*Girls Consuming Music at Home: Gender and the Exchange of Music through New Media –
A. Werner
*TED Talk
Sheryl Sandberg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18uDutylDa4 (sorry, blogger is not letting upload videos or pictures!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18uDutylDa4 (sorry, blogger is not letting upload videos or pictures!)
Sheryl Sandberg is one of Facebook’s COO, and even though she’s not talking about women and media, I felt it was relevant for this week’s readings, considering she works in a major media company and made it to the top. What Sandberg is trying to communicate in this talk, is that the barriers that present to women in various aspects of their lives, are not always the fault of men and society, but often a product of their own minds. “Women systematically underestimate their own ability”, she says, and that’s why they let themselves be dominated by man and their success. This kind of behaviour affects them in every aspect of their lives, and media is just one of these. The way media is directed to women is just a response to what women think of themselves and of what they think they need. In Werner’s article, girls let their brothers own and run the best technologies in the house just because they were men and were supposed to know how to use them better; even though sometimes it wasn’t the case. “Women attribute it (their success) to another factors”. Some of these girls actually knew more of media and technology, but let their brothers in charge of it. If the brother couldn’t download music, it was just because he couldn’t find it, and the girl was lucky… not because she had more skills for media technology than him. This not only represents a loss of power, but also a loss of opportunities; “all the girls with brothers in the study were limited in their access to media technology in ways that affected their listening to music”, and that’s only one of the limitations. These girls are missing out on developing skills that may be useful in the future and that may change how the world and media see women.
“Moreover, the girl’s positions within social power dynamics interacted with the media system and music use”.
Media is not to blame for the world’s vision of women. Maybe no one is. Is just an accumulation of dynamics held in their households and within their friends that trains them to be “less” and not to aim so high in every aspect of their lives? Why should media be the exception?
Hi Ana
ReplyDeleteThanks for your blog post. I think this really shows off your writing skills very well. I like the way you blend these two articles together, identifying the key arguments and then using these ideas to inform your own discussion of Gaydar. Personally, I think there are real dangers in subscribing to Sandberg's line argument and if you were to choose to write on the subject of gender and technology, I'd really welcome the opportunity to discuss these issues with you.
But in terms of your writing skills and your argument development, you are spot on! I think you've produced some great work on your blog and I hope that you've found it useful in practicing your writing and argument development. Well done. Sharif