Skip to main content

Back in the Trenches



This morning brings another status report from the War Beween Men and Women:

 Study: male D.C. reporters retweet male colleagues three times more than their female colleagues- - Laura McGann, Vox

 In a tweet promoting this article, journalist Kainaz Amaria says:
Twitter is a fun place for men; a hellscape for women - via @lkmcgann & @christinamta


A new study reveals why female journalists are so much less influential on Twitter than men.

“A hellscape for women?” you wonder. Surely that’s a bit of an exaggeration. Considering the amount of negative feedback, sexual harassment, and threats of violence that women are subjected  to on Twitter (and other forms of social media) I’d say hellscape is pretty darned accurate. Add to that the heightened pressure that comes when being on Twitter and functioning successfully is a part of your job and people who should be your peers ignore you, talk around you, and give others credit for your work and ideas. 

This has been happening in the workplace for a long, long time. Social media simply magnifies it. I wrote about this phenomenon as it applies to the local social media scene in 2014 and lamented on the lack of progress in 2017:

Women
Tag or recount all present at an event
RT, Share, comment, and praise work by both men and women
Engage in online dialogue with both men and women
Respond to comments from both men and women
Support both male and female candidates

Men
More likely to tag or recount men present
More likely to RT, share, comment, and praise work by men
More likely to engage in online dialogue with men
Respond more frequently to comments from men
Support and/or take more seriously male candidates

Locally, I continue to see men piling on to support men while being quick to cast doubt when women are challenging the status quo, or negating women’s contributions in online conversations by flat out ignoring them. “Bro culture” is a thing on social media, even right here in Columbia/Howard County. It may not look like the hair-raising incidents of sexual harassment and threats of violence we read about when women dare to speak with confidence/authority on Twitter, but it is there just the same. 

When it comes to politics, I have become hyper-aware of who responds respectfully to constituents. Who engages with women as meaningfully as they do with men? Who includes women, supports women, is willing to allow women to take leadership roles? I’m not going to give any candidate a free pass on this. I’ll say it again:

Equality is empowerment: taking people seriously, allowing them to participate in the conversation, allowing them to be visible. 

Men, especially white men, have privilege. Brought to the world of social media that privilege replicates itself exponentially. Every single interaction we have online is an opportunity to either ignore, maintain, or disrupt that state of affairs. Keep an eye out. If you’re not already painfully aware, you might learn something.








Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents.  When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...
1 comment
Read more

They Can Wait

This is not a typical Saturday post. That’s because, in my community, it’s not a typical Saturday.  Oakland Mills High School, after years of deferred repair, needs massive renovation. It’s pretty simple: when you don’t fix a problem it gets bigger. The school system itself said the the OMHS school building was  "no longer conducive to learning" back in 2018.  2018 .  But Thursday the Boad of Education voted to push it out of the lineup of important projects which will be given the go-ahead to proceed soonest.  In my opinion it’s a terrible decision and sets a dangerous precedent. To explain, here’s the advocacy letter I sent in support of Oakland Mills High School. I was rather proud of it. I am writing to ask you to proceed with needed renovation at Oakland Mills High School in the most timely and comprehensive manner humanly possible. I have read the letter sent to you by the Oakland Mills Community Association and I am in complete agreement. You are extremel...
1 comment
Read more

Columbia Chance Connection

  Last night, as my husband and I were about to sit down to dinner, our front door swung open and a cheery voice announced, “I’m ba—ack!”  We weren’t expecting anyone. Clearly the only people who’d walk right in to our house would be one of our offspring. I had my reading glasses on so I wasn’t seeing too clearly. It seemed too tall for our youngest, but we knew our eldest was at work. I took off my glasses to see a friendly but confused face scanning our living room. When her gaze landed on us we all had a sudden realization. We didn’t know eachother. “Oh I’m so sorry! I’m in the wrong house! My daughter just moved in and she needed hooks for the kitchen so I ran out to get them.” She waved the package. “All these houses look the same and I don’t know the neighborhood yet. I thought this was my daughter’s house.” We were all getting a bit giggly. “That’s okay. For a quick second we thought you were our daughter,” said my husband. I told her our names and said she should defin...
Post a Comment
Read more