Old problems and new media

New media erases borders; it allows to speak to everyone… Looks like the biggest dream of Vladimir Lenin becomes truth and kitchen maid can rule the country. But… she really can?

The boldest example of the opportunities given by web 2.0 is included in the slogan of MCI, one of the biggest telecommunications companies in the world: “There is no race. There is no gender. There is no age. There are no infirmities. There are only minds. Utopia? No. The Internet”.

Thanks to Wikipedia, Faceebook, YouTube, Twitter every woman can not only read and receive but also write and produce her own content.

The very huge problem of this “perfect world” is that still Internet has masculine face, and “Egalité” (equality so passionately gained during the French revolution) is not necessary about women. Do you know that weblogs created by men are more popular that women’s reflections? Why? In the article \"Sexism 2.0\" for the German youth magazine «Neon» an expert Susanne Klingner outlined the problem this way: \"Media of the 21st century translate to us gender relations of the 18th century.\" Women are blogging about knitting, men speak out on important topics such as politics and technology. \"Competence in Internet, as well as in society in general, still is seen as a very masculine quality\" - outraged Mrs. Klingner.

Of course there are places in Internet where women talk how to protect their rights and fight against inequality. And still gender is one of the most popular issues in women’s discussion in internet. But so often under such posts some sexist comment appears, and is very hard to prove that your voice is strong and your ideas are great if people have this nourished by centuries vision that the best what a woman can create is an apple pie. Do you agree with this situation? Me personally no!

I live in post-USSR country. About one month ago Ms. Nuzhat Ehsan, UNFPA Country Director said in the frames of some meeting: “Gender equality for women in Ukraine is far from reality”. Women here earn only 70% from the salary of men, even sometimes women have higher qualification and better education level. I want this situation changed. I want women be strong insisting on their ideas. I want to show that in other countries women have similar problem, but there are so many beautiful examples how they achieved great results.

Web 2.0 seems to be an appropriate place for feminist projects which work together closely and strengthen each other. I want to show on my own example how internet can be used for cooperative work, discussion and opinion-forming. Working together on a common text or statement, or discussing, commenting or criticising current issues weblogs is now common practice and I believe together we will reach very high!