First it was the telephone that was going to revolutionize society. Then, the World Wide Web and now Web 2 is heralded as technologies that have the potential to challenge current social structures. I have always been sceptical of the true potential Web 2 has for making changes to power structures between the first and third worlds. Sure, Web 2 might be a set of tools to promote voices of those who are often marginalized, but I am unsure and possibly even pessimistic of the actual changes that Web 2 will promote.

This morning I am even more sceptical as I read my RSS fead from WiredNews that refers to the cancellation of Kathy Sierra as a presenter at Tim O’Reilly’s Etech conference. Linking to her blog, I was shocked to read her last post, which details some of the misogynistic death threats she has received in the last few weeks. While blogging does create a space in which women can voice their views, the action of speaking is clearly not enough to change power relations between men and women in North America. These threats also show how women are attacked by attacking or questioning their sexuality; something that rarely occurs for men. In the multiple comments that follow the post, there are others who profess to having experienced harassment online.

One blog comments on whether women should be afraid to blog. In the entry, the author comments on Kathy’s reactions to the threat by reducing her “overreaction” to the threats to biological responses that apparently only occur for women. This biological reductionism is dangerous in that it not only veils a very serious social issue, but it also suggests that because the reactions are “natural,” they are unchangeable. When we reduce social phenomena to our biology, we come up with explanations that are simplistic and that fail to capture the complexity of the situation.

Stories such as these suggest that the Web has the potential to reinforce rather than disrupt social structures. While I think the WWW is an invaluable tool for women, for marginalized, for third world countries etc. I think we need to look at the root causes of injustices, imbalances of wealth and power, to make effective changes to current inequalities.