Afterword: Reading counter-narratives to gendered inequality in education transnationally

Across the globe, women are struggling to overcome social and cultural confines, while creating new opportunities for their gender, by becoming leaders in research and career fields from which they have been historically excluded. This afterword responds to and builds upon contributors' trenchant articles that highlight social, economic, and technological changes that women are making across cultures. Many women are still battling to gain basic human rights. Accordingly, researchers featured in this special issue bring attention to the inequalities that still exist for women worldwide while raising questions about how new shifts toward extreme conservatism and nationalism may impact women's rights in the near future. As puzzled over by postdevelopment scholars such as Ong, Hoogvelt and Sassen, in this era of neoliberalism it is now often difficult to decipher programs and organizations that are truly working toward positive changes for women in the developing world from those that are focused on their own selfinterests. Throughout history, governmental and social structures have been designed to favor men, but women are now finding ways to make their voices heard through innovatively taking advantage of new communication technologies in both the developing and developed world. We join with contributors in highlighting women's tremendous investment in change, discussing issues of gender and technology, as well as the work being done by women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields. The contributors maintain that in order to create more opportunities for women, progressive researchers, policy-makers and activists must continue to collaborate connecting substantively to the struggles of women for a better life while working toward interdisciplinary solutions that address the ongoing inequalities that constrain their present and future circumstances.