Freedom within a cage: how patriarchal gender norms limit women’s use of mobile phones in rural central India

INTRODUCTION: India has one of the highest gender gaps in mobile phone access in the world. As employment opportunities, health messaging (mHealth), access to government entitlements, banking, civic participation and social engagement increasingly take place in the digital sphere, this gender gap risks further exacerbating women’s disadvantage in Indian society. This study identifies the factors driving women’s unequal use of phones in rural Madhya Pradesh, India. METHODS: We interviewed mothers of 1-year-old children (n=29) who reported that they had at least some access to a mobile phone. Whenever possible, we also spoke to their husbands (n=23) and extended family members (n=34) through interviews or family group discussions about the use of phones in their households, as well as their perspectives on gender and phone use more broadly. Our analysis involved comparing wife–husband pairs to assess differences in phone access and use, and thematic coding on the determinants of women’s phone use using an iteratively developed conceptual framework. RESULTS: While respondents reported that women could use the phone without needing permission, this apparent ‘freedom’ existed in a context that severely constrained women’s actual use, most directly through: (1) narrow expectations and desires around how women would use phones, (2) women’s dependence on men for phone ownership and lower proximity to phones, (3) the poorer functionality of women’s phones; (4) women’s limited digital skills, and (5) time allocation constraints, wherein women had less leisure time and were subject to social norms that discouraged using a phone for leisure. CONCLUSION: Our framework, presenting the distal and proximate determinants of women’s phone use, enables more nuanced understanding of India’s digital divide. Addressing these determinants is vital to shift from re-entrenching unequal gender relations to transforming them through digital technology.