Battle of the Sexes...for Attention?

By: Makaila Gaston

I originally decided to take a look at the article “How gender inequality is reproduced on social media” because the title caught my eye. As I read further, it caught my attention even more. Though I had never read anything about gender inequality as it relates to social media, the conclusion of this article wasn’t very different from any other conclusions drawn in similar articles and the statistics were not surprising either.

In recent years, social media has allowed researchers “to observe everyday social interactions and to get insights into the reproduction of gender inequality.” The article examined just that.

This was an extremely interesting topic to me because it would have never been something I would have thought to research on my own. The article stated, “‘The gender preference in sharing information about children may seem quite harmless compared with other layers of gender disparity. However, given the widespread popularity of social media, even moderate bias might accumulate. Millions of users are exposed to a gender-biased news feed on a daily basis and, without even noticing, receive the reaffirmation that paying more attention to sons is normal.’”

I found it interesting that they not only broke down the statistics as far as the likelihood of a post about a girl to be shared, but also examined the likes that it would get.

I love the statistics that were shared but I think the next step that I’d like to see taken is an attempt to find out why this is. In some cases it may be, but I can’t just believe that this is a malicious attempt by everyone on social media to convince young women that they mean less to society than young men. I would also like the topic explored a little deeper, especially when it comes to pop culture. By this I am referring to the way social media portrays women and the way society responds. For example, Instagram blogs like The ShadeRoom’s comments are riddled with men and women of all backgrounds verbally assaulting celebrity women.

It is great that research like this is being done and hopefully one day something can be done to change these narratives.