In a great post on Crikey, author and social critic, Jane Caro argues that social media could be as revolutionary as the pill for women.
Caro gives several examples about how women no longer have to “cop insults about their gender in impotent silence. Thanks to social media and the unmediated access it gave them to the public conversation they could — and did — make their point of view heard loudly.”
Certainly just for basic sanity and health, Caro is right. After Romney made that idiotic comment about “binders full of women” it felt so good to express rage, frustration, and laughter on Twitter with everyone else who “got it.” Romney’s political career didn’t fare too well in that process.
What women have too often been missing is a voice, to express reality as we experience it. Social media allows us to do that, do it easily, and connect with others who are engaged in the same kind of activity.
A few years ago I read a similar article in the New York Times suggesting that instead of getting out of the house, with the internet, women empowered the home. We can all travel the world without getting up from our desks.
Not only that, but given the post I just put up about a less linear, more “looped” understanding and experience of reality, what illustrates the dominance of that symbol better than the “world wide web.” Seriously. Remember when Al Gore, and everyone else, used to describe the internet as a “super highway” that went in “two directions.” Looks like that limited understanding has gone by the wayside…