WEB 2.0 AND WOMEN EMPOWERMENT

The World Wide Web started as a loose collection of links to documents for various universities and research centers. Today, the Web is a highly interactive medium for consuming content and conducting business. A fundamental evolution of the Web that has made this possible has been termed "Web 2.0." The technologies behind Web 2.0 provide a richer user experience and make use of information in unique ways. However, Web 2.0 is more than just technology, as it encompasses social interactions and a variety of business models. It is among the first concepts to combine technical, social, and business theories. We are relating this to how it empower the women to make there voice heard.

What is Web 2.0 itself? A social phenomenon referring to an approach to creating and distributing Web content itself, characterized by open communication, decentralization of authority, freedom to share and re-use, and ‘the market as conversation.’ Wikipedia.org

The contribution of Web 2.0 to the global empowerment movement is now a word of joy and happiness to the entire world.

I would like to show that there is a link between web 2.0 and women empowerment. Let us note, however, that the term ‘empowerment’ here is used here not in the usual psychological or economic sense of ‘subjective well being,’ but in a more ancient and more spiritual sense of cosmic order and harmony. Rationale behind this is rather complex, and at least requires a full paper of its own. However, the idea, basically, is that by equating empowerment with subjective well being, the moral dimension and the spiritual side of the matter is left out. One can be ‘empowered’ when one is only satisfied with the material consumption. But as all religious traditions point out, this is not adequate at all, and there is obviously more to empowerment than mere consumption. What web 2.0 can offer in promoting empowerment is that, by allowing people to network together and by allowing them to express themselves to their communities, the technology allows for a level of happiness that has hitherto been rather difficult to achieve. Empowerment can be achieved here only it is understood as something that arises when one fulfills one’s goal and one’s sense of ‘belonging’ to something that is greater than oneself. At any rate it is hard to see how material consumption would have anything to do with social networking, so if empowerment is equated with the former, then one would indeed by hard pressed to see how web 2.0 can lead to happiness at all.

Women around the world has really make use of Web 2.0 to make there voice heard. Blogging, twitting, facebooking, and some other social networks have made it easy for every voice to be heard.

I can boldly say that what these technologies are doing is to promote a kind of empowerment for the women and here web 2.0 could be relevant for the movement.