The Web 2.0 Revolution: Not Your Parents Dial-Up

Scroll. Click. Connect. Three words so simple yet so omnipotent they account so much for our digitally complex age that it’s been called a revolution—the Web 2.0 Revolution. The weapons of choice? Limitless, from citizenship-journalism by way of digital media, to the lightning speed transmission of social media. The Luminaries leading the way? Us, Women of the World, with absolutely nothing to lose, with so much to say, and so much to gain.

This is not your parents dial-up.

This is our era of social change, uploaded and tweeted by millions, youtubed by a hundred million in just a matter of hours, from the mass mobilization of Indian women against rape culture, to the unwavering determination of Malala Yousafzai for education. This is transformation at our fingertips and the potential of a world, braver, more humane than any writer from the 20th century has ever cooked up, is a very real possibility. I can think of nothing more exciting, more freeing than to be in the thick of a digital revolution of a million women with unrestrained fervour and armed to the hilt with techno savvy.

This is where Web 2.0 as a medium for transformation does its duty in the struggle against the powers that talk for us, creating solutions that do not correlate to our class, race or gender. In the riff-raff of political pundits and mainstream news, Web 2.0 enables women to participate in political and social arenas where we have been historically been left out and censored. Where our stories have been written for us, our experiences dismissed because someone like Louis Althusser never wrote it. On this note, let me tell you two things: 1. Louis Althusser is dead; and 2. if he were alive, I wouldn’t let him speak for me or for the Global Sisterhood.

That we are able to write a version of events from our perspective, to take ownership of our history and achievements are advances against a status quo determined to quell us. In the process of globalizing our struggle and working towards a world compatible with our shared values, we are reconstructing our homes whether it is in the urban rainforest of Vancouver or the busy streets of New Delhi. It’s not always about joining them if can’t beat them. It’s about leaving them and starting something else, from the ground up.

To be heard and acknowledged is the beginning towards empowerment; to take part and lead something bigger than you is to be empowered. Though I cannot speak of the experiences of women in all parts of the world, I can say with certainty that in North America, alienation is a cancer of a social kind, a rancor that I’m trying to free myself from. To be engaged in social movements is half the cure, and Web 2.0 is my axe and my bridge.

On this bridge towards humanity, I extend solidarities wherever I am because I belong here, in this movement.

And that’s a beautiful thing.