#digitalfem

Gender, digital media, and social curation was a really pleasant experience, and overall I’m really glad I took the class. Going into it I wasn’t sure what to expect, but week after week I left second guessing the world around me, and pondering the use and evolvement of social media. Social media is still something we’re discovering today, and along with it we’re seeing the same patriarchal society that has affect us, take hold of it’s history as it grows. Fortunately, we’re as a whole more successive, so we’ll be able to fight against it. 

Privacy on the internet is something that scares me more every time I think about it. Our discussion in class really had me doubting everything I did on social media, and every move I made. Recently when I joined Swagbucks for some extra cash, I felt uncomfortable, almost as if I was willing selling information to major companies. Which, I was, but after putting it into perspective last week, it just didn’t sit right with me. It really made me wonder why the government and companies need to know these type of things about me and my friends and family. Certain survey wanted to know the exact month and years I was born in, and it really concerned me. I don’t believe privacy on the internet exists. I don’t believe anonymity exists. I believe we are all at will of those watching us and searching us. Unfortunately, there’s not much we can currently do about it, other than prevent laws on social media and the internet from passing. 

Body acceptance walks a thin line on social media. On one hand, it is a good thing to teach people, especially women and young women, to accept and appreciate their body for what it is, I don’t think it’s ok to encourage fatness and unhealthy habits. I think that body acceptance should be taught while encouraging healthy habits. Healthy does not necessarily mean thin, but in most cases it does not mean fat. Overweight can definitely be ok, but obesity is definitely not something that should be encourage in the fat acceptance movement. 

The idea that an aesthetic and a look on social media in an effort to sell yourself is seen as an ok, and encouraged thing, yet appearing nude in an effort for attention is looked down upon. While I think the idea of selling oneself is a ridiculous, yet clever, effort, I think it’s silly that it suddenly becomes bad when one does it nude. I see nothing wrong with someone sharing their nude body on the internet in an effort for likes, attention, or even money. The act of selling oneself isn’t looked down upon when it’s done on instagram, or even in real life with labor workers, yet the minute anything becomes sexual it’s immediately seen as bad. 

The way people fashion themselves on the internet is interesting and fascinating to watch, although very perplexing. It’s crazy to think that people feel like they need to make this image out of themselves on the internet. People feel like they need to appear a certain way, and act a certain way in a desperate attempt for more “likes” and followers on social media. Something that wasn’t relevant or important as recent as 15 years ago, is now a way that people make their living. People feel that they need a certain “aesthetic” and look in order to make their life appealing to strangers on social media. 

I feel sexting is such a misunderstood case in teenagers. I feel that this may be because of older generations lack of understanding of digital media and texting, and there general lack of understanding of adolescents and their sexuality. Young teenage and preteen children, specifically young women are always questioned for their sexuality, and being targeted on ways to repress their sexuality. Sexting is very similar to phone sex, the only difference is that it’s able to be documented with texting. I think adults should expect that their children will be texting once they reach adolescence, as it’s very natural for their children to explore their sexuality and reach out for that attention with peers. I don’t think they should be trying to repress there children from sexting, because it will just make them better at sexting. I also think that young girls should stop getting most of the flack they get for exploring their sexuality. It’s unfair for girls to be getting repressed for exploring, while young boys are encouraged. 

What I’ve noticed in the digital world is that while women (particularly women in white and black communities) have seen to found their own prominent voices on the internet and blogging communities, there seems to be other minorities that lack the same attention. Hispanic women, native american women, pacific islanders, and Asian women are just a few that come to mind when I think of the lack of attention. While white women and black women have found power behind their own movements, these other minorities are still not really considered in the grand scheme of things, and there voices seem to be a lot smaller and  a lot less important. Power seems to currently be circulating pretty evenly by white and black women, but there are still voices that aren’t being heard and that are being under misrepresented. 

One wouldn’t think that feminism and cyber feminism can be racist, or exclusionary, but the entire new wave of feminism was by mostly white, middle class, cis-gendered women. Unfortunately feminism wasn’t always as intersectional as it is today, in fact cyber feminism today still has some hints of racism. For a long time the web was thought to nullify racism in the digital world, but just because we can’t see each others faces, doesn’t mean others won’t pass judgement on us. This can even be seen on tumblr today, with the way RadFems and TERFs run rampant in their own communities. While feminism has made some great steps, and intersectionality is very important today, others still refuse to accept it, even when hiding behind a computer screen.