The Internet is the New Men's Club

Justin Tsang

HSS 371

Blog #2-Internet Majority

9/27/2015

The Internet is the New Men’s Club

            Politics, Wall Street, and football: what do all these things have in common? They are all dominated by men, and the Internet is in no way different. As of late 2013, there are over 2.8 billion Internet users, and over 1.5 billion of them are males. In the tech industry, the workforce has been predominantly white and Asian men, and consequently, there is a lack of gender and racial diversity in Silicon Valley. At Apple, there is a two-to-one ratio of male to female, and at Google, only 17 percent of the employee tech workforce is females (Peck). One of the most recent and pertinent account of female segregation from the tech world is the resignation of Reddit’s CEO, Ellen Pao. During her time at Reddit as CEO, she faced discrimination and hatred from two groups: Reddit users and her former employer, Kleiner Perkins. Reddit users attacked and harassed Ellen Pao for censoring sub-Reddit pages and for firing a former Reddit employee, and her employer allegedly discriminated Pao because of her gender. The fact that the pressure from Internet hatred targeted towards Ellen Pao could cause her to resign from her position and give up on her passion is a shame.

            The underlying issue with this decrease in females aspiring to work in the tech world is because of traditional American culture that still exists today. In a research conducted by University of Washington, it reported that females choose to not pursue a career in the tech field because of the nerdy stereotype created by the American culture and media (Soper). To be honest, I agree with this stereotype. When I think of a tech nerd working at Silicon Valley, I think of a scrawny male who got into programming through video games. Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, and Michael Dell are all dominant figures in the tech industry but are also all males. Their influence in the development of technology is so pervasive that everything they say is what goes. For instance, Mary Lou Jepsen, an executive director at Facebook, started a project, One Laptop Per Child, that aimed to provide laptop to children is less developed countries. However, these same iconic figures in the tech industry said that her vision is impossible (Bracker). When these powerful individuals tell you that you cannot do something in the field you have devoted your entire passion to, it puts you down. For these female individuals, who worked at Silicon Valley, these remarks made them feel isolated from being creative and has caused many to turn away from technology.

            And it is not just the tech industry, but also social media sites on the Internet. Females who attempt to make a presence or statement on the Internet are immediately shut down or harassed. For example, Amanda Hess received a death threat over Twitter for her statement on females’ sexual relationships with males. In this tweet, he threatened to rape and decapitate her and promised to be the one to kill her. While this is an extreme case of Internet harassment, there are still a plethora of verbal harassments and cyber bullying females encounter on the Internet. People insult women on their physical appearances or voicing out their opinions, such as Nicole Arbour’s YouTube video “Dear Fat People.”

           

            In my opinion, people who put themselves out there on the Internet to be criticized should expect to receive hate from Internet trolls whose sole job is to spread negativity. I think that this is not an issue of gender gap on the Internet. If you think that it is only females who get harassed and receive mean comments over the Internet, then you are obviously on the wrong websites. I know plenty of males and females who are criticized and judged for their beliefs and physical appearance; such as Summit1g, a streamer on Twitch, who is bullied for having a big head or Shay Carl, a vlogger on YouTube, who has Internet trolls threatening to hurt his children. When anyone puts themselves out there in the public, especially famous people, there will always be people jealous of their fame writing hateful comments. It all depends on the mental strength of these people to overlook these criticisms and ignore these Internet haters.   

Works Cited

Bracker, Rachel. "The 26%: Facebook's Mary Lou Jepsen Says Tech Is Hostile to Women (Video)." Recode. n.p., 23 Sept. 2015. Web. 27 Sept. 2015.

Peck, Emily. "The Stats On Women In Tech Are Actually Getting Worse."The Huffington Post. n.p., 27 Mar. 2015. Web. 27 Sept. 2015.

Soper, Taylor. "Study: Women Avoid Computer Science Careers Because They Think 'nerds' Are Smelly and Pale." GeekWire. N.p., 25 June 2013. Web. 27 Sept. 2015.