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Delivering mobile-enabled agricultural services (‘mAgri services’) to women in developing countries is a major market opportunity for the mobile industry that also offers substantial social benefits. The mAgri services market is nascent but growing—GSMA has tracked 106 active, global deployments by mobile network operators (MNOs) and third party providers. Women working in agriculture account for an estimated 556 million potential users globally, but are underserved as a unique customer segment. The GSMA mWomen and mAgri programmes have produced the Mobile Agricultural Services Toolkit as a guide for mobile operators,
other mobile providers, and development practitioners to better serve women in this segment. It includes recommendations and tools for each stage of the product development process, as well as examples of good practices. The products and services in question include value-added services (information, advisory, matchmaking, or other), mobile financial services, and basic services (voice, SMS, and data) delivered via mobile phone. While the focus is broadly on Sub Saharan Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia, the framework may also be applied to other developing regions.

A lack of detailed gender specific data led to an approach where reviewing existing literature was backed up by field enquiry by a team of specialists based throughout the Member States. The wide geographic coverage required (EU 15) meant that, given the study’s scope, (i) enquiry needed to be mostly limited to specific key Fisheries Dependent Areas (FDAs) or pockets of fisheries activity in “non FDAs” and (ii) fully statistically rigorous surveys could not be undertaken and surveys had to rely upon opinion from a limited number of key knowledgeable individuals in the FDAs. A template was devised to impose a common approach, and this was successful up to a point, though variations in the different team members perception of the issues led to a diverse response. However value was seen in this in that where there were common results, these were seen as being the more valid because of the diversity of the researcher’s outlooks.

What motivates sex discrimination? Rounding up the usual suspects, negative stereotypes and hostility toward women would top the list. Challenging the conventional view, this paper focuses on subjectively favorable (but patronizing) attitudes toward women, labeled “benevolent sexism” (Glick & Fiske, 1996, 2001). Benevolent sexism harms women in multiple ways by: (a) justifying and reinforcing hostile sexism, (b) fostering often unrecognized discrimination that limits women’s opportunities and diminishes their performance, (c) eliciting backlash when resisted, and (d) sapping women’s personal ambitions and resistance to inequality

Work preferences, life values, and personal views of top math/science graduate students (275 men, 255 women) were assessed at ages 25 and 35 years. In Study 1, analyses of work preferences revealed developmental changes and gender differences in priorities: Some gender differences increased over time and increased more among parents than among childless participants, seemingly because the mothers’ priorities changed. In Study 2, gender differences in the graduate students’ life values and personal views at age 35 were compared with those of profoundly gifted participants (top 1 in 10,000, identified by age 13 and tracked for 20 years: 265 men, 84 women). Again, gender differences were larger among parents. Across both cohorts, men appeared to assume a more agentic, career-focused perspective than women did, placing more importance on creating high-impact products, receiving compensation, taking risks, and gaining recognition as the best in their fields. Women appeared to favor a more communal, holistic perspective, emphasizing community, family, friendships, and less time devoted to career. Gender differences in life priorities, which intensify during parenthood, anticipated differential male-female representation in high-level and timeintensive careers, even among talented men and women with similar profiles of abilities, vocational interests, and educational experiences.