Melinda Gates: A mobile phone can change a woman’s life
#Melindafrenchgates #People
In poor countries, women are using mobile phones to change social norms and challenge power structures that exclude women and perpetuate inequality. It's vital that we eliminate the gender gap in access to this technology.
The mobile phone has really turned out for women in the developing world
to help them fight so many gender barriers. I mean,
mobile technology, I wouldn't have predicted it, but it has become
a massive empowerment tool for women. When you're out in the developing world
they will talk to you about information they've gotten over their phone, whether
it's the crop price at market, so that when
their vegetables get taken to the market by
a middleman, they're not taken in terms of the price.
They know what the price is at market, so if he comes and tells them
he got a lower price, they have the information.
It's empowerment for women because they're not welcomed at banks in the
developing world. They often don't have the means to get there. They'll tell you
even if they do, somebody will rob them on the bus.
They get to the bank, they're completely unwelcomed. Whereas
when they're out in their remote village or that they live in a township,
they can save a dollar a day, two dollars a day, five dollars a day
on their phone and then they can count that that money is secure
and their husband or their brother-in-law or their neighbor can't get
to it. So all of a sudden the mobile phone
through information, through financial services, through all kinds of other
services that we can't even dream about, it has become this empowerment tool and
women will tell you when they get hold of it, it changes their life.