The New York Times offers another internet-thwacking opinion piece. While criticizing the current state of gender relations, Joanne Lipman determines that the internet is a major cause of gender inequality.
Lipman dates a decline in the status of women from 9-11. The wars play a role, the precise nature of which is hard to make out in the article. But technology also drives the crisis
The Internet gave everyone a soapbox. The louder, the more offensive, the better.
Having thusly solved social media and SEO metrics, Lipman moves on:
The conversation online about women, as about so many other topics, degenerated from silly and snarky to just plain ugly — and it seeped into the mainstream.
Online discourse starts at silly and snarky, one notes, then goes downhill. There's no room for good quality at all.
There's also no room for feminists online, or feminist content, apparently.
I’ve been puzzled by these screeds, which are so at odds with the real achievements documented in the Shriver Report and elsewhere.
Having dunned the entire internet, Lipman then... considers counterarguments? admits exceptions? pursues the point? No, she simply races onwards, eventually advising women to respond by, among other things, having a sense of humor and not fearing to be girls.
Again, the Times apparently is satisfied by this kind of internet-slamming writing to share its editorial space with it. Cheap, shallow gestures of disdain are worth publishing. Perhaps it's ok if they're silly and snarky, because they won't drop below that level.
I very much wish the NY Times would stop writing about the internet. It's not even offensive any more so much as it's ludicrously embarrassing and painful to watch.
Posted by: Andrea A. Phillips | October 28, 2009 at 13:17
I wonder how influential the NYTimes is, Andrea, for writing about the internet. It's hugely influential in many circles. If they'd improve their publications on cyberculture, maybe it could help...?
Posted by: Bryan Alexander | October 30, 2009 at 10:09