Upon reading Shade's article, the quote that hit me hardest was "Those who thought the Web would be more like Ms. than Mademoiselle--believeing that all women were itching for more intellectualism--were deluded."
The real disllusionment here is thinking that every intellectual female is going to be a torch holder and philanthropic worker for new generations of girls to come. I'd say blame the adversiters, but, the root of the problem is with Marlene McDaniel and Rebecca Odes, Esther Drill and Heather McDonald for merging and selling their website to companies that are anti-most of what their original website stood for.
We can be upset with the advertisers, sure, but at the end of the day, obviously these smart women originally wanted to start something for the intellectual good online, saw that they could make money off of it, and sold it to these stereotypical 'girlie' companies.
They knew what they were doing.
Money speaks--we may scoff at it, how advertisers are wanting girls' paychecks and allowances handed over to them, but, what's to say that with or without these advertisments on the web, that these little girls won't grow up and become what McDaniel, Odes, Drill and McDonald are--sell outs banking it on the toying of girls' psyches?
You make a great point that we could blame the advertisers but in the end, they're doing what they have always done and what they are paid to do: sell products and services. It is up to the rest of us to regulate the prevalence and messages behind the ads. Self-regulation, as we have seen in so many other arenas, is not a realistic expectation.
ReplyDeleteI agree. We can't always be victims because that is truly selling out -- we need to own it.
ReplyDeleteAdvertisers continue to successfully sell their products through these sites because girls continue to buy them. The idea of women believing they "need" to look their best in order to be accepted is not new. This idea has been in our society way before media and technology got to the the point they are now. Have these factors worsen the problem? Probably, but again the idea is instilled into girls since they are born (before they even know the word TV). What color do we paint a baby girl's room? What color of clothes do we buy her when she is born? It is like a vicious cycle that goes on and on. And when a little girls happens to dislike playing with dolls, what do we normally hear from people: "she's different," but not the good kind of different, it's more like a weird kind of different.
ReplyDeleteNora
Yes the original owners of the site sold out. That's true. But I would submit that when they got paid it was life-changing type money. I would venture to guess nothing else in their lives was going to pay out the same way. Selling the site was probably a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity as far as the money value was concerned. I'm not excusing them selling the site but I do understand the weight of the decision they made.
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