The gender edition of the 2023 GEM Report was released on April 25, International Girls in ICT Day, at an event organised by the AU International Center for Girls & Women’s Education in Africa (CIEFFA) and ImpactHER. Technology on her terms warns that exposure to algorithm-driven, image-based content can expose girls to inappropriate material, ranging from sexual harassment to videos that glorify unhealthy behaviours or unrealistic body standards. This exposure can have particularly detrimental effects on girls’ self-esteem and learning. Girls who interact on social media for an hour or more on a school day are found to have lower levels of well-being than those who interact less. Among boys, meanwhile, there were no cross-associations between well-being and their social media usage.
It also shows that deterring girls from pursuing STEM careers perpetuates biased gender norms in technology. New data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics released in the report show that women make up only 35% of tertiary education STEM graduates around the world, a share that has stayed the same in the past 10 years.
To learn more about the report, please follow the link: www.unesco.org/gem-report/en/2024genderreport
