Final Blog Entry- On Women and Computers

For my final project, I wanted to re-cap off of what we had learned and discussed in this class. We learned that there have been many struggles with women on the web, including sexism, access to computers and the web, class status, location, and acquiring the skills and knowledge that are necessary for contributing work on the web. Websites and organizations, such as Feministing and NOW are great examples of feminist supported websites, dedicated to uniting with women from all areas and invites them to become activists in their communities and their world. 
Other issues, such as seeing gender differences on social networking websites like Facebook is important because it shows us who researches or does more on a certain topic. The digital divide is another important issue that greatly affects women all around the world, and their access or limited access to acquiring computer skills. I have learned that in other parts of the world, women really struggle to use the computer or web because of the digital divide. As Nadine Moawad said, for example, in Lebanon, some women cannot use public access computers because of the censorship, slow internet speed, and men's use of viewing pornography. This not only enforces the Digital Divide, but puts women in danger as well. 
This class taught me a lot about the importance of knowing computer and web skills to expand my feminism and share my feminist beliefs. Because social networking, blogging, and other feminist web organizations are so widely used as a tool of communication and connecting these days, it is important to know how to use certain tools like hyperlinks, screen shots, heading styles, voice threads, web searching skills, and blogging skills to professionally share your ideas for activism and social change. 
 Learning about women's contribution to the web is especially important, because, as we know from the second digital divide, the world views mostly men as the ones who have the better computer and web use skills. I learned how important it is to properly web search other women who have made great contributions the web, and how their work is part of how we social network and connect today. 
I created a video on Xtranormal, that shows my results of several interviews I conducted with 15 people, 10 male and 5 female. I chose to interview more men than women to see the male perspective of women on the web, because of the sexist stereotype that women cannot contribute technological work on the web. I did not mention any famous women contributors in my interviews. I simply wanted to know their general attitudes towards women, feminism, and their relation to the web. 8 of the 10 men had a positive attitude about women being able to make equal contributions the web and to social networking, and they believed that women can acquire web and computer skills just as easily as men. However, of those 8 men, 6 of the 10 men thought that more men than women have a bigger interest in learning about computer and web skills. Of the 5 women I interviewed, 100% of them had said that they believe women can make equal contributions the web and can learn and acquire basic web and computer skills. Critique: these interviews were only of 15 people, so if I had interviewed more, my results would probably vary. I want to continue to research about people's visualization of women on the web and if they believe women can make great contributions to tools and social websites that are popular today, and teach others about feminist contributions to break the stereotype that women are technological or cannot have these kinds of skills.