Indian Women Hit Social Walls

From an article of the same title by Khozem Merchant of the Financial Times and printed in the LA Times:

Tahseen Bano's family was reluctant even to let her attend the free information technology classes designed to improve the career opportunities of women in Kanpur, India's leather-goods capital. So it is no surprise that her parents have now blocked progression to a job in the poor northern city. It seems technology may have met its match here: Social conservatism is denying women the chance to put their newly acquired computer literacy to use. Bano's frustration is shared by Datamation, a Delhi-based nonprofit group that runs the Kanpur project with funds from Microsoft Corp. "We try to empower women with skills to improve their chance of getting jobs. But conservatism is not a battle fought overnight. We are encountering the limitations of technology," said coordinator Ujjwala Subhedar... With funding of $100,000 from Microsoft, Datamation turned to Kanpur's best-known asset, the Indian Institute of Technology. What emerged was software for chikan embroidery incorporating a technique allowing users to retrieve designs from a database. The response from potential recruits among young, unemployed adults with little formal education was poor. Datamation's recruiters knocked on hundreds of doors in Kanpur's ancient alleyways but found that parents were loath to let their daughters out in public. Some relented and saw their daughters take to the technology with ease, and the effect on their self-esteem was profound. But what followed was a let-down. Bano's parents, among many others, banned unmarried daughters from taking on full-time design roles, which involved interacting with buyers, designers, shopkeepers and so on.