It's great to see this discussion happening. As the head of a company that
makes software to help change social behavior - from violence to pregnancy
- it has special significance to me, and has put me in touch with some
interesting research - some from within the industry and some from other
educators that bear on our discussion.
It appears among teens, girls are now using both email and chat more often
than boys, so they clearly will use technology when it meets their needs.
One interesting finding from the recent Pew study is that teens - both boys
and girls - seem to be more honest in confronting behavior and expressing
negative feelings via the Internet, than they are over the phone or in
person. This is potentially a good thing for girls, who often err on the
side of passivity and indirect gossip rather than assertive confrontation
in relationships.
And teachers have told us that our media rich, high tech product, seems to
be a way into emotional terrain, for boys who - for the most part -
distrust that, and conversely seems to be a way into greater comfort with
the technology for girls, who use the technology because its content -
human relationships - intrigues them. This seems consistent with
Cornelia's findings.
On the negative side, I don't think it's possible to consider technology
and gender without also looking at the pervasive sexual exploitation that's
happening, especially to young girls over the Internet. Recently, a as
part of developing a computer based Internet safety training program for
McAfee.com (CyberSavvy), I had occasion to look at some of the most recent
data about this. David Finklehor, long a prominent researcher in child
sexual exploitation, was one of three authors of a recent study of sexual
exploitation and the internet. Having been head of a national child abuse
prevention organization myself, and even after spending nearly two decades
hearing horror stories about child sexual exploitation, I thought I was
pretty hardened on this issues. But I was shocked by the pervasiveness of
the problem, and how girls are being manipulated into thinking they "asked
for". Where as we used to talk about 1 in four girls being sexually
abused before the age of 18, now we are hearing of 4 out of ten girls being
sexually accosted on the internet in the last year! - with boys not far
behind. This constant sexual "abrasion" is a fact of life of many 11
year old girls, who venture into chat rooms unprepared for the predation
that is there. A simple - but ugly thing we discovered is that very often
when girls use a standard "emotion" to show displeasure (keyboard based,
smily-face variation of tongue stuck out) they immediately get
propositioned for oral sex.
Girls as well as boys also often unwittingly put personal information in
Member directories, unaware that the "members" who have access to their
personal information are all of the millions of people who use the same
chat program. This has resulted in Internet stalking of teens and
preteens, who for the most part are NOT telling their parents.
So, while we encourage girls to become more comfortable with technology,
we need to be sure we also give them the needed social as well as technical
preparation to make sure their experience there is a safe and healthy one.
We wouldn't send a young girl on a foreign exchange trip without some
awareness of customs and language, as well as the needed shots. In this
case a shot of prevention may well be training in assertiveness, decision
making and connecting to a trustworthy adults, the same things that can
lower their chance of exploitation offline.
Alice Ray
Alice Ray
President & CEO
Ripple Effects
333 Bryant Street, Suite 110
San Francisco, CA 94107
phone 415-227-1669 ext 311
fax 415-227-4998
<aray@rippleeffects.com>
At 4:19 PM -0000 7/17/01, Judith Abrahami <judith_@macam.ac.il> wrote:
As a feminist educator, involved in projects to increase female
participation in mathematics , science & engineering courses, I'm delighted
to follow the discussion on technology & equity .However, it seems about
time we rename the issue, & call it openly " gendered technology".
Technology neither offers nor promotes equity, & like other resources, is
never equally accessible or once accessible, cannot offer the same outcome
to different users..................
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