Our very own Nicole Cohen is quoted over at Utne in a Science and Technology blog piece titled “Beauty and The Blogs:”
“Access to information and tech knowledge carries with it great political, economic and social weight,” Cohen writes. “If women are left out of the discourse about information technology and new media, you can bet we’re left out of the production and sharing of social and economic power, too.”
Read the whole article here.
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10 comments
Hmmm, I think the author slightly misrepresented me when she wrote "All of the blog posts and online profiles made by women don’t amount to much, according to Nicole Cohen in Shameless magazine, so long as the creators of Web 2.0 continue to be young men like the founders of YouTube, Google, and Facebook."
That wasn't quite my argument.
Posted by Nicole
March 5, 2008, 9:25 AM
Reminds me of the time I was interviewed about the vital socio-political relevence of the Spice Girls in a larger feminist context:
“I remember (dressing up as) Baby Spice,” says Stacey May Fowles, publisher of Shameless, a Toronto-based magazine geared toward progressive teen girls. “I don’t think it was a guilty pleasure. I was totally into them.”
Yah. Thanks. I didn't say a bunch of other, smart stuff or anything.
Posted by Stacey May
March 5, 2008, 9:56 AM
I've got one of those too!
"The speeches shed light on the three stations at the base: Camp Delta, Camp Iguana and the now closed Camp X-Ray.
“Because this involves a First World country, it makes Guantanamo Bay more relevant,” Ms Gill said."
Totally, entirely out of context... it sounds as if torture and a blatant disregard for human rights law is more important if it happens in the developed world.
Posted by Lex Gill
March 5, 2008, 11:18 AM
"Often, zine writers have no talent." - Anna Leventhal.
Hey, this is fun!
Posted by Anna
March 5, 2008, 11:34 AM
This is fun!
Fowles claims there is a dearth of literature dealing with University-aged women at this stage in their lives that "aren’t stereotypical-driven portrayals of boy-crazy martini drinking shopoholics."
Posted by Stacey May
March 5, 2008, 11:38 AM
That one's pretty good, actually. Wish I had said it.
Posted by Anna
March 5, 2008, 12:13 PM
Anna, that quote made me laugh out loud. Hm, I haven't been misquoted so much as described as some sort of compulsive, maniacal volunteer. All from a single article:
"Die-hard volunteer Thea Lim says..."
"Uber-volunteer Lim spends the afternoon"
"When asked about the lack of payment, Lim's unconcerned...she beams!"
Ok, maybe I added the exclamation mark.
Posted by Thea
March 5, 2008, 12:20 PM
I think I'll start calling you Thea "Live Free or Die Hard" Lim.
Yeah, what I actually said was something like "Zines are great because writers don't need to worry about things like editors, profit margins, marketability, and sometimes even talent! Ha ha! Jokes, jokes, people."
I sometimes seriously wonder what people learn in journalism school.
Posted by Anna
March 5, 2008, 12:39 PM
Nicole, I'd love to hear you give your side of things here, if you've got the time!
Posted by Thene
March 5, 2008, 7:01 PM
Sure. Generally, I think the Utne piece was making some of the same points I was trying to make in my column about the Boy Geeks of Web 2.0 (available here: http://www.shamelessmag.com/issues/20...).
I highly recommend you read the Rolling Stone article I cite, which gives a really horrifying picture of the gendered division of labour in silicon valley. Of course there are many women working -- very hard and quite successfully -- in these industries, but the point I was trying to make is that the mainstream media portrayal of them is very different from the way in which men are portrayed, which can mask really critical social relations that can tell us a lot about patterns of power in new media.
It's not only that boy "geeks" are portrayed, as the Utne article notes, as loveable and harmless, but that this depiction of them tends to erase the underlying structures of power that enable a certain class of men to become well-established in the power structures of media ownership. Sites like Facebook and Myspace are very powerful. Not only because of the millions of members they have or their massive revenues, but also because of the way they are shaping the development of the digital economy, which can have serious implications for the rest of our lives (for example, how we learn, work, and relate to each other).
So, while it's critical to have blogs and content by women that can give realistic and positive representation of women online and in the tech world (and sure, portrayals of girl geeks are great, but I'm not sure that's the main issue at hand here), it's critical that we also look at the behind-the-scenes stuff, like ownership and employment patterns, rank in these industries, the gender of investors, CEOs, etc.
Posted by Nicole
March 6, 2008, 10:10 AM
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