MOBILE PHONES, INTERNET, AND GENDER IN MYANMAR What she thinks of owning a mobile phone What she wants to do once she has her own phone Respondent 5 thinks that it is not enough to have one mobile for her family because her husband takes the mobile when he goes to work. Sometimes it is difficult to communicate with him when she borrows a mobile phone from someone else. She says it is quite difficult to find a pay phone nowadays since mobile phones are so readily available. She has to ask someone to lend her their phone, or she needs to wait for her friend to lend her phone. She has to buy top-up cards for her friend because she uses her mobile most often. They spend time together by reading posts on Facebook and the internet. If she had a choice, Respondent 5 would like to get a smartphone because she wants to play games for entertainment, and she would also like to read news and information from the internet. She would search for recipes since cooking is her hobby. She would use a Telenor SIM card which would allow her to top-up the phone with MMK 1,000. She would use the Myanmar font to avoid any difficulties reading words on the mobile. She would also ask her younger brother to help her to buy the handset, install game applications, and teach her how to use the phone. “I have to top-up her phone balance, even though I received the phone call. We can’t afford to buy MMK 5,000. So, we can only afford to buy top-ups worth MMK 1,000 which we have given her. Although I only received the phone call, I am required to top-up her phone.” Barriers to owning a mobile phone “My friend also comes to me and shows me. If she doesn’t come to me, I go to her. She told me to surf the internet with her. Sometimes, we look at photos and Myanmar traditional performances together. I do want to read the news. I go to her and watch the news whenever I want to. But since she is busy, we don’t watch anything.” Respondent 5 also expressed her feelings about using the internet on a mobile phone. She has seen many young boys from her community watch pornography and other inappropriate content. She is afraid that her children and husband might be exposed to similar content on the mobile phone. Thus, she will not allow these types of videos to be stored on the phone as she wants to protect her children from seeing them. “Young boys look at such things on mobile phones and their parents don’t know anything. I don’t let my children watch such things. If they go near them, I beat them…There are no such materials on my husband’s mobile phone. Every child can check the phone. Even a 4-year-old girl can press buttons and explore the phone. I don’t allow these things to be put on my husband’s mobile phone. I am afraid that they would watch pornography or inappropriate scenes.” 50. 1 lakh = 100,000 86 Her financial situation is the main barrier to having the mobile handset she wants. She is able to buy a keypad phone, as her husband has given her money to get a phone. However, she does not want a keypad phone, especially when she sees that every man and woman from her community is able to have a smartphone. She is upset that even the garbage collector uses a smartphone, and feels that only she cannot afford one. She thinks that if there are cheaper handsets of good quality in the market, this will help women to own better mobile phones and will promote mobile usage. While she knows the cheapest smartphone available costs MMK 60,000–70,000, she thinks that these would not be of good quality: “[The lowest price for a handset is] more than 60,000–70, 000 kyats. But those are not good enough, only handsets that cost more than 1 lakh50 kyats are good enough to be used…[i.e.,] more durable than the [cheaper] ones.” Why do more men own mobile phones than women in Myanmar? She believes that a man becomes the first mobile owner in a household because men have to go out for work. Mobiles are a necessity for men to do business and report to their seniors. However, when she reflected on what she has observed in her community, she said that both men and women from her quarter have mobile phones. Almost all own a mobile.