Gendering of the Internet- Professor Meraz

After reading a couple blog posts on Professor Meraz’s lecture, what I found most intriguing was the idea of gendering in the 21^st century.  From looking over history one would think that this subject must be dead.  As Professor Meraz mentioned, there are many women entering into more types of fields than ever before.  But, after witnessing technology and career interests in my own like and watching Professor Meraz’s lecture, I realize that this is just not the case.  Gendering and sexism are arising in different ways than ever before because of the advancement of technology and increase in different media platforms.  I found her study of women in the computer science field (with its very low numbers) and discussion with the class quite applicable to my own life experiences that I had not thought of before.

Throughout high school and college, I have dabbled in programming and taken the necessary I.T. classes, but past the basic hardware and software issues, I am easily baffled. I have long relied on my brother or boyfriend to help me any time a computer does something crazy on me that I just know nothing about.  I realize, though, this isn’t because I don’t have the ability to figure it out on my own, but socially I have found it acceptable to ask them to do things for me instead.  I believe this is what Meraz was pointing out; girls become socialized to act, like, and dislike certain things from a very young age.  When a young girl is taught that it’s okay to let guys do the dirty work for her, her idea of what is “fun” will definitely reflect that.  Professor Meraz’s idea of socialization as a root in the inequality of women in technology reminded me of our lecture on “Perception” and “Beauty.”  In American culture, attractiveness and extroverted people usually gain success more easily than those without.  This is especially true, it seems, with women.  That is why Meraz’s notion that a girl would be more interested in the technological field (of programming and coding versus design and user interface work that is usual of females) if she were to be exposed to it as acceptable from the very beginning, is a mirroring image of perception as having cultural relativity, just like trends of beauty.

As great as this is to realize, just realizing it will not change the fact that in our American society females just don’t seem as interested in the technological field.  The reasons may be ingrained in our childhoods or treatment by our male counterpart, or even other girls, but the fact still remains.  Professor Meraz even mentioned the increase of female oriented blogs and to me this makes the gender gap seem to only be getting wider.  Hopefully instead of hindering and isolating women in technology, men and more mainstream audiences will be attracted to this blogs in order to balance out their information intake between males in females.  But one can only hope.