Date of Award

6-2016

Document Type

Open Access

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Political Science

Second Department

Philosophy

First Advisor

Lori Morso

Language

English

Keywords

internet, women, attempt, benefit, directly

Abstract

Famously heralded by early Internet pioneers and contemporary globalization theorists as providing a “state of perfect freedom and equality”, the Internet, on one hand, may be used to benefit the world’s least privileged women; these efforts have taken variety of forms, from serving as a space where women can share ideas, to creating an encyclopedia of practical women’s health and political information, to providing a medium through which women can directly access economic opportunities. Yet through critically examining the ways in which the Internet is used, we see how such apparently benevolent initiatives may sometimes silence the very marginalized, female voices they attempt to empower; this idea of Internet deployment gone wrong may manifest as the forcible assertion of certain socioeconomic values, the homogenization of unique individual women, and the aggravation of internal conflict within religious communities. My thesis will attempt to move beyond these two contrasting positions, in order to suggest the specific ways the Internet may be conscientiously deployed to benefit the world’s least privileged women; the most effective way to advantage such women, it concludes, is to deploy the Internet as a space where the subaltern can directly e-communicate her own, individual preferences, ideas and experiences.

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