IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2020 - 84

they can be collected without any cash expense on the
part of the households. Traditional biomass such as crop
residues, animal dung, and fuelwood are used by some
700 million people in rural India [19]. This has detrimental impacts on women's lifestyles, status, and health and
also on the environment. Management of household biomass energy accounts for a significant proportion of
women's unpaid labor and is consequently a significant
factor in India's low female workforce participation rate.
Women primarily collect the biomass, which often
involves walking long distances and spending considerable time foraging for the fuels. The type of cooking fuel
used in a household has significant consequences for the
environment, for the health of family members and on
women's lives. Much of women's time is taken up with
difficult and unpaid work related to producing and processing food without mechanical or electrical equipment,
and cooking without modern fuels and energy-efficient
appliances. Lack of modern energy access also decreases
the access to clean, safe and easily available water.
Women are also exposed to a variety of health hazards
from cooking over poorly ventilated indoors fires, resulting in respiratory infections, cancers, and eye diseases.
Smoke from indoor fires accounts for close to 4 million
premature deaths globally each year, and women and
young children who spend the most time around the
domestic hearth, are especially vulnerable [20]. If this
method of cooking and heating is replaced by electricity,
through induction heating and heaters, these hardships
would be mitigated to a huge extent [15].
There is also an urgent need that this increase in
access to electricity is achieved without increasing CO2
emissions. Scientists - and the increasing frequency of
extreme weather events all over the world - are warning
that increasing carbon emissions will be catastrophic.
Renewable energy has the potential to enable developing
countries such as India to improve living standards and
quality of life without the carbon emissions that accompanied such improvements in the West. However, the
degree to which this potential is realized will not be
determined by the technology itself but by decisions
made by institutions, governments, communities, and
individuals. The impact of technology on society is not
independent of politics and economics. There is no technological fix to the social and gender equity challenges
that confront society. Modern energy services can
improve women's welfare and enable women to fulfill
their traditional roles, but this doesn't by itself structurally change gender relations. However, energy services that
contribute to women's economic empowerment can be
a key factor in catalyzing the transformation of gender
roles. The transition taking place in the energy and
power sector driven by technology innovation does provide women the opportunity to get on board at the early

phase of these changes and influence and even transform their societies and lives.

Author Information
Reihana Mohideen is a Senior Research Fellow, EEE, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
Pankaj Batra is Project Director, IRADe for the USAID
funded SARI/EI (South Asia Regional Initiative in Energy
Integration) program and Ex-Chairperson & Member (Planning), Central Electricity Authority, Ministry of Power, India.
Prabhjot Khan is Senior Social Development Officer
(Gender), Asian Development Bank, India.

References

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IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

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MARCH 2020

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IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2020

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