Breaking down the question
The question asks how the increasing use of technology is changing the status of women in Indian society. "Status" here is broad — it covers economic position, access to work and information, autonomy within the household, political participation, safety and social standing. "Technology" too should be read widely: not only digital and mobile technology but domestic appliances, reproductive and medical technology, and agricultural and industrial machinery.
The word "changing" invites a balanced answer that traces both empowering and disempowering effects. A sophisticated response resists the simple story that technology automatically liberates women, and instead shows that its impact is uneven, mediated by class, caste and region, and capable of both widening and narrowing gender gaps.
How to approach it
Organise the answer around domains of impact — economic and work, education and information, domestic labour, health and reproduction, political and social participation, and safety — showing the positive changes in each. Then introduce the counter-currents: the digital divide, new forms of harassment, technology-enabled sex selection, and the persistence of patriarchal control over access.
Draw on sociological framing — the idea that technology is socially shaped and its effects depend on the surrounding structure of power, associated with writers such as Judy Wajcman, and the network society of Manuel Castells. Keep the answer grounded in Indian realities and conclude that technology is an enabler whose emancipatory potential is conditional. The broader theoretical setting for technology as a driver of change is developed in our notes on theories of social change.
Model answer
The increasing use of technology is reshaping the status of women in Indian society in profound but uneven ways. Its effects are neither uniformly liberating nor uniformly oppressive; they depend on which technology is in question, who has access to it, and the structure of patriarchy, class and caste through which it is filtered. Sociologists such as Judy Wajcman have argued that technology is socially shaped rather than neutral, so that its gender consequences are made, not given.
In the economic sphere, technology has opened significant new opportunities. The growth of information technology, business process services and digitally mediated work has drawn large numbers of women into formal, relatively well-paid employment, particularly in urban centres, expanding their economic independence and bargaining power within the family. Mobile phones and digital payment systems have enabled women entrepreneurs, self-help groups and home-based producers to reach markets and manage money directly. In agriculture and manufacturing, mechanisation has altered the gendered division of labour, sometimes relieving drudgery and sometimes displacing women from traditional tasks.
In education and access to information, digital technology has been a powerful equaliser. Online learning, mobile connectivity and access to information about rights, health and schemes have widened women's horizons and reduced their dependence on gatekeepers. The reach of the network society, in Manuel Castells's sense, allows women to connect, organise and mobilise across distances, as seen in the amplification of women's voices through social media campaigns against harassment and discrimination.
Domestic and reproductive technologies have also changed women's lives. Household appliances, piped water, cooking gas and labour-saving devices have reduced the burden of domestic work, freeing time for education, employment and leisure — though this benefit is concentrated among wealthier households. Medical and reproductive technologies, including contraception and improved maternal healthcare, have given women greater control over fertility and health, contributing to falling fertility and improved wellbeing.
In the political and civic sphere, digital tools have supported women's participation in governance, self-help networks and collective action, while telemedicine and grievance platforms have extended services to women in remote areas. Technology has thus, on many fronts, enhanced women's economic autonomy, knowledge, mobility and voice.
Yet these gains coexist with serious counter-currents, and a realistic assessment must give them full weight. First is the digital divide: access to devices, connectivity and digital literacy is sharply gendered, with rural, poor, Dalit, Adivasi and less-educated women far less likely to own phones or use the internet, so that technology can widen rather than close inequalities. Second, patriarchal control often extends into the digital realm, with families restricting women's access to phones and monitoring their use. Third, technology has generated new forms of gender violence — online harassment, stalking, image-based abuse and trolling — that police women's presence in public digital space. Fourth, and most starkly, prenatal diagnostic technology has been misused for sex-selective abortion, worsening the child sex ratio and revealing how technology can entrench the devaluation of girls. Automation may also displace women disproportionately from routine jobs.
The pattern that emerges is that technology amplifies existing social relations as much as it transforms them. Where women already possess education, income and relative autonomy, technology extends their capabilities; where patriarchal control and deprivation prevail, the same technologies can reinforce subordination or create new vulnerabilities. Its impact is therefore mediated by class, caste, region and the wider gender order.
In conclusion, the increasing use of technology is changing the status of women in Indian society in genuinely enabling ways — expanding work, education, information, health and voice — while simultaneously generating new inequalities and harms through the digital divide, technology-enabled violence and sex selection. Technology is best understood as a conditional enabler whose emancipatory promise is realised only when accompanied by equitable access, digital literacy and a challenge to the underlying patriarchal structure.
Examiner's perspective
The best answers are balanced and multi-dimensional. Examiners reward candidates who move across several domains — work, education, domestic labour, health, politics and safety — and who then set the empowering effects against the digital divide, online violence and sex-selective misuse. A one-sided celebration of technological empowerment, or a purely pessimistic account, sits in the middle band.
The decisive analytical point is that technology amplifies existing structures rather than automatically overturning them, so its gender effects vary by class, caste and region. Naming a framing thinker such as Wajcman or Castells, and grounding each claim in recognisable Indian realities, lifts the answer. A conclusion that treats technology as a conditional enabler, not a guaranteed liberator, captures the mature position the examiner is seeking.