second rough raft

11.29.12

Alysha Guzman

English 1A

Women and the internet

Dear Women of the internet

For most of known history society assigned gender roles to keep an order that it believed to be a necessity for people to have in order to happily co-exist. These roles made people identify themselves by what anatomy they had and allowed very little flexibility. Their identity determined their social worth and where only seen as normal if they followed these roles which didn’t always led them to be happy with themselves. But with time and slow social changes many of the old notions of what it meant to be masculine or famine have begun to fade into obscurity. We as women still have hurtles to go over just to become fully equal such as being paid the same wages as men or having as many seats in congress as men do but since the 60’s a lot of progress has been made towards equality among the sexes. But in order to continue on with gaining equality we have to look at a new frontier, the internet. The internet is shaping our world as well as ourselves and as our world continues to embrace the internet as a tool, a hangout, and a market place then we need to not only continue to learn how to use it but how to thrive with it. The internet can be a wonderful tool but it’s important to know how to balance it into our lives.

In the early days of the internet men dominated the web. They began to mold the internet to what we know as the web today. But according to Elisa Camahort Page co-founder of BlogHer, a popular network of bloggers says "Women are the drivers of social media. Women are the major users of Facebook, Twitter, blogs, Pinterest, and every social media site except YouTube. They are engagers. They are sharers. It is natural to a women's personality to say why she buys something and why she like it. Women love to share news about the bargains that they got. They love deals and they love to talk about it." (McKenna). Because women tend to go into depth about things that interests them corporations and small companies are realizing how important female blogs are. I’ve noticed that when I read some of my favorite blogger from time to time they mentioned places they’ve been to and things they have bought or would like to buy. In my experience I’ve noticed that bloggers (those who write down an online journal) and vloggers (those who make videos) generally have two types of viewers; those who reply to the blogger in their comments and those who silently read the comments. In this format women blogger have become a major asset to companies since their options are generally and the publicity are free.

 People who are able to contribute to our economy hold great power. In our society it’s been made clear that the one thing stronger than thought or opinions is a person’s wallet. From the boycotts of buss from the civil rights movement to the last Presidential election our society is affected by what people do and don’t buy.  

The internet will continue to find its way into our lives as time goes on. It will evolve in the coming years and we as well do so alongside it.

1st drapht

The world as we know it is changing faster than it has ever changed before and as the world changes so do the people who live in it. Much of what where once deemed the correct behavior for genders has changed in the last decade. Small changes slowly add together and eventually change the world.  But in this last decade it seems the change in what is appropriate for women has become increasingly more flexible. In small but notable ways women have gained more gender equality in areas such as the economy but more noticeably women have moved forward socially. For the first time ever more women are going to school and graduating to move forward with careers while the rate of women marring continues to move downward. While it is true that the women’s movement has been moving forwards since the 60’s these last ten years have been the first years where women have their basic rights and are expecting to have equal rights in all aspects of life. But what has to be asked is why have these old ideas been strengthened in these last ten years? To answer that we have to look at the tools women have used to gain stronger voices in the world and few tools have been stronger than the internet. With the help of the internet women have been able to express themselves as they have never done before and in doing so they empower themselves even more.

It wasn’t too long ago when most women in the United States did not have access to the internet. It was a luxury that was available to less than 2% of the world’s population and unnecessary to the general public. But times have changed to the point where it is nearly required for children to have some access to the internet to do simple school assignments. Because the internet is such a necessary tool for the average person it has integrated it’s self into part of our culture. That being said it is easy to see how the internet can change our culture as well as our personal selves. As said but Jen Doll “The biggest single personality-impacting thing it's done is allow me an opportunity to respond to commentary and add my own thoughts to the mix without the kind of fear one might have about being so opinionated and forceful in real life. I've learned from working on the Internet that of course it matters, deeply, what people think about my work, but it doesn't really matter what they think of me personally. “ (Doll) This is the generation in which most women can imagine a world without the internet for they lived life without it for much of their adult lives. Much like how my generation knows what a life without social networking was like people in their 30’s and 40’s know what life people the internet was like. Doll and those she interviews also mention how the internet has changed the way they feel about stranger’s comments. What once bothered them or even made them unhappy is now just an annoyance to them, something they can handle and not become emotionally affected by. Somehow this has the general attitude of the internet; an attitude that both men and women are expected to understand. For the first time ever women are expected to toughen up and dare I say it be a man. This attitude has seemed to filter into our current social expectations of how to react to the comments of strangers. Women are being taught by the internet that what other people think of them isn’t very important; which is very different than what women where told before then. I see this in how my mother and many of my aunts worry about what strangers will think of them. When I go out with one of them and talk too loudly they worry about how strangers will view them as well as myself. To my mother and her sisters their fears seem to be that if they do something odd they will be seen as weird and to them nothing is worse than that. Unlike my Aunts and mother my sister and cousins are very different. They may go to the same places as their mothers but they are unafraid to be looked at strangely. This seems to be what many women who use the internet seem to notice; anything negative that a stranger has to say is pushed aside and not thought of. As noted by Doll and the women she questioned about the internet many agreed with the fact that the internet had made them tougher. ” I hadn't blogged before and at first I was terrified of the commenters. But eventually I came to think of them as there for entertainment value, nothing more, and I stopped taking anything they said personally” (Doll) The internet has taught women that cruel comments from strangers are to be ignored. That’s not to say that women don’t take in what is said about them on the internet. When I present work online I do take criticism if I see it as positive criticism. The moment I think someone is being cruel simply to try and hurt my feelings I ignore them.  The habits women learn on the internet soon translate to the real world. While a random comment can still affect a women such comments are less likely to.

 Speech affects the world by changing how we see it and much like the first printing press the internet is spreading new and old ideas faster than ever before. In the early days of the internet men wrote the majority of blogs but now that is changing. Women are now using the internet more than men. According to Aileen Lee women now use the internet more to shop, and keep up with their social lives. “Women are the majority of users of social networking sites and spend 30% more time on these sites than men; mobile social network usage is 55% female.” (Lee)

As women move forward with technology and follow with current trends then the day when men and women are truly equals will come

annotated Bibliography and first drapft of letter to the audience.

Doll, Jen. "Women of the Internet on How the Internet Has Changed Them." The Atlantic Wire. The Atlantic Wire, 9 July 2012. Web. 15 Nov. 2012. <http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2012/07/women-internet-how-internet-has-changed-them/54741/>.

Jen Doll proposes in this article that women are being changed by the internet. She questions what the internet does to women’s brains and emotional health. She notes how she know the internet has allowed her to do many things faster and she also relies on it as her job. She enjoys how quickly she can create something creating and response to others. She likes being able to communicate with many people. But she notes that sometimes people can be much more cruel than they’d dare be in real life and that she will defend something in a more defensive way than she usually would. Her attitude changes when she is on the internet.

Doll also interviewed several women who like her frequently use the internet.

One woman says that the internet has made her a stronger person, as well as a bit ADD. According to this woman because comments can become nasty in order for her to function on the internet she had to learn to ignore the meaner comments.

Another woman adds that she didn’t just develop a tougher skin but soon the cruel comments became “a form of entertainment”. She also points out that when ignored trolls go away or they can be blocked.

A third women says that the internet has made her ADD in the fact that she hates writing an e-mail and prefers to tweet or do anything short. She notes that she does ignore trolls but when someone complements her on the internet she does feel flattered.

Then there are the women who go on about what they feel the internet has done to them and their mental states. Over all very interesting and will defiantly use in paper.

 

"There Are No Girls On The Internet." Know Your Meme News. N.p., 2006. Web. 15 Nov. 2012. <http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/there-are-no-girls-on-the-internet>.

A short video with a with a description of how there is sexism on the internet and how to “hide” the fact that you are a girl. It doesn’t really give you a reason why it’s bad to be a girl on the internet other than being harassed by trolls.

 

Lee, Aileen. "Why Women Rule The Internet." TechCrunch RSS. TechCrunch RSS, 20 Mar. 2011. Web. 15 Nov. 2012. <http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/20/why-women-rule-the-internet/>.

Here Lee is giving a lot of numbers to help explain why women “rule” the internet. She states that women are a driving force of buying things, even renting that is making internet retail so powerful. She also points out how women use a lot of social media. She notes how women make up 80% of things online. When it comes to face book 62% of messages are from women. She also notes that women follow more blogs and vlogs.

 

H, Christina. "The 5 Biggest Mistakes Women (Like Me!) Make On The Internet." Cracked.com. N.p., 4 Apr. 2010. Web. 15 Nov. 2012. <http://www.cracked.com/article_18536_the-5-biggest-mistakes-women-like-me21-make-internet.html>.

Here Ms.H is giving women guide lines of what not to expect on the internet. She basically is stating the obvious to adults but her audience might be teens. Still she’s funny and right about many things. We can ever expect to be thought of as original unless we do something original. Good to go on off of why women might first go to the internet for. What we might have expected as a young child.

http://feministing.com/

Not sure how to go about this website but I feel it might be important later.

 

Marbles, Jenna. "What Girls Do On The Internet." YouTube. YouTube, 15 June 2011. Web. 15 Nov. 2012. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRGIruJ3DPo>.

This is a fairly funny skit of what women, according to Jenna, do. By exsamining the comical side of this issue I think I can begin to see where women see themselves on the internet.

*Keep in mind I will edit this letter*

Dear Women of the internet

Over the Couse of my English class I have been forced to reexamine gender as I have never done before. We knit picked over so many insignificant details that at one point mattered in our culture and social structure but are no longer so relevant. We are living in the 21^st century and the more I reexamined the ancient ways of gender discrimination I have begun to think of what are the new forms of discrimination that we as women face. For a moment let’s not look too deeply into money or politics though I do plan to mention them in my paper; but I ask that we women look at social discrimination. We already have a good idea of how discrimination works in the real world whether though harassment or just being included due to our gender. But how much have we thought about the internet the new social hangout of our generation. What do people think of women on the internet? How do we see each other how do men see us? Of course we know that there is sexism on the internet but to what degree. Are there havens for women online; is there a place we dominate? Are ads aimed at women different on the internet then they are online. Are there social expectations on the internet? Does the internet have exceptions to its rules if it has any rules? I plan to go into this in my paper and try to find some answers to who women are when they’re on the internet. Of course I’ll be forced to narrow my topic but I am very interested to find out how we the ladies of the united internet see ourselves online.

Proposal #2

As a society gender no longer defies who we are as a person.

Logos: As stated by Reihan Salam in The Death of the Macho “The era of male dominance is coming to an end.” Our society is finally at a point we’re being born a certain sex will not determine how far they can climb up the ladder of power and for the first time the gender roles are becoming more socially flexible. There are still certain hurtles that both men and women. For men it’s still considered unordinary for them to do the majority of child care or even house work. There is still a stigma that men must be the main provider for the family but that is changing faster than ever. Women also have to continue to cross hurdles as well. A women still earns 77 cents to ever dollar a man makes for the same work. (Fitzpatrick) There are still battles being fought against women’s rights but we cannot ignore the progress made. It is now unacceptable for ignorant statements made against women as in the case of Mitt Romney with his “binder filled with women” quote and with the example of Todd Akin and his idea of legitimate rape. Saying such things can hurt men in power and even be what gets them unelected. The women vote is now a grand power that many fight for because they know that women can make or break an election.

                I hope the Logos of my audience is that they will understand why gender does not affect us as it once did though still holds power in today’s world.

Pathos: As a woman myself I can help but sometimes feel angry at how deprived and hurt women are through history. Enough is enough. We may not have achieved total equal rights, pay, and political power as we wished but to act as if progress has not been made is despicable. It’s not to say that we should be happy with the way things are, we’d be fools to sit around and not defend and increase our rights or take further steps towards gender equality; but to have the topic of gender shift to the “poor me” attitude is not alright. We can look to the past of women but that doesn’t mean we should live in the mentality that the reason we have to fight so hard to succeed is because we are women. We have to fight because success is never easy.

                I hope the Pathos of my argument will most support my paper. Most of gender is what is in our mines and I hope to exsplain to the audience why female members are not completely unequal and remind them that women do have power. I will also add how men have been affected.

Ethos: from personal experiences I can say that the only times I was hindered for being a woman was as a child on the playground.  Boys wanted to play with other boys and the same went for girls. But as I became older there was a shift in our behavior. We had to treat each other as equals because that was what was expected. I’ve also have seen how young children are taught the same morals. Treat others as you wish to be treated. Others includes girls and boys.

                I hope my ethos of life examples will further help my case.

Fitzpatrick, Laura. "Why Do Women Still Earn Less than Men?" Times.com. Times US, 10 Apr. 2010. Web. 8 Nov. 2012. <http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1983185,00.html>.