The first is a video from CollegeHumor.com, which I have very helpfully embedded here for your convenience. This video, Internet Commenter Business Meeting, basically summarizes the experience of just about any popular internet forum. Pay close attention to the blatant sexism that is freely expressed at the meeting, as well as the way new members, or "n00bs", and serious commentators are treated.
The reason this video is so funny is because it's so true. This is what it is like on the internet. It also demonstrates why women are sometimes very selective about when they reveal their gender. It is often easier to pretend to be a guy than to deal with the kind of sexual harassment you WILL get if you reveal that you are a girl. On one internet forum that I am a member of, the phrase "TITS OR GTFO" usually means the death of my post, and that no one will take the discussion remotely seriously from that point out. Because of the harassment, the girls of the site have created a private board only female members can access. No one would ever behave in this fashion in person, but on the internet where your comments are largely anonymous and you can make and remake your internet identity as often as you please. This isn't limited to sexual harassment either. While the video did show how you will also get harassed for being new to the forum or certain tasks, you may also be harassed for being any kind of minority. "Nigger" is not a word people are afraid to say, and racism, sometimes faux rascism, is a very common thing to encounter. If you belong to any other sexual minority -- gay, transvestite, furry -- you are likely to be the target of quite a lot of harassment.
By pointing this out I'm not advocating to have forums strictly monitored for sexism/racism or anything like that. It is more important to remind anyone who experiences this harassment on the internet to NOT let them get rise out of you. When navigating the wild, intellectual wasteland that is the internet, the best advice to follow is this: "Do NOT feed the trolls."
Here is an article my boyfriend pointed out to me: Bayonetta: empowering or exploitative? If you are not an avid gamer and not familiar with some of the newest releases, Bayonetta is a video game that just recently came out, in which you play a woman who pretty much fights naked. Honestly, even after reading the article, I don't get it, and I'm not really interested in playing the game. I prefer sandboxes, RPGs, and MMOs myself. It looks really boring to me, I just don't get all the hype. Frankly, Sarah Lyons of the Lyon's Pride, from Fallout 3, is all the female empowerment I need in my video games.
Last up is an NPR news report, Modern Marriages: The Rise Of The Sugar Mama. Of course, the article still remembers to remind us that women only make 77 cents to the dollar of what men make, but it does point out some of the changing dynamics of marriage and money when the woman makes more than the man, which is becoming more and more a common occurence. I just found this news report so haven't had much time to think on it or mull it over, but there is one interesting point it brought up: who stays home to take care of the kids, and how do you decide that? In one interview they did with a couple, they decided that the man would stay home because he made less money than she did. Personally, no matter how much money I make, I'm going to have to be the one staying home with the kids when I get married and have children. I can't imagine coping with my jealousy otherwise.
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