Internet And Women – A Boon OR A Bane?

WWW – Those 3 letters have dramatically altered the way we live. In the past 15 years it has taken over our lives more than anything previously. The only other things to have come close to it has been the rule of the universal franchise for women.

True, the internet has been empowering women in many wonderful ways which would not have been thought of a decade ago. The Internet has provided worldwide support to women in the fields of business, design, technology, research and what not. It opens up new possibilities for women of social, political and economic power. It can be seen that the number of online working women has been increasing geometrically during this decade.

As a blogger myself, I am grateful to the internet to give me this wide platform wherein I am able to socialize and communicate my thoughts and beliefs with all the young, vivid readers out there.

“We are all connected by the internet, like neurons to a giant brain.” said late Mr Stephen Hawking. What can we say to that? Sarcastic? True? Irony?

Well, I feel that it is ironically true that people like us are 24*7 dependent on something which is actually made by us – the internet. Don’t you feel the irony when people are seemingly active on the social media and in as  the real person, we see their introvert nature?

But there exists this fact that in a country like India, even now “women are meant to be housewives”. Here, the internet comes to the rescue. The internet has fulfilled its promise to enrich the lives of women by providing them with a means to ‘work-from-home.’ Websites like Facebook and YouTube are a great way to express one’s thoughts by just ‘sitting at home’.

Women are now able to learn and teach in different areas of hospitality, skin and hair care, culinary skills, body fitness, and most importantly health.

However, the internet has not proved to be all positive for women. It has created and amplified problems for women.

Women have been a subject of online harassment and sometimes they become real victims of their online participation/activism.

For example, actress Alia Bhatt got trolled for not knowing the name of the President of India and actress Sonam Kapoor got trolled for not being able to solve a seemingly easy mathematics problem. Here, we then feel that the usage of the internet should be reduced to a safer and healthier living for women.And scores of women have been targeted and harassed and their only “crime” was their pretty face online.

Though the internet has raised the standard of living of women, it has also created a threat to their safety.

Using the internet wisely particularly social media.

Use the world-wide web by all means to enhance your knowledge, join groups with people who share your interests, passion and enrich your life. But one has to be very careful while sharing personal details online. If you throw caution to the winds in posting your intimate details of travel plans and photographs with an “open to all” setting, it is an invitation to unscrupulous elements to try to take advantage of you as a person or take advantage of your announced absence from home.

All social media sites have settings which can deter unwanted people from getting access to your details and phishing and prying attempts must not be encouraged.

To all my readers, I would like to request you to make the most out of the internet and at the same time, be safe and alert while using it and male readers, I request you to respect the privacy of a fellow human being and not resort to malicious means just to get some scintillation out of a cheap thrill.

Also Read: A Safe and Secured Internet Is Good for All

Aakruti Damani is a student of ARCH College of design, Jaipur and this effort is a part of Google India and SheThePeople initiative Digital Trust Dialogues across colleges in India.