Swasti Mitter is the Deputy Director of the United Nations University Institute for New Technologies (UNU/INTECH), Maastricht, the Netherlands, and holds the Chair of Gender and Technology Studies at the University of Brighton, UK. Sheila Rowbotham has written extensively on women in history and the contemporary position of women. She is a Research Fellow in the Department of Sociology, University of Manchester and an Honorary Fellow in Women’s Studies at the University of North London.

• 1 Beyond the politics of difference: an introduction 2 Information technology and working women’s demands 3 Feminist approaches to technology: women’s values or a gender lens? 4 Conflicting demands of new technology and household work: women’s work in Brazilian and Argentinian textiles 5 Changes in textiles: implications for Asian women 6 Information technology and women’s employment in manufacturing in Eastern Europe: the case of Slovenia 7 Restructuring and retraining: the Canadian garment industry in transition 8 Computerization and women’s employment in India’s banking sector 9 Information technology, gender and employment: a case study of the telecommunications industry in Malaysia 10 Women in software programming: the experience of Brazil 11 Something old, something new, something borrowed…The electronics industry in Calcutta 12 Women and information technology in sub-Saharan Africa: a topic for discussion? 13 Gender perspectives on health and safety in information processing: learning from international experience 14 Using information technology as a mobilizing force: the case of The Tanzania Media Women’s Association (TAMWA) 15 The fading of the collective dream? Reflections on twenty years’ research on information technology and women’s employment