Digital Divides: Race, Class, and Gender in the Age of the Internet

The project that I decided to focus on was The Gender Novels Project. The goal of this project was to “draw on the views and opinions of the past to diagnose potential causes, solutions, and sources of gender-based discrimination and stereotyping.” How is this done? First, a time period must be chosen. The focused time period for this project was between 1770-1922. But then what? How is the goal reached in this project? This project focuses on looking at novels within the time period (1770-1922) and picking out the pronouns used. The point of this is to recognize, or see if there is, a significant difference in the use of male pronouns and female pronouns as well as their positive and negative use. If you look in any of the sub-categories under the “Analyses” tab you will see different graphs with information and statistics regarding what data was found within the novels that were looked at. My favorite thing about this project is that there were not specific authors that were referenced or looked at — there wasn’t one set group of authors. In fact, information was gathered by looking at “novels written by authors as famous as Jane Austen and others that are much more obscure, such as Mary E. Mann.” I think that this is important to note because now researchers on this topic know that there are a wide variety of authors embedded in the data and information that is provided in this project. 

When I was reading and looking through the website for this project I realized that there are a lot of contributors. This project was created and contributed to by twenty-eight people expanding over 4 different groups and areas of the project: data, analysis, deployment, and administration. This information can be found under the “Our Team” tab. On this tab it provides the person’s picture, their name, and their area of expertise. When looking at this page you can see the diverse group of people and their area of interest and where they may have contributed (based on their area of expertise) to this project. I really enjoyed the set up of this project and I can see why it might be part of the digital technology. This gives people an opportunity to easily gather information by being able to access different categories in a reasonable manner. It also leads to graphs that are visually helpful in understanding statistics and information. For example the graphs’ color becomes darker when you put your cursor over certain bars on the graph.

I think overall this project is a great resource to have and I certainly love the topic and the data that it provides. Like I stated before, I like how it brings more information (to people who can access technology) on the subject of women’s novels and pronouns from authors that are well-known and less familiar. However, the only thing I might improve on is the access to these books. This project references 4,200 that are sourced from the Gutenberg Project. I think it might be helpful to provide another tab with “links” to these novels. I use links in parentheses because there is most likely no free access to these novels. Nevertheless, a tab with either a link to a page with the option to buy the novel or a short summary that they even provide on this page may be a good idea. I think a summary would help those looking into this project better understand with some background knowledge of the novels. 

Gender Novels. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://gendernovels.digitalhumanitiesmit.org/info/gender_novels_overview.

By: Skylar Locke

The Abortion Diary is a podcast that gives women the opportunity to share and narrate their own personal abortion stories in a safe and supportive place where people listen without political judgments and with more empathy. The creator of this project is Dr. Melissa Madera and her inspiration for this podcast began when she shared her personal abortion story after thirteen years. She travels the world capturing untold abortion stories through her podcast and hopes that her podcast helps end the stigma, shame, and isolation behind the experience. The Abortion Diary website consists of a blog, a gallery, an abortion story map that shows where all of the stories have come from, resources, workshops and talks, and stories based on region, illegal, pre-roe, and post-abortion rituals. The overall goal of this project is to “help destigmatize abortion and allow the storytellers to process their experience and control their narrative.” 

Regardless of your political and ethical viewpoint on abortion, women have abortions. It is their personal choice, it is their body, and it is their story to share. Most of the time, they do not have any outlet to help them through this process. This project is a resource for them to express their feelings from their pain, their grief, their anger, their recovery, and everything in between. Oftentimes, people are so absorbed in the act of abortion that they forget it is not always an easy choice for women. A lot of times, it is their only choice. Every women has a different experience and they should not have to feel like their only option is to keep silent. They do not need judgment or hate or shame. When a woman shares her experience on this podcast, she is claiming her story and that is powerful.

This project is slowly humanizing abortions instead of over politicalizing them. I find this to be an extremely amazing and empowering project for women who receive a lot of hate for having abortions. No one likes to feel alone no matter what the situation is. It is important that people know they matter and their stories matter. We have the power to make destigmatize abortions and support women by simply listening to their stories.  

http://theabortiondiary.com/

“The Abortion Diary Podcast.”

The Harlem Renaissance was an African American movement of the early twentieth century which began in Harlem, New York, after World War I. The movement had a huge impact on their culture as they reemerge their African American roots to construct a new sense of creativity. Both men and women chose to manifest their creativity of African American culture through literature and music. By incorporating originality and culture into the arts, they hoped to generate equal amounts of respect and freedom in which the upper white classes had only received at the time. 

If you haven’t already noticed, throughout our years of history and english classes, most of the figures that we learn about from the Harlem Renaissance were all men, such as Langston Hughes, W.E.B. DuBois and many more. So, we start to question…What about the women? Why didn’t we learn more about the creative women figures of the movement as well? 

Amardeep Singh’s creation of the digital project, “Women of the Early Harlem Renaissance: African American women writers 1900-1922” revolves around a belief in the “technology of recovery,” which is a vital part in resurfacing African American literature through digital sources. Singh chose to build this project due to the lack of digital information found on the women writers of the Harlem Renaissance. The websites that seemed to provide the information tended to either be restricted, or were in a PDF page format that contained an insufficiency of background information. Without contextual background information about the writer or their piece, the reader wouldn’t comprehend what they are exactly looking at. 

Since there is a lack of digital accessibility in the amount of information offered about the women writers of the Harlem Renaissance, Singh strives to make his project available to everyone, especially groups who want to strengthen their knowledge on the subject. He hopes that researchers, teachers, and students can all benefit from his archive as it lays out his own original style; which introduces, as well as presents African American women through comprehensive and biographical data that is accessible for all. 

Amardeep Singh created the project using a website called, Scalar, which was designed by the University of Southern California to let individuals showcase their research/projects. In order to use the website, Singh completed Scalar’s five-day workshop to learn in-depth skills from their advanced team, becoming certified to begin the archive. Since Singh is an English Professor at Lehigh University, he chose to use Scalar and its benefits to spread his collections of studies and research on the African American women of the Harlem Renaissance, making it available for others as well. Within the introduction of his digital project, he makes a point of being interested in the exploration of thematic relationships through the literary works of these women. As a new poem is added to the website, it is tagged with “a range of terms, such as “slavery,” “motherhood,” “racism,” “Christianity,” etc.” Singh choses to tackle these thematic relationships in a creative way, while using a visualization to display the ways in which literary content is linked to his work. The color coded display incorporates a key to help the website user to navigate through the visual, and develop a better understanding of its purpose in showing the patterns and relationships of these literary figures. 

Also, creating a digitally accessible platform for people to gather valid information from is very significant in today’s age. This brings me back to Cathy Davidson’s book, The New Education, and the central idea that education should improve alongside new technologies and we should start to push the traditional ways of learning out and look towards technology to find more efficient and effective ways to teach in the classroom. As technology advances, the traditional act of reading and gathering information from a physical book will eventually be driven out. The recent and upcoming generations who grow up using technological devices become accustomed to reading and typing everything into search engines to gather information. For example, if a students (or anyone) needs to gather information about the women writers of the Harlem Renaissance for an assignment, they would much rather use the internet to search for this information, instead of looking through a bunch of lengthy books. So, when they come across a website like Singh’s, they have full access to important information about the women that might not have been featured in books or other websites. A digital archive such an Singh’s can assist an individual to receive the most data as he reemerges the stories of these African American women with the full context and credit they deserve. 

• Gabby
• https://scalar.lehigh.edu/harlemwomen/index

Tai White

Women of the Early Harlem Renaissance are influential figures who broke the barriers society constructed towards being a woman, being black, and being educated. African American women of the Early Harlem Renaissance did not allow for any man or dominant group in power to silence their voices. The writing was these women’s tools to dismantle the injustices that white men built into society. This project was made to make connections between African American literature and digital humanities. Not much attention was given to women writers of the Harlem Renaissance. This project works to rightfully praise these strong women writing and confronting their white counterparts and issues in society. Digital technologies allow people to become aware of who the women writers of the Harlem Renaissance were. When someone thinks of the Harlem Renaissance they think of black men; for example, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, and W.E.B Dubois. Through the creation of websites such as this one, other significant people of the Harlem Renaissance who were more at a disadvantage during that time are properly acknowledged as well. 

The information is organized on this project by giving some background about African American women who were apart of the Harlem Renaissance. The website also goes into the origins of this project and to show how much more inclusive previous books or websites of the Harlem Renaissance should be. The goal of this project was to make more information about the Harlem Renaissance and the women who took part in this more accessible. I like this project I just wish there was more information behind some of these women’s works. 

Epistemology is an important term that can be used when thinking of the women of the Harlem Renaissance. Much of these women’s books, short stories, and poems took knowledge from the dominant culture about black people and women and questioned its validity. Their skin color and gender determined their place in society and paved their life paths. Through their literature, they sought to break away from these stereotypes and show that they are individuals rather than just members of a marginalized group.

https://scalar.lehigh.edu/harlemwomen/index

The digital humanities project that I chose to look into analyzed the use of pronouns in novels in the time period of 1770-1922. The goal of this project was to understand and identify the conceptions of gender and how they were expressed and changed through the reading and interpretations of readings of thousands of books.

The study began by looking at adjectives and the ways in which they were gendered. It was found that the adjectives with the highest positive difference were most closely associated with the strongest male pronouns. The complete opposite was found in relation to females, as the strongest female pronouns were associated with the highest negative difference.

Next, the study looked at the overall frequency of gendered pronouns. Female pronouns were used 33.2% of the time , and were used 52.8% of the time by female authors while male pronouns were used 66.8% of the time. Looking further into pronouns, the use of female subject pronouns occurred 32.5% of the time, and the use of male subject pronouns occurred 67.5% of the time. through this type of study, it was found that male pronouns were used more often in the subject, and female pronouns were used more often in the object.

The most interesting part of this research, in my perspective, was the discussion of median differences in the discussion of male related speech versus female related speech. Overall, it was found that male instances in novels occur every twelve or thirteen words for male authors and every 13 or 14 words for female authors. Female instances occurred every 72 or 73 words for male authors and every 30 or 31 words for female authors. The range of median differences, during this time period, for males was 30-45 words, while the range for females was 5,091-19,713 words. The study interpreted these statistics as evidence that male pronouns serve as agents more often than female pronouns do. It can also be due to the fact that female authors will often use The study also suggested that this factors into the ways in which male-centered novels exclude female characters while female-centered novels still have a male presence to some degree.

The evidence of pronoun use and median differences tell the reader a lot about the gendered politics of literature during this time period. It is also important to note that of the literature studied, 65% of the books were from male authors, 28% were from female authors, and 7% were from unknown authors. Of course these things carry some weight regarding the results found, but if anything what we see here is evidence that literature was more gendered for men in this time period than it was for women. Overall, male pronouns were used more often than female pronouns were in both the subjective and the objective, and men are discussed more often in the literature discussed. Even though women were staring to read and write more during this time period, their representation within those texts were still far outweighed by the representation still available for men in the books circulated and being read by the general public. I think this study is really important because it highlights the ways in which literature during this time period was created with men in mind more than they were with women. It is important that this information is accessible to all those that would like to read about it as it makes known the divide that novels have so often had in the past.

“Gender Novels.” Gender in Novels, 1770–1922, http://gendernovels.digitalhumanitiesmit.org/info/gender_novels_overview.

The “Are We Good Neighbors?” project was derived off of Alonso S. Perales Collection at the University of Houston’s Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage. The goal of this project is to display the discrimination against Mexican Americans in 1940s Texas by using personal stories and a map to point out geographically where these events of inequity took place. “Perales was very dedicated to civil rights for Mexican Americans and urged people to publicly share experiences of racism as well as the names and addresses of businesses where they were refused service” (Gauthereau). This mapping project aims to reveal the embodiment of racism in the United States to those who don’t realize that racism happens when citizens are playing out their accounts of everyday life activities: such as going to the barbershop, buying a home, or riding the bus to school. This Digital Humanities project is deeply important to me because even though I am not a Mexican American, I always wondered what happened to the Latinx population in times of segregation and times of intense racist climates. I feel a personal history there and I feel as though the Latinx history in the United States wasn’t made a priority to learn about in schools. Mexican Americans in the 1940s faced disgust, hatred, shame, and violence solely due to their hertigatege. This type of information is valuable for all audiences, but it possibly may have a greater effect on the Latinx population that isn’t fully aware of the type of discrimination that took place in the South towards the Mexican American population. Information is separated by the home page, describing the purpose of this project, and by each individual’s/family’s story. The technology plays an important role being lined up with each story because the map allows viewers to see where the map moves in correspondence to the text. The map is interactive, so users are able to zoom in on specific parts of Texas, and other states too. It is necessary to have projects like “Are We Good Neighbors?” because it highlights Latinx racism in the United States regarding personal historic accounts. The focus isn’t on the statistics of racist acts/events, but on the accounts that happen in our own neighborhoods with your average United States citizens.

Gauthereau, Lorena. “Are We Good Neighbors?: Mapping Discrimination Against Mexican Americans in 1940s Texas.” https://arcg.is/1C1bbv. Accessed [10-10-2019].

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/index.html?appid=80b15409a9d742318cd80b18e6157e76

SNCC Digital Gateway project which is the “Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee” is an archive due to it being a documentary website and its historical content. It offers viewers to take a glimpse into a different time period. The SNCC Digital Gateway’s goal is to focus on voter registration and on initiating a systematic challenge to the white supremacy that governed the country’s political, economic, and social structures. In other words, the project works for black people to take control of their political and economic lives. Furthermore, the Digital Gateway project reveals SNCC as an organization. It examines how it coordinated sit-ins and freedom schools, voter registration and economic cooperatives, anti-draft protests, and international solidarity struggles. The Digital Gateway continuously encourages young people to empower others and to keep making changes to the world for people of color. 

The SNCC Legacy Project and Duke University formed a partnership that created this project in 2013. The partnership helped historic struggles for voting rights and to develop ongoing programs that include a more inclusive democracy to a newer generation. Information found on the website includes profiles of individuals that have helped with the movement. The individuals of this project have digitized materials so that they are more obtainable to the younger generation. In addition, there are board members listed at the bottom of the “about” page. Board members include Advisory Board Members, Editorial Board Members, Student Project Team, SUNY Geneseo Interns, Project Interns, Digital Projects Developer, Projects Developer, Project Coordinator, and Project Manager. Furthermore, there is no information listed about funding sources. In addition, the project contributors are most likely volunteers. Although, the website may not have monetary compensation I believe that anyone that views this platform can benefit from the history of it.

-Jackie

For my evaluation of a digital humanities project I chose Native Land Digital’s map of indigenous territories. The goal of this project is to spread awareness of indigenous territories in order to eliminate colonial ways of thinking in regards to cartography. Native Land Digital is a non-profit organization operating out of Canada. The organization is run by a man named Victor Temprano, the owner of the company Mapster. Victor’s company actively funds the project and the project contributors consist of an indigenous assortment of directors and a multi-racial board of consultants.  This project began in 2015 and is consistently updated. There is a disclaimer before accessing the map which invites viewers to correct or add any information on the map. The intended audience for this project consists of people of all races and countries in order to combat misinformation spread through European colonialism.  The map is separated by three sections; the first section regards indigenous territories, the second identifies various languages spoken by these indigenous people, and the third displays any treaties made between these nations and colonial empires. I believe this project could be widely successful due to it’s easy accessibility and actively dismantles colonial  philosophies and preconceived notions in regards to territorial boundaries. My only question for Native Land Digital would be where they receive their surplus of information from and how the establish it’s credibility.

Native Land

The digital gateway that is the, “Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee”, is an archival and documentary based website that offers viewers a look back into time The concept for an archival web platform came from a collaboration between Duke University and the SNCC Legacy Project; the hope being to continuously educate about voter registration and trying to empower black youth to strive for a more polished democracy. The goal of this project is to empower and encourage young black voters to take information from the past, and use those tools to their advantage to strive for a better future. The initial movement / group was founded in 1960, but the idea of archiving the information came about in 2013, which is when Duke and SNCC started collaborating. The first pilot website was published in 2015, and has continued to have information added since then. 

Some of the information that can be found on the website are profiles examining individuals who helped the movement, historic materials such as photographs, oral history interviews, audiovisual material, articles from activists themselves, events that trace the history of organizing, and a map that connects viewers to the people / places where events took place. The digital gateway wanted to bring the history of the younger generation becoming involved with the Civil Rights movement to life, in a way that could be preserved forever. They wanted to digitize materials, so that the intended audience of the current younger generation could have access to these resources. However, I believe that the information offered on this website could be beneficial to anyone who views it, whether that be the younger or older generation. While I do not believe there is any monetary compensation for those who make this platform carry on, I do think that the ability of people to share their stories, while empowering the youth, is payment in and of itself. 

https://snccdigital.org

Adrienne Newcomb

By: Katie

Did you have an American Girl doll growing up? Did you read the classic stories of the American Girls? I know personally that I did. The American Girls Podcast simply does that. It was founded in 2017. In late February 2019 this podcast started releasing episodes discussing the original American Girl Dolls. The information is organized in a podcast format, but the podcast also extends to other platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and the podcasts official website. The American Girl Podcast is hosted by Allison Horrocks and Mary Mahoney. They are both historians, who are revisiting the American Girl series as adults with a more historical approach, and with the knowledge on pop culture. The targeted audience for this podcast is women in their mid-twenties to early, and even mid-thirties. They are primarily speaking to people who read, and grew up with the original American Girl stories. I felt that they were excluding some people from their audience. Personally I have read all the original American Girl Stories, but based on who the podcast is supposed to reach, I feel excluded from that group. Also they do encourage others such as women and men to listen to their podcast. Younger women and men are just not their targeted audience.

The ultimate goal of the podcast is to look at the American Girl stories in a more historical way, and to promote representation. Representation is more than race and sharing those stories. Representation is also about representation for people with disabilities. In their first episode the hosts briefly discussed the lack of representation based on the fact that their isn’t a doll with a disability such as Down Syndrome. They discussed this after hearing about a petition that a mother started after American Girl refused to make a doll that had Down Syndrome. American Girl said “there isn’t enough interest in it” American Girl has the option to customize the dolls to have hearing aids, insulin pumps, canes, wheelchairs, service dogs, be bald, and even the option to have a cleft lip. This made me think about more about why wouldn’t they make a Down Syndrome doll. This honestly angered me that American Girl won’t make dolls that have more physical disabilities. Overall, I think this project is eye-opening . I think it has the right balance of discussing history, pop-culture, and encouraging more representation with the dolls. I think this project can definitely help us start talking about expanding the American Girl Doll’s with disability in order to promote exclusivity.

https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/american-girls

https://www.change.org/p/american-girl-dolls-american-girl-will-not-make-a-doll-with-down-syndrome?fbclid=IwAR3A7bPHAI9oqFXWzudqw5zjHHc6ddm-0888Z5lMm56Idl-mSigsQVQGVPw