Women in Blogging
Some of the most popular Iranian bloggers are women. The outlet often provides a means to escape the need to identify oneself openly, particularly as family honor can be associated with women. The internet provides a means to talk about the restrictions on women, including the mandatory Hijab. Women can communicate with men openly as contributors of commentators on each other's blog, even having virtual boyfriends online. They can talk about premarital sex, underground parties, alcohol and other youth activities often frowned upon or considered illegal. It also allows for following fashion trends, music, and feminist news. For example one blogger addresses the issue of prostitution under the regime, which is formally denied. “22 August 2003: some facts: The rate of runaway girls has grown 20 times between the periods of 1986-1999, with the average age of girls now 14.7...the average age of prostitutes has dropped from 27 to 20 years.”12Due to the extremely high education rate of women, females even surpassing males in enrollment in university, access and literacy are readily available. Some popular female bloggers include 2003 student uprisings Iran In 2003 there were a series of student uprisings throughout the country, despite widespread repression during 1999 riots. largely reported on blogs, providing news and updates for others, while it was not being reported by the press. This allowed for more organized, planned protests. Eventually they too were repressed, but not without using the internet and blogs as a means to defy authority.
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Famous quotes containing the word women:
“The nature of women’s oppression is unique: women are oppressed as women, regardless of class or race; some women have access to significant wealth, but that wealth does not signify power; women are to be found everywhere, but own or control no appreciable territory; women live with those who oppress them, sleep with them, have their children—we are tangled, hopelessly it seems, in the gut of the machinery and way of life which is ruinous to us.”
—Andrea Dworkin (b. 1946)