Social Media and the End of Gender

Johanna Blakley gave a great TED talk, which you can access here on Social Media and the End of Gender.

I heartily encourage everyone to watch it - it provides great food for thought.

It's true to say that women are one of the fasted growing demographics of social media users. It is also true to say that studies have shown that women use social media differently than men do. For example, women tend to spend more time per visit on sites like Facebook than their male counterparts.

But does this mean the end of gender? Can we say that conventional ideas of gender, or conventional methods of marketing to people of different genders is going to change? It's not that simple.

To move beyond gender, it's going to take more than social media use. Marketing is a big part of gender socialization and is targeting children at younger and younger ages. Peggy Orenstein explores this complex social phenomenon in her new book Cinderella Ate my Daughter. Though online women have more ability to choose products, services and entertainment that do not resonate with conventional gender roles, they still have to decide to make that choice. And in reality, most women do make choices which conform to societal expectations of gender roles (as evidenced by the success of Sex in the City part two).

So, I appreciate that social media creates new opportunities for choice, but it's not a magic bullet. In reality we have to understand social media as part of a complex web of social forces that take place both on and offline.