Using the World Wide Web for social change: drummergirl.com, a case study

Traditionally, drumming has been a male-dominated field. Even today, mainstream drum publications have continued to ignore the existence and contributions of female musicians. Additionally, they do not provide positive role models or inspiration for aspiring female drummers and continue to reinforce negative stereotypes and prejudices against women. In 1995, I created “drummergirl.com” in an attempt to overcome the under-representation of women in the drumming industry. drummergirl.com is intended to provide both a forum and a sense of community for female drummers. Some of the goals of the Web site are to create a unified female presence in the drumming industry, document the history of female drummers, gain visibility for female drummers and empower young female drummers. drummergirl.com also provides access to vital industry, technical and practical information, and to resources and educational materials-all free of charge to anyone with Internet access. Evidence of the site´s success is documented in the thousands of e-mail messages received from males and females-young and old, amateur and professional, from Kansas to Australia-who support what we do. Internet technology has made this possible