Ridiculous!

Mainstreaming: An Effective Solution!

Before starting this unit for my Online course, I didn't have a clear conception about Gender mainstreaming. Though I heard the term but telling the truth, I thought this would be a term with the same meaning as gender discrimination. My vague idea takes a perfect shape when I completed the whole unit.

It isn't criticizing our male counterparts for grabbing all the positions of professional sects;but this idea is based upon the point to include women force in these fields as well along with their traditional role of MOTHER,WIFE & SISTER. Here, I would like to share some of experience regarding working women as well as women who are studying in the field of Science & Technology.

I have two friends who are studying Engineering in two different Public Universities of Bangladesh. One of them is studying in the Aeronautical Engineering dept. The most interesting thing is SHE is the ONLY FEMALE STUDENT among the 71 students of that dept.!!! Unable to grasp the situation at first,when I asked her the reason she told me that their subject demand a lot of field works and besides there's no assurance of job for a girl after passing from this dept.Here two forces are working simultaneously- 

• Parents feel insecure to let their daughters out for the field work for the fear of physical assault and criticism from her surroundings.

• The companies are also unsure about their competence with that of a male competitor. 

In these circumstances how can a girl come forward and take up the challenge of 21st century? My other friend is also facing almost these same problems.

But,these situations can surely be developed if there's going to be an intricate research on these issues because only then, we can have the capacity to overcome the hurdles and make the Gender Mainstreaming a worthy armor to maintain the proper balance of development of any nation.  

Turning A New Page!

February 23,2011, at around 1pm. Sitting in a computer lab with goosebumps all over me... One might ask what's so special about a computer lab that I had goosebumps?? No, the lab was very regular type,nothing extraordinary...But the moment became special when right at 1pm, Nasreen ma'am came to the screen of  that computer lab because it's the orientation program of my First Online Course!!! We were about 13 students eagerly waiting for that moment to come.

Our course is "Women in Technology". Today is the last day of our completion of Unit-2. Can't imagine how these days have flown and I am actually doing my assignment of an Online course!!! The feeling is really amazing. Feeling that I was holding a bow which had no color in it, but after today five bright colors will be there on my bow...as I had to complete five segments of  work for my Unit-2 within toady. And when my whole course will be completed I hope that I will be able to hold the most bright colored rainbow of the universe.

I learned a lot about the prevailing gender-gap in the field of technology and other sectors. The reading assignments were packed with vibrant resources. The Gender-Gap Index was very enlightening, the articles by Hafkin &Taggart, Smith & Thompson and lastly the video by Saadia Zahidi were extremely helpful to look deeper into some of the very common topic of our daily life. Many questions arose during my reading of these articles and to seek the answers I had to look in some other websites...and when I got all the answers, the feelings of  satisfaction is worth mentioning.

At many points I feel a bondage with all the women of the world who are still striving for diminishing the gender inequity. One of the interesting thing is that we have a number of male students in this course who are very willingly supporting the voice of women in IT, in wage system, in political platform as well as in social platform.

Enjoying the thrilling discussions among the students not only from diverse background but also from different countries of the world. I count myself  to be very lucky to attain a course like this and hope that within five years or so most of the female students of the developing countries like ours get the chance to experience such a wonderful technological endowment like Online courses.