A thought that hit me at the beginning of this semester was how much I have changed in the few years I have been in college. They say college changes a person, but I never understood to what degree. I used to be something of a prude, for lack of better words. I won’t go into what I believed, as it is not the point of this blog topic, but I can say that I held a certain moral standard for me that I thought was a borderline sin if others did not believe as well.
I am only a few months from graduation and I still hold that same moral standard in terms of my own person, my body, and my overall being, but not of others. I believe more in the freedom for each individual to choose what is best from them, despite what I think or if I believe it is right or wrong. As long as your opinion or actions aren’t harmful, we’re good. As Voltaire would say, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
In short, I am a feminist.
Again, my declaration of views and moral standing is not the point of this blog. So, what is the point?
Getting to the Point
There is one thing I contribute to my changed views and open-minded nature: Tumblr. I joined the website
around three years ago, back when I was finishing up my associates degree, and my mind has been steadily molding ever since. I learned so many things that I never even thought about thinking before: slut shaming, gender roles, sexuality, and general women’s rights related issues.
I began to wonder if websites like Tumblr have opened up minds like mine. My curiosity over the subject had me thinking that if this website opened up that many minds to feminist ideals, did other forms of technology also influence feminist behaviors over the past century?
Social Media gives people a voice. It gives them a medium for discussion and sharing ideas. Sometimes these ideas aren’t that great, but there is a lot of good that can come out of it.
The question that remains is how the development of technology has helped the spread of feminism and other related ideas. That answer may take a great deal of research, but we do know these facts according to the Timeline of Key Events in the American Women's Rights Movement and Famous Invention Timeline:
- Although feminism existed way before this, the movement truly began in 1848 with the first women’s right convention in New York. This is also the year where the first color photographs began to develop.
- The women’s suffrage movement began in May of 1869. This is just two years after the typewriter was invented.
- The 1960s-1970s were widely known for the movement fighting discrimination against women in the workplace. This comes with the rise of popularity of the Television.
What do all of these huge movements have in common? They all coincide with major media related inventions. With the release of these events comes another boom in the timeline of feminism.
Strong and intelligent women have always existed. Laws and education standards have always been in place to control them one way or the other. Sure, there would be an educated woman once in a while would release a revolutionary book, but that is still backed by the education that women received. However, technology just hasn’t truly let women reach other to talk about these ideas on a massive scale until around twenty years ago.
In the early 90s, the term “cyber feminism” became popular just as the internet became a household tool. These are women who interact over cyberspace to share and theorize in ideas together. This led to the growth of feminism to what we know it today.
Maybe it’s just a coincidence that major media and feminism dates intertwine with each other, but maybe not. Is it thanks to photography that women knew there were others like them who thought about equality? Is it thanks to the typewriter that these women were able to easily express themselves in written word? Can it be thanks to television for spreading the message far and wide so that when the internet began, feminism already had a strong ground?
I do not know these answers for sure, but I can say that I am very thankful for technology for giving me the ideals I have now, for I believe I am a better person because of it
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