Being Melanie in the Digital Age: A Practical How-To Guide

As I wrote in my last post, Melanie from Gone With the Wind is a great example of using external change--even difficult external change--to broaden her horizons and to reach her potential as a woman. Women, much more than men, are using the Internet as a social place, to help, support, and encourage one another.

Check out this diagram:

(Click here for the original diagram.)

Take a look at the different websites that men and women are involved in. Women dominate not only in some of the most extremely popular social networking sites--Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace--but also in websites that are devoted to helping each other create, like Pinterest and Instagram. And when it comes right down to it, there are 99 million more female visitors monthly to social networking sites than there are male visitors.

Women are naturally good at using the Internet for social purposes. Due to the current efforts of many remarkable women, technology is shifting away from being a traditionally masculine, male-dominated area of interest and work. Melanie used the circumstances involved in the Civil War as an opportunity to reach out and do different things and talk to different people than would have been possible in the society that existed before the war. We, as women in the new millennium, can treat the transition into the digital age with the same kind of optimism and innovation. Here's how...



5 Steps to Becoming the Melanie of the Digital Age

1. Strengthen social connections. Melanie used the Civil War as an opportunity to become closer to those she loved best, like Pittypat and Scarlett. We can use the Internet to stay up-to-date with old friends and be part of their lives, preserving relationships that might not have been possible or practical otherwise.

2. Build new social connections. Melanie became friends with Belle Watling during the war, which she would probably never have dreamed of doing in her former society. Women are reaching out to others, especially through blogging, looking for no more than new friends. As a result, women are building their own communities of friends across continents, no longer limited by geographical boundaries.

3. Support and strengthen. Women are building communities through websites and blogs in which they help each other get healthy, reach goals, get through trying times, or overcome challenges. Women have found ways to band together with others who are going through the same things or who are trying to make the same changes in their lives and are able to encourage and help each other. Melanie is probably the ultimate example of always being there for those around her and always looking for more opportunities to support and strengthen.

4. Create and inspire. Through blogs and sites like Pinterest, women are teaching each other and learning how to perform skills they never would have been able to--or wanted to!--on their own. A woman who has never sewn in her life might see an adorable DIY (Do It Yourself) project on Pinterest, looked up the tutorial and discovered how easy it was, tried it out, and voila! She just learned a new skill! Melanie takes advantage of the war in order to hone her skills as well; she makes Ashley a new uniform for him to wear to battle.

5. Help others change their lives. Melanie encouraged and inspired everyone around her to have the same kind of virtue she had. Some of the most remarkable women I know have created businesses online solely to help others change their lives. They spent their own lives learning life skills and the Internet gave them the opportunity to share that with others.

How do you see women using the Internet for good?