Breaking down the question
This is a "comment" question built around a strong feminist claim: that new media is masculine and therefore reinforces existing structural hierarchies rather than reconfiguring them. The instruction to "comment" invites a reasoned evaluation — you must engage the claim, marshal evidence for and against it, and arrive at a defensible position rather than simply agreeing or listing facts.
The key terms deserve careful unpacking. "New media" refers to interactive, networked digital technologies — the internet, social media, smartphones and platforms — as distinct from the older broadcast media. To call it "masculine" is to make two connected arguments: that the technology is designed, controlled and coded by men, and that its culture embeds masculine norms. "Reinforces structural hierarchies rather than reconfiguring them" sets up the central tension — does new media reproduce patriarchy or does it disrupt it?
The 20-mark weight expects theoretical grounding in feminist scholarship on technology, from Wajcman's technofeminism to Haraway's cyborg, and a genuinely two-sided treatment. The examiner is testing whether you can hold the optimistic and pessimistic readings in tension and adjudicate between them.
How to approach it
Open by stating the feminist thesis clearly and framing the debate as one between a pessimistic reading, in which technology mirrors and deepens patriarchy, and an optimistic reading, in which it opens new spaces for women. Signal early that you will evaluate rather than merely describe.
Build the body around the case for the claim and the case against it. In support, discuss the gendered digital divide, male dominance of the technology industry, online harassment and the gendering of digital labour, drawing on Wajcman's argument that technology is socially shaped and carries the imprint of masculine power. Against the claim, discuss how digital platforms have enabled feminist mobilisation, testimony and networked solidarity, and invoke Haraway's cyborg and cyberfeminism as visions of emancipatory possibility. Our notes on patriarchy and the sexual division of labour situate this within the wider structure of gender inequality.
Conclude with a balanced verdict that recognises the technology's dual character — reproducing hierarchy in some respects while opening reconfiguration in others — and argues that the outcome is not determined by the technology alone but by the social relations in which it is embedded.
Model answer
The feminist claim under examination holds that new media, far from being a neutral or liberating technology, is masculine in its design, control and culture, and therefore tends to reproduce the structural hierarchies of patriarchy rather than to dismantle them. To comment on this claim is to weigh a genuine tension in feminist scholarship between a pessimistic reading that stresses continuity and a more optimistic reading that stresses possibility.
There is substantial evidence for the claim. The starting point is Judy Wajcman's technofeminism, which insists that technology is not gender-neutral but socially shaped, bearing the imprint of the predominantly male institutions that design and govern it. The technology industry itself is heavily male-dominated at the level of engineers, executives and platform architects, so that the values, defaults and priorities encoded in new media reflect a masculine standpoint. A gendered digital divide persists: across many societies women have lower access to devices, connectivity and digital skills, so the supposedly open space of the internet is entered unequally. The culture of online spaces frequently reproduces and even intensifies patriarchal control — women face disproportionate harassment, trolling, surveillance and image-based abuse, which police their participation and drive them out of public digital life much as older forms of control confined them to the private sphere. Digital labour is itself gendered, with women concentrated in lower-paid content moderation and micro-work while the profits and prestige accrue to men. On this reading, new media extends the sexual division of labour and the structures of patriarchy into a new domain, reinforcing rather than reconfiguring hierarchy.
Yet the claim is not the whole story, and a purely pessimistic reading understates the reconfiguring potential that other feminists have identified. Donna Haraway's influential image of the cyborg celebrates the blurring of boundaries — between human and machine, nature and culture — as an opening for identities and solidarities that escape rigid gender categories. Cyberfeminism argues that digital networks give women new tools to organise, to speak and to be heard beyond the gatekeepers of traditional media. The evidence here is real: online platforms have enabled powerful feminist mobilisations, allowed survivors of sexual violence to testify and find collective validation, connected dispersed activists across national boundaries, and created spaces for marginalised women to build community and articulate counter-narratives. Sherry Turkle's early work on identity and the screen pointed to the fluidity that digital interaction can afford. In these respects new media has demonstrably enlarged the arena of feminist action and challenged some hierarchies of voice and visibility.
The most defensible position recognises the dual character of the technology. New media is not intrinsically masculine in a way that fixes its effects, nor is it an automatic instrument of liberation. It is shaped by the social relations in which it is produced and used, and those relations are patriarchal, which is why its dominant tendencies so often reproduce existing hierarchies. At the same time, precisely because it is a contested social artefact rather than a closed machine, it can be appropriated and turned to emancipatory ends. Wajcman's own conclusion is instructive: the relationship between gender and technology is mutually constitutive, so the question is not whether the technology liberates or oppresses in the abstract but how it is designed, governed and used in particular contexts.
In conclusion, the feminist argument that new media reinforces structural hierarchies captures an important and well-evidenced truth — the technology is far from the neutral leveller its early enthusiasts imagined, and it carries the marks of masculine power in its design, control and culture. But the claim that it merely reinforces and never reconfigures is too strong, for the same technology has opened genuine spaces of feminist solidarity and challenge. New media is thus best understood as an ambivalent terrain of struggle, in which the reproduction of patriarchy and the possibility of its subversion coexist, and the balance between them is a matter not of technological destiny but of social and political contest.
Examiner's perspective
The examiner is looking for a genuine comment, not a one-sided essay. The strongest scripts state the feminist thesis clearly, then evaluate it by setting the pessimistic reading of digital patriarchy against the optimistic reading of cyberfeminist possibility, and arrive at a reasoned, qualified verdict.
Theoretical anchoring lifts the answer: Wajcman's technofeminism, Haraway's cyborg and the cyberfeminist debate are almost expected here, and using them shows command of the field rather than mere opinion. Concrete illustration — the gendered digital divide, online harassment, and networked feminist mobilisation — grounds the argument. Candidates who simply assert that technology is bad for women, or who lapse into uncritical techno-optimism, are marked down. Analytical balance and the recognition that the technology's effects depend on the social relations that shape it are what secure the top band.