A laptop of one's own

November 17, 2014 6:13 AM

Now, however, the internet has created a revolution in the place of young women in our culture, granting millions of them the chance to represent themselves to the world in all sorts of ways that Ruby Tandoh argues are both tremendously exciting and profoundly empowering. She'll look back at the development of the place of girls in youth culture over the decades, examining the importance of the private space of the bedroom in providing a crucible in which identities are actively formed, and find out about those young women in movements like punk and Riot Grrrl who blazed a trail for today's girls as they take the reins of cultural production through their vlogs, blogs and zines.

From Radio 4's Archive on 4 programme comes A Girl's Own Story.
posted by MartinWisse (3 comments total)

Argh, I can't listen to this and work at the same time, but oh man, oh man, this is totally right up my street.

I once had this fantastic project I did, focusing on Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfiction on the Internet, pointing out that it was a safe space for young women to explore sexuality and their own gender and sexual identity. That by exploring what could be done in a fictional setting, they could decide what they would prefer in their real-life setting.

It wasn't groundbreaking or revolutionary, but it was some nice research on a small part of the Internet I was involved in, and if I had been a bit more academically-minded, I could have taken it much further and branched it out, especially since Harry Potter was starting to emerge as a thing, and that was where the kids went nuts.

Instead, I wrote like 10,000 words of Cordelia and Willow getting married and having kids. Same difference.
posted by Katemonkey at 6:33 AM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

Ah-ha! I knew I kept the research online.

Fear my 1999 web design skills and lack of academic rigour!
posted by Katemonkey at 6:43 AM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

If you're not familiar with Ruby Tandoh, she was a finalist in last year's Great British Bake Off and just published a cookbook called Crumb.
posted by yellowcandy at 9:23 AM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]