The Evolution of Women and the Internet

Introduction

We are at a time where the internet is vastly used for conducting business, buying, selling, transferring or exchanging of products, services and information. The internet began as an experiment by the US government in 1969. The world wide web was introduced in the early 1990s. Electronic commerce in Trinidad and Tobago and by extent the Caribbean region is the fastest growing segment of our economy.

Challenges women face

Some of the major challenges in my community (San Juan, Trinidad and Tobago) which prevent women from accessing the internet include, but are not limited to:

• Some of the older women are less technology oriented. There are educational programs however, women may not have the time to attend classes due to reasons such as family obligations (some of whom are single parents) and job obligations among others.




• The unavailability of internet service in certain areas or if there is a presence, the cost may be a bit exorbitant.

Strategies the library can implement to assist

The library can make it easier for women to use the internet by extending the opening hours to accommodate those persons whose working hours may extend beyond regular hours. There should also be someone capable of providing training at the library. This can extend to conducting workshops etc.

My efforts

At present I am planning to arrange a women empowerment group in order to share my knowledge and skills with women in my community. This would entail setting up an official centre in the future whereby women can have access to these facilities at various hours.

Internet Safety

The level of security and trust is of utmost importance when using the internet and as such, when I am using the internet especially in instances where I am planning to make a purchase from a website, I always ensure that there is some type of security in order to develop a certain level of trust eg. a secure server software (SSL) which is the industry standard and among the best software available for secure commerce transactions. This software encrypts all personal information including credit card numbers, name and addresses to that it cannot be read as the information travels over the internet.

Improvement – Government and technology companies

In my opinion, technology companies and the government should educate consumers on the importance of internet security as well as invest in the best servers for protecting persons utilising the internet.