Each period of technological change carries with it high expectations of societal and organizational restructuring that favours the disadvantaged. This holds true for information and communication technologies too. Embedded in the post-Fordist mode of production organization, it is presumed that IT will create new windows of opportunities and accelerate social mobility for new entrants like women, in an institutional framework that is not as, yet, shaped by traditional power relations. Reforms in the social and economic sector have so propitiated that‚ IT is one of the best-equal opportunity areas ‘that provide wider opportunities for women to enter and succeed in this industry’. Nevertheless, the validity of these claims is yet to be established through empirical analysis. For such a transition in attitudes towards gender to take place, certain prerequisites have to be met. First, there should be an adequate proportion of technically trained female labour force. Second, for the permeation of an alternate gender culture, there needs to be a process of de-learning and re-learning from the new work environment for both men and women (Haraway, 1997; Cockburn and Ormond, 1993). In essence, the family life of a woman and her professional commitments adapt to one another. Even as early as the 1980’s, research that centred on the effect of new technologies on women’s jobs spawned a whole body of literature developing which explores the relationship between women and technology. Of all the approaches, the following two are widely followed and revered (Henwood, 1993).

• The women in technology approach focuses on the ‘exclusion of females from computer work, with change expected to come about via equal access to education and employment.
• The women and technology approach which explores ‘the nature of technological work, its development over time and its articulation with changing gender relations’

The women in technology approach simply tries to involve more women, whereas the second approach has a broader focus on the nature of technological work. These different approaches have also been identified in the literature on women and science (Wajcman 1993) Wajcman and others, (Fox-Kellar1986, Grundy 1994) suggested that the women in technology approach has limited potential; assuming, as it does, that given the right encouragement and opportunities girls will gladly become scientists, computing professionals or engineers and engage in the present work practices of these fields. This approach locates the problem in women (their socialisation, their aspirations and values), but does not ask the broader questions of whether and in what way science and its institutions could be reshaped to accommodate women. The equal opportunity recommendations, moreover, ask women to exchange major aspects of their gender identity for a masculine version without prescribing a similar ‘de-gender’ process for men (Wajcman 1993).

Henwood (1993) also advocates a wariness of the ‘add women and stir’ approach and argues for frameworks, which address the many ways in which technology and gender interact. Henwood suggests that access to skills is not enough to secure a permanent place for women in the technological workplace and that the source of the inequality needs to be addressed (1993). Battel (1994), on the other hand, does not deny the relevance of this argument but adopts a more pragmatic view point; the difficulties surrounding women and technology involve wider social questions than computer courses alone can hope to solve. Therefore, the means, the know-how to ‘break through the barriers which make the computer as a machine meaningless’ to women, must be made available to them. Grundy (1994) acknowledges that despite the superficiality of the add-more-women approach, it must nevertheless, be implemented, as it is a precondition to the ‘emasculation’ of computing.

Women and technology looks into the gender segregation of skills and jobs and the gender sensitivity of the organization in particular. It aims to alter the masculine practices of these occupations so that women could enter into such work without any loss of identity or integrity (Grundy, 1994). Women should not be required to ‘play the game’ or accept working conditions such as ten hour days, frequent weekend work or travel, in order to fit into the computer culture (Dain 1991). Wajcman (1990) advocates that what is needed is a transformation in the nature of paid and unpaid work, as well as looking at the impact women can have on technology and technology on women. Drawing from this approach, the following parameters have been used to analyse the gender regime in the IT sector of the sample nations- proportion of women across various IT occupations/sectors, working conditions, practical gender needs of women, learning and career paths. The actual situation can be evaluated from the published literature available on this theme from some American, Asian-Pacific and European countries.

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