L’enracinement social des inégalités numériques : la difficile intégration des femmes italiennes à la société de l’information

Abstract

In Italy the comparatively late diffusion of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) within society is accompanied by significant disparities between women and men in access to and use of the computer and the internet. What are the main factors hampering a greater participation of Italian women to the information society (IS)? The article considers this question integrating the analysis of national statistics with the results of a qualitative research investigating on the relationship of Italian women to ICT. Conclusions suggest that patterns of interaction where women access and use ICT are nested within an institutional context still largely based on an unequal sex-gender system. This system is however increasingly challenged through individual strategies or specific policy measures, both in the ICT as well as in other sectors of the Italian society.

Keywords

• digital divide
• digital inequalities
• gender identities
• information society
• social embeddedness