Women and Art

It makes sense that art has been/is(?) dominated by men; after all, if art is an academic activity, then women have, naturally, been shut out of that realm for the greater part of human history. Salons and formal academies in France were all organized by men, and almost always exclusive to men. It's therefore easy to see why, in "European nude[s], the painters and spectator-owners were usually men and the persons treated as objects usually women" (Berger). However, Nakamura's article on digital media made me question why sexism exists on the internet to such a high degree. In a domain like the internet, one can assume any identity imaginable, and there is virtually no limit to who can post what and where one can post it. Why, then, does it feel like an overwhelming number of software/web developers are male? What is keeping women from being more present in digital media, where criticism (for being female) can easily be dodged because of the anonymous nature of the internet? I don't mean to say or sound as if I believe that women should have to hide behind the identity of a man to publish things on the internet/be present in the digital media realm, but I just think that in such an open forum as the internet, one would assume that it would be a "place" of greater heterogeneity.

I also just want to add that in middle school, everyone used to make those "dollz," and everyone had one as their AIM buddy icon. I'm absolutely horrified that, as a little 13-year-old, I bought into this junk, especially because only now have I realized how wrong these things are. Realizations like these really make me believe that Women's and Gender Studies classes should be included in middle school (or at least high school) curriculums. Would this ever be possible?