GENDER IMPACT ON ICT. PRACTICES OF FEMINILIZATION IN THE KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY

The aim of the paper is to highlight the contribution women have made in ICT to the growth of social capital and, in the knowledge society, to personal capitalism as a result of the valorisation of femininity. The bodies and minds of women are analyzed as no longer restricted to the realm of home economics and to relations in the private sphere, but as becoming increasingly visible in the public sphere. This process has been promoted and facilitated in Europe and in Italy by equal opportunity policies. Diversity as entrepreneurship has come about by transferring to the workplace exactly the same skills and capabilities, that are characteristics of family work. The introduction of women into various sectors of the knowledge economy, in new profiles in ICT as personal capitalists assuming the roles of entrepreneurs and managers, is today the most significant indicator of gender impact. An integral aspect of women's enterprises is their particular adaptability and pertinence to the emerging knowledge society: creating networks and interacting with the territory. The innovative women's impact on ICT is analysed as: 1. consolidation of emotions and identity management; 2. identification of creative, innovative enterprises in different districts of new economics in Europe, ruled by new managers, mostly women.