Virtual PTA

For years, schools around the country have had organizations known as PTAs, or the parent-teacher associations. The PTA at my school held meetings to discuss issues and concerns about students and try to come up with ways to solve these issues. One concern at my school was after-prom activities. Many were worried about students and the dangers of partying after prom. Many other meetings were about the safety of children walking home or being safe in parking lots after nighttime events such as Friday night football games. With the new virual world, parents and teachers have the new concern of bullying, cyber stalking or online predators. This has become a main focus of media, the dangers of young girls being online. The anonymity of the virtual world is scary. There have been cases when young girls have met someone online and decided to meet them in person. The person then turns out to be a predator and the innocent girl has become another victim. This is definitely an important issue, and I believe parents and teachers should talk to thier children and warn them of these danger. However, as I have learned in my Virtual Girls course, girls are more likely to be harmed by someone they know than an online predator. The media has made it seem as though online predators attack victims all the time and that it is almost inevitable that your young girl will be a victim if she is allowed online unsupervised. However, this is not the case. I believe that, as I said earlier, parents and teachers should ensure that the young girls (and boys) are aware of this danger, but they should not invade their privacy or discount the advantages to the online world. Parets and teachers should just assure ther children that they can come to them if they need anything, with any questions so that the children feel comfortable talking to them. Just as PTAs come up with safe after-prom spaces for high school students, Virtual PTAs should assure the children that they have a safe space to go to if something happens online.

Homecoming QueEn

Everyone knows the type of girl I am talking about; the popular girl, "prettiest" girl, the girl all the boys want to date and who all the girls wish to be like, the girl with the est hair, the best style, makeup, etc., basically, the homecoming queen. In our class I read an article on online communities geared towards girls. The specific site is Alloy.com, but there are many other sites with the same idea. Basically, corporations set up sites that promote their products, only they hide the purpose of the site by posing as a place for girls to communicate and learn about all things "girly." On these sites the corporations advertise their products to a large base of youngs girls by making their site seem like the stereotypical high school homecoming queen."If she is careful, the Alloyer can, in these various subsections, learn about the current popular trends without violating any fashion dictates, and then be praised for a job well done. Through its emphasis on style, Alloy seems to be functioning as the quintessential popular girl-being looked up to and dictating style trends while ridiculing and ostracizing those who do not measure up, for example, those needing makeovers." (Girl Wide Web 2.0, p. 270) They write articles on how to tranform into the "it" girl and then add links into the articles for specific products. The also provide "real" life role models in their promotion of celebrities. There are articles about the much older celebrities such as Beyonce and Britney Spears. "In this way, girls are presented with a celebraion of older, sexualized, commodified role models." (Girl Wide Web 2.0, p.274) I visited the site and saw first hand the propaganda and the way the site becomes the virtual "Homecoming QueEn."

Facebook PDA

In high school, many students get into trouble for PDA- public displays of affection. I always viewed PDA as a way of expressing yourself, specifically your sexual identity. With the new age of social networking profiles, the concept of PDA has changed. Almost all profiles on social networking sites have a section for your "relationship status". The new way of showing PDA is to post photos of yourself and your significant other, make your rellationship status read "in a relationship," and then "tag" the person so everyone knows who you are dating. On Facebook, you can even put your anniversary date on your page. It serves all the purposes of PDA in high school, only you do not have to worry about going to detention. In fact, some social community sites, like Alloy.com, celebrate relationships in a "PDA" section where girls can post photos of themselves and their boyfriends. I say girls and their boyfriends not because I only approve of heterosexual couples, but because these sites are only heterosexual friendly. The idea of homosexuality is frowned upon because it does not fit into the idea of the "popular" girl and these sites udually emphasize that all girls should try to fit into that stereotype. However, there is a plus side to social networking sites and their forms of PDA and expression of sexuality. You can choose to put your sexual preference on your profile. Girls can choose to prefer girls, boys, or both. This, to me, is a great way to express a part of your identity. By studying girls and their relation to social networks I am sure there are girls who are bullied online if they choose to publicly display a preference other than heterosexuality, just as many girls suffer ridicule in high school. However, giving the option to express homosexuality is a step towards society accepting the LGBT community and it gives girls a way to express themselves publicly.

Sex-Ed and the Boy's Only Club

With the digital world taking over the real world, one has to wonder if women, and girls, are going to have a more prominent role in this "new" world than they have in the past. One way to find out if they have so far is to look at the representation of women in the "digital workforce" and what affect that may have on girls becoming more involved. I recently read an article on women working as video game designers. Video games have become very popular among both boys and girls. The article even states that females make up 40% of the gaming community. However, women only make up about 11% of the video game designers. I feel that this has a major affect on how women are portrayed within these video games. I work at a gambling arcade and I watc the different slot machines, which are just like video games only with money as points, and I see first-hand how this lack of women in the field affects the portrayal of women. Almost all of the women in games are dressed in risque clothing, with big breasts, tiny frames, almost Barbie-like. In fact, one of the games has a Barbie-like female remove clothing and bounces her breasts if you win. This type of sexual portrayal is in many different types of video games, as can be seen in games such as Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto. The most worrisome aspect of this is that young girls make up 40% of the video game players, and they are constantly exposed to this male and media inspired idea of how a woman should look to be considered "sexy". Just as in High School, boys have pictures of supermodels and swimsuit editions of Sports Illustrated magazines and girls try to force themselves to look like those almost impossible images. And with the lack of women in the field to prevent it from happening, will girls ever be safe from "pretty girl" propoganda? The article does shed some hope on this question. The end of the article talks about more girls being interested in App design and social network game design. If this happens, the door may open for more females to enter all types of game design. This may help girls enter the "boys only club" and change it from being misoginistic to female-friendly. The article can be found at http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-08-05/business/sc-biz-0806-women-gamers-20100805_1_international-game-developers-association-game-development-gaming-world

FanFiction: The Lunch E-Table

Many girls, and boys, are familiar with the move Mean Girls. In this movie, which is about a girl coming home to America and having her first experience in an American High School, there is a scene about lunch tables. In this scene, all of the tables are labeled based on who is sitting at them. There is the jock table, the "plastics" table, the music group, the smart asians, etc. This idea relates to the subject of girls and the virtual world because of what the idea represents. The idea of the kunch table cliques is about people expressing thier identity and "hanging out" with the people who are most like themselves. We have discussed these issues throughout the semester. The main idea, and in my opinion the most positive, of the virtual world is the ability of young girls to express themselves and experiment with their own identity. One of the best examples of this are the girls who participate in FanFiction. These girls create new characters or new plot lines for their favorite novels and stories, such as Twilight and Harry Potter. When I first read about these it struck me about how easy it could be for people to express themselves with no inhibitions because they are creating a character. There is not need to worry about whether people think you are "weird" or not. You can be anyone and still stay anonymous. In fact, one of the girls interviewed expressed this idea. She was a former model who expected to be pretty and act "cool," but when she signed into her FanFiction account she could be as "nerdy" as she wanted to be. Also, it talked about how people on these FF sites create "cliques" and groups within themselves. They all relate in some way, either over mutual respect for writing, or ideas of how plot lines should play out, or just a love for the same books. This is a lot like the lunch table groups. Each table represents a group of students who all have many of the same interests. The relationship between the Virtual FanFiction site and the real life scenario of the HIgh School lunch tables is very interesting and yet just another example of how the new social networking online is becoming a Virtul High School.

PopularitE Contest

Just as in High School, the new age social networking seems to possess a certain form of a popularity contest. A recent article from CBS talks about how Facebook has been linked with forms of depression in teens. The article talks about the different ways that kids see things online on other people’s social network pages that brings this idea of popularity into play. “With in-your-face friends' tallies, status updates and photos of happy-looking people having great times, Facebook pages can make some kids feel even worse if they think they don't measure up.It can be more painful than sitting alone in a crowded school cafeteria or other real-life encounters that can make kids feel down, O'Keeffe said, because Facebook provides a skewed view of what's really going on. Online, there's no way to see facial expressions or read body language that provide context.” The article goes on to talk about how kids experience depression just as they would if they were the outcasts in High School. While there are many benefits from the social networking and kids, this is a problem. You can read the rest of the article here: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/28/earlyshow/living/parenting/main20047775.shtml