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Danah Boyd gave a thoroughly thought-provoking presentation at the Personal Democracy Forum this week about how the politics of class play out online -- and thoroughly debunked the idea that the Internet is a Utopian paradise in which we are "all equal."

To get specific, Boyd looks at the divide between Facebook and MySpace users. She quotes Kat, a 14-year-old from Massachusetts:

"I'm not really into racism, but I think that MySpace now is more like ghetto or whatever, and Facebook is all... not all the people that have Facebook are mature, but its supposed to be like oh we're more mature."

That's right, a "ghetto." Boyd goes on to note that teenagers from wealthier backgrounds are more comfortable engaging in "adult" environments than teenagers from poorer backgrounds -- hence wealthier teens are probably more likely to favor the "mature" social networking site, Facebook. And here's the part where I am just going to quote from Boyd's analysis extensively, because she is so freakin' smart:

The fact [is] that MySpace is still quite popular among a certain segment of the population. Only a month ago, I was doing fieldwork in Atlanta where I found heavy usage of MySpace among certain groups of youth. They knew of Facebook but had no interest in leaving MySpace to join Facebook.

Herein lies the reality that makes all of this quite messy to deal with. It wasn't just anyone who left MySpace to go to Facebook. In fact, if we want to get to the crux of what unfolded, we might as well face an uncomfortable reality... What happened was modern day "white flight." Whites were more likely to leave or choose Facebook. The educated were more likely to leave or choose Facebook. Those from wealthier backgrounds were more likely to leave or choose Facebook. Those from the suburbs were more likely to leave or choose Facebook. Those who deserted MySpace did so by "choice" but their decision to do so was wrapped up in their connections to others, in their belief that a more peaceful, quiet, less-public space would be more idyllic.

This dynamic was furthered by the press, an institution that stems from privilege and tends to reflect the lives of a more privileged class of people. They narrated MySpace as the dangerous underbelly of the Internet while Facebook was the utopian savior. And here we get back to Kat's point: MySpace has become the "ghetto" of the digital landscape. The people there are more likely to be brown or black and to have a set of values that terrifies white society. And many of us have habitually crossed the street to avoid what is seen as the riff-raff.

The fact that digital migration is revealing the same social patterns as urban white flight should send warning signals to everyone out there. And if we think back to the language used by teens who use Facebook when talking about MySpace, we should be truly alarmed. Those who are from privileged backgrounds tend to be far more condescending towards those who are not than vice versa. Many of us in this room come from privileged worlds where we want to "help" those who are not well-off. Here is where a privilege-check is necessary. How often do our language and mannerisms reflect a problematic level of condescension? Perhaps we should look at our teens. They are certainly speaking in a manner that reveals distrust and condescension.

I wish I was shocked by this.

A prominent South Carolina Republican killed his Facebook page Sunday after being caught likening the First Lady to an escaped gorilla.

Commenting on a report posted to Facebook about a gorilla escape at a zoo in Columbia, S.C., Friday, longtime GOP activist Rusty DePass wrote, "I'm sure it's just one of Michelle's ancestors - probably harmless."

When taken to task for the racist comment - and after killing his Facebook page - DePass said, "I am as sorry as I can be if I offended anyone. The comment was clearly in jest."

Yeah - ha fucking ha.

Via Michelle Obama Watch.

*Possible trigger warning*

While we haven't been the biggest fans of Amazon as of late and their history of selling a rape simulation game (which they did end up banning), it looks like another game involving violence against women seems to have"slipped" past their radar. "Stockholm: An Exploration of True Love" is a game that allows the user to experience,

"...a terrifyingly vivid exploration of Stockholm Syndrome, a psychological condition in which a captive falls in love with her kidnapper. And you play the part of the kidnapper. With a limited number of options, you must figure out how to make her fall in love with you."

This includes using poison gas on the victim, sexually assaulting her and using psychological abuse against her in efforts to make her "love" you. Unbelievable.

Contact Amazon and let them know that profiting off of sexual and psychological abuse is completely unacceptable.

h/t to Jennifer for the heads up.

And voilà! A women's laptop is born.

This isn't the first time we've seen Dell market their products to women in a ridiculously cliché and sexist way, but their newest product was worth noting. Meet Della, the new Dell mini netbook that is being pitched to women as cute, compact and in colors with lady adjectives like Promise Pink (which actually donates $5 of your purchase to the Susan G. Komen Foundation - a good thing) and Cherry Red.

As Kristen Shoemaker at Liliputing says, it's not so much the references to everything cute to draw women that's so insulting, but when the "Tech Tips" section suggests you use the Della to manage your diet and exercise program, we have a wee problem. What's interesting is the note at the top of this section saying that editors have changed the article in response to some "feedback," which I believe (and hope) may be because of some of the complaints that women tech bloggers like Kristen and Nicole Price Fasig have made.

But regardless of what they've omitted, marketing a product to a woman by dumbing down the language and making it cutesy and fashionable isn't good marketing - it's insulting. The very pitch on Dell's homepage website featuring Della says, "Find out how technology fits your lifestyle." I guess in this case, "lifestyle" seems to be your gender.

This is not to say that there's anything wrong with accessorizing your laptop or finding a netbook adorable - it's when you assume that only women will have interest in it is when a line is crossed.

If you want to chat with me about The Purity Myth feel free to hit me up directly or use #puritymyth to talk to me or others about the book. (Not sure what a hash tag is? Check out Deanna's great post, A non-fanatical beginner's guide to Twitter.)

I know, I know. Everyone is talking about Twitter. So many people are tweeting and talking about tweeting, it's nearly jumped the shark. But I don't care - I love it. Mostly because I love following fabulous feminists. I can see what Sarah Haskins is up to, or what Latifa Lyles (running for NOW president!) is thinking. I can even follow the bloggers I like.

How about you, do you tweet? Who is your favorite person to follow? (And of course, if you'd like to follow your friendly Feministing bloggers, our twitter profiles are listed after the jump. /self-promotion)

I mean, I could have told you that. But not because I think that women are what ruined the country, specifically women's right to vote. Peter Thiel a very rich silicon valley libertarian who used to be the CEO of Paypal and is currently one of the main investors at Facebook. He has put forth an essay that suggests that women are in fact who ruined our country. Or at least women's right to speak for themselves and not vote like their husbands tell them to.

In his essay at the Cato Institute blog he writes (excerpted by Valleywag),

The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women - two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians - have rendered the notion of "capitalist democracy" into an oxymoron.

I guess he didn't get the memo. Women and gays are supposed to be friends!

As someone who is often called an aggressive driver, I take personal offense to this stupid piece via Yahoo News Canada in the "car research" section listing 10 inarticulate and sexist reasons women supposedly can't drive. The piece is from Askmen.com, which means it is actually not humor, even if to us that website is hilarious since it is drenched in the cowardly spirit of men that are afraid of vagina.

One of the reasons women can't drive,

No.4 - They have no interest in cars

Another reason women can't drive is a matter of interest -- or rather, a lack thereof. You can't do well at something when your give-a-damn meter reads zero point zero. Women have no interest in cars beyond them serving as appliances of transport. As long as it starts, all is well. So when dash lights flash, components make ugly sounds or smoke appears, it may or may not resonate with the female driver that these are less than ideal operating characteristics.

Right, just like women don't like trains, airplanes, computers and any other modern technological marvel that helps us get somewhere.

Joking aside, I do think there is something to be said about women feeling secure in their driving abilities, since they are told that they are bad drivers and that driving is a manly thing to do. One of the first things you internalize when coming of age as a teenager is that women (along with some ethnic groups) are not good drivers.

Before we start the convo with, "but women really don't have depth perception" I know some really really good female drivers that are aggressive, confident and rarely if ever get lost or in accidents. So, based on my own empirical evidence and recognition of the sexist expectation that women aren't as good of drivers, I call bullshit on the premise of this article. Shame on Yahoo Canada for running such a sexist piece of crap.

A study from Lucile Packard Children's Hospital and the Stanford University School of Medicine shows that health websites that have sexual health information for teens are often "riddled with errors and omissions."

Lead researcher Sophia Yen, MD, said, "Even widely trusted sites like WebMD are not that accurate when it comes to adolescent reproductive health...Teens should be cautious about finding sexual health answers on the Web."

About half of the Web sites, including such highly trafficked destinations as Wikipedia and Mayoclinic.com, failed to provide accurate, complete information about emergency contraception, also known as "the morning-after pill." For instance, sites often failed to say that minors can buy emergency contraception from authorized pharmacists in nine states, and many sites did not correct the myth that emergency contraception causes an abortion.

So where can young people find accurate sexual health info? The research team found that the most reliable sites are Go Ask Alice, the Center for Young Women's Health, TeensHealth, and Planned Parenthood's Teen Wire.

Community blogger Lynne C. had a post that she wrote for Feministing reprinted in the Toronto Star. And yesterday we got a radio interview request for another Community blogger to speak about the issues she's been covering.

I think this is totally bad ass - and part of the reason we wanted to start the Community site. The idea was to highlight all of the amazing feminist voices out there and to try and get more mainstream attention paid to more feminist perspectives - and that's happening. Woot!