Hi everyone, I'm Felicia. I'm doing a Bachelor of Arts ( Communication Studies) and I'm from Singapore.
With regards to Week four's discussion, I believe that blogging can be free of gender bias but it will take time.
Society has come a long way, from dictating men should be the sole breadwinner of the house, to recognizing equal status for men and women, to one now, that accepts house husbands. Change is constant and the recognition of women playing a bigger role is part of that constant.
People tend to blog about things that first come to mind. Therefore, if a women's role were the breadwinner of the house as compared to being a housewife, her first priority would most definitely not be the household chores or looking after the chidren.
As more women put their careers first and house husbands become the norm, the situation will either be reversed to a point where women will be the ones dominating political debates, or the ratio will be equal.I don't see why similar evolution cannot happen for gender bias in the online community, when the bias is based on the topics written by members of the respective genders.It is just a matter of time.
Hey Felicia,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you insofar as society has changed. However, I would argue that society has a long way to go.
Gregg's article, which was written in 2006, drew our attention to the gender injustices both online and offline that persist in our society, today. It also highlighted that the gender imbalance between male/female bloggers is due to the reality that women have less time to blog because of the unequal distribution of labour between genders, offline, in the real world.
Someone in the tutorial raised that this felt like something from the 1950s and by implication that such politics are passe. Studies suggest that the gap between the division of housework and childcare contribition between men and women hasn't changed as much as we would have hoped (Bulbeck, Living Feminism). In addition, Gregg's article highlights that increased entry into the workforce does not mean the end of domestic responsibility. The reality is that many women are subject to the 'second shift.' That is, they bear the brunt of responsibility of looking after children and doing housework after they finish work.
I think this illustrates that seeking 'equality' in order to overturn imbalances in society is fundamentally, naieve. A "reversal" of roles is not the answer either. Kate Millet said that what we need is to "change the recipe of the cake." I think this is such a neat way of putting it. What we need is a new way of doing things, we need to replace these patriarchal, heteronormative structures. It must be acknowledged that some people are effected far more then others by these structures but we are all implicated.
And in relation to your title- because gender has such a huge influence on how people lead their lives. Gender influences how we interact with others, how we see the world, how we act in the world, how we are conditioned to think.
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ReplyDeletei believe that the internet is a very good means to which the whole gender issues can be broken but then it also causes a new problem. i was thinking about the whole idea that it is often hard to tell the gender of a blogger who uses a strange form name. Often this gives people the opportunity to talk without gender being used to backlash a comment or just a stupid ignorant means by which another blogger can make themselves feel superioir about a certain topic. but then i look to the issue that women are still supressed by this means because they have to hide their gender rather than be accepted with it out in the open (and the same thing could apply for men on specific sites). I find it often hard to believe that in such a modern society gender can still have such an influence on our abiltiies and respectability, but it does and the internet helps but also shows that.
ReplyDeleteThe only other site i really visit is one set up for women/wives who have husbands working on the mines and these women get together to talk about how hard that can make life especially if you are married or have children. These womena re so busy and confined to the hosuehold, however unlike the older days they do have access to the outside world through the internet and it is allowing suppressed busy house wives the ability to socialise and communicate world wide. I think I will be looking into this site more for our assignment because it is rare for people to think about the impact it has on women as they normally look to the impact it (working in the mines) has on the men working there.
Its hard to believe that gender is still such an important topic and such a power crusher in this society but sadly wehen you take a closer look its often true!!!