In my last blog post, I discussed the written and technical literacy barriers that prevent many resource-poor women from accessing the full range of benefits that mobile phones, and especially smartphones, can offer. Unfortunately, these aren’t the only challenges these users face. Culture and context inevitably affect whether women are permitted to use a mobile phone, whatever their literacy levels. Even if they are allowed, many women have extremely limited access to the resources needed to enable them to use the devices effectively.

In some parts of the world, husbands and fathers consider mobile phones to be inappropriate or unnecessary for their wives or daughters. In our study, Striving & Surviving: Exploring the Lives of Women at the Base of the Pyramid, 64% of resource-poor women reported that their mobile phone makes their husband suspicious. 74% of married women who did not want a mobile phone said it was because their husband wouldn’t allow it.

The smartphone is just one of a broader suite of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools which can arouse similar suspicions. Revi Sterling, founder and director of the first information and communication technology for development (ICTD) professional master’s programme in the USA, discussed the ‘fear-based’ cultural issues she has encountered in her fieldwork.

“Fear-based specific cultural issues have included a fear of seeing pornography, a fear of being tracked, a fear of looking stupid, a fear of doing something that will upset their husbands,” she said, as part of her conversation supporting the Intel Corporation and Ashoka Changemakers ‘She Will Innovate’ competition.

However, for Revi, “the overall largest barrier to ICT is the lack of perceived relevance [to women]. Tech is seen as either too expensive to mess with, too much within the male domain, or a form of entertainment,” she continued. This corroborates the findings of the Women & Mobile report, in which ‘no need’ was the second-most commonly cited reason for not owning or borrowing a mobile phone.

Another important barrier to women’s smartphone use is the effects of limited or inconsistent access to income and electricity. Striving & Surviving found that 38% of the respondents lived off-grid, which means charging a phone requires the ability to pay for a local vendor to charge a phone or travelling many miles to the nearest power source. The cost of purchasing the device, airtime top up and charging can be challenging to those on low and irregular incomes.

These barriers all point in one direction: for women to benefit from mobile technology, the value proposition must be clear, to them and their families. Improving the smartphone user experience to make it more intuitive and accessible for resource poor women plays an important part in this, because the more a woman can use her phone, the more value she’ll be able to realize from the pre-installed apps, widgets, and other functionality that can enhance her and her family’s lives.