Facebook is Female book

I am a Facebook user myself, but I never felt it is a female dominant social network until I read this data above, conducted by Paul Francis.

According to this data chart, even the United States, where almost half of the Facebook users are, has 10% less male than female user, whereas in other countries, more than 70% users are female.

So here is the question, “Has the rise of the social web reinforced traditional gender roles?”

Traditionally girls more like to talk stuff that close to home, while boys more about outdoors. I am not too sure whether the Facebook has reinforced their domestic role or not, maybe it has kept them at home more than before in order to update their walls and photos, but it does offer a space where the girls can be more girly. The most favorable things my female Facebook friends like to do every time when they are online, is to upload new photos, most of them are self-portraits, especially popular from a 45 degree angle upper right or left (a so called ‘female angle’). It seems to me Facebook gives them a perfect place to show off themselves, without being too obviously, because they can write some stuff along with the photos, make them look like as if they were secondary to the texts. On the other hand, boys do upload photos, but have less chance to see themselves in the photos, the focus points are definitely differ from those girls.

Here is another opinion on this issue, though I feel it quite an eisegesis, but does yes to the question:

“At the Gender and Tech mini conference, law professors Dena Sacco and Diane Rosenfeld stressed how the ubiquity of online porn has a profound effect on how men see women, especially on how young men view young women. Does a nation of mommybloggers and giggling girls on MySpace also reinforce traditional gender stereotypes? We’re comfortable with women being outspoken on matters close to home. But while plenty of women bloggers write with intelligence and wit about everything from the economic crisis to foreign policy, they get rewarded (with advertiser money or media coverage) when they do stick closer to home. I don’t see that changing as social media becomes more ubiquitous; I see it being reinforced.”

*Full text at

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/genderandtech/tag/facebook/