Northeastern, quickly become defined in such a manner that better rewarded positions
go to men. That both men and women receive training in computer science does not
prevent employers from offering different jobs to men and women graduates of these
programs. Thus men are promptly defined as "programmers" and women as "word
processors technicians". Confronted with stale definitions of women abilities, the
women graduates from this program express disappointment at their limited chances for
finding appropriate and well-remunerated employment; at the same time, they also
show a willingness to accept the conditions in which they live and to give priority to
family and marriage plans.
In the end, a new occupational field that can be equally filled by women and men is
recast so that it fits existing perceptions of femininity and masculinity. This suggests
that the introduction of technologies is not necessarily accompanied by shifts in gender
and social relations. (Stromquist)
Chile
VALDES, Ximena (1992) The Women's Rural School: An Empowering Educational
Experience, in: STROMQUIST, Nelly (ed) (1992) Women and Education in Latin
America. Knowledge, Power and Change, Lynne Rienner, London, 277-302.
This chapter by Ximena Valdes offers a firsthand account of the evolution of an
educational intervention with low-income women in Chile. It depicts how what started
as brief gender-consciousness sessions gradually became redesigned into a rural
women's school to provide its participants the space and time needed for an effective
reflection of their situation as women and workers.
This account details the strategic decisions that program designers had to make in order
to serve women effectively. Working with women who were so heavily involved in
domestic and remunerated work activities made it necessary to take them to a new
setting (the rural school) for four-day meetings over a six-month period. Pedagogically,
it was felt that the identification of labour demands by the women would be a good
starting point for the discussion of their subordination in society. Because the low-
income women tended to combine work and family issues in their perception of
personal problems, the program designers had to create homogeneous groups along
lines of occupational interest.
Valdes shows that this popular education program, in terms of creating a critical
understanding and new visions among the participants, was successful. However, two
major problems were encountered: first, the tension the women developed between
solving immediate economic problems and addressing longer-term social change;
second, the tendency among the participants to engage in collective action and to adopt