite is:
IF YOU WANT TO TALK TO GOD: PRAY
IF YOU WANT TO MEET HIM; TEXT HIM
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