Girls on the Web: Empowering New Moon Girls Through Technology

Teaching girls skills for dealing with life's difficulties is more empowering than establishing protective structures that only serve to delay their engagement with these issues. Parents can support their daughters' involvement with the World Wide Web and encourage them to think intelligently about that environment in several ways: by educating themselves about computer communications such as the Internet and the World Wide Web, by encouraging open communication about these on-line spaces, and by becoming active participants in the process along with their children. If anything nasty or threatening should come in (it hasn't), I think I'd show it to them or, depending on the gravity of the image or text, at least discuss it with them. I'd give them the space to look at the image with the support of my presence. I'd encourage them to talk about the image and their feelings about it, because I believe this will help them to develop skills they'll need in a society where there is so much violence against women. The World Wide Web and our experiences of it have been wonderful for educating our children in thinking about their world and their place in it. And, happily for all of us, this education is reciprocal. The girls' experiences with the Web have allowed them to be teachers to my husband and me. And that teaching role has instilled in them a great deal of pride. As [Emily] is proud of saying, "My dad says that I'm the second best computer expert in the house."