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