About Social Media Today
TechCruch’s recent post Why Women Rule The Internet by Aileen Lee, and the interwebz response to it, is an exercise in wish fulfillment and diversion. With all due respect to Ms. Lee and her advocacy for women, social networking and shopping are not displays of power.
I hate to break it to you, girlfriends, but we women do not “rule” the internet.
As much as I would like to believe that women’s larger use of the internet meant that women actually controlled a proportionate amount of the internet, it does not. Women, as consumers and users, are a large and largely subordinate group of internet participants. As participants, women are more plentiful than men. But women do not “rule”¹ the internet.
Ruling means having power.
Power means having the ability:
- To create what you want to create
- To set the standards for participation
- To set the vision
- To set the priorities
- To choose the goals
- To be the designers of platforms and services
- To be the norm to which designers design unconsciously
- To always feel welcomed, acknowledged, respected and safe
- To make an amount of money commensurate to the contributions of their work
- To own companies
- To decide who gets the venture capital to create a company
- To get the capital to create her company
- To create value– financial value, social value, personal value — for oneself, as an agent and not as subject or ‘target market’
What about the argument that women, as consumers, have power?
Consumers don’t really have “power”. And consumers don’t have “real” power.
Consumers do not have the kinds of power listed above, that would constitute ‘ruling’ the internet.
- Consumers have the “power” to buy, but not to decide what will be sold.
- Consumers have “power” to respond, but not the power to create.
- Consumers have the “power” to select from available options what they’ll support, but they don’t have the power to make.
Consumers are not citizens, consumers are not owners, consumers are not inventors, consumers are not makers.
Purchasing, buying, and spending are reactive behaviors, not initiating behaviors.
Influence is Not Real Power
Contrary to the assumptions behind Why Women Rule The Internet, consumer influence is not power. Being the larger share of any particular marketplace doesn’t mean that a group “rules” that marketplace. Certainly, “buying” and “not buying” are forms of influence (maybe you could call it “power” in qutation marks). Influence is not nothing, but influence is not the same as power.
When we really acknowledge what it means to have power, we recognize when and where we do not have it. We will also recognize when and where to create an internet where women are more than participants, where women have real power.
To be sure, there are pockets of women-created spaces, women-designed platforms, women-owned companies, women thought leaders, women change advocates, and women visionaries on the internet. We’re all out here.
But do we “rule” the internet?
No. Not yet.
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Props to the women of GeekFeminism, and to Terri for her post “DO women rule the internet?”, for always keeping us honest about the place of women, and the opportunties for justice, on the interwebz.
See also:
Facebook for Women vs. Facebook Designed by Feminists: Different vs. Revolutionary
When Will “Social Business” Become Social Change Business?
Want More Women on Tech & TED Panels? Reject Meritocracy and Embrace Curation
¹ We will save for another day the conversation about “ruling” not being the goal of feminists or women.
