WOMEN ON-LINE: Gender and Social Reality in Cyberspace

Lynn Cherny is a Ph.D. candidate in Linguistics at Stanford University, where she researches gender differences in computer-mediated communication. She is writing a dissertation on communication in virtual communities, with a focus on MUDs.

Elizabeth Weise writes for the Associated Press about computers and the Internet. Her column, "On The Net," runs in 10 papers and on several on-line services including CompuServe and Clarinet. She has also edited a collection of essays for Seal Press, "Closer to Home: Bisexuality and Feminist" (Seal Press, 1993.)

INTRODUCTION

Media treatment of gender in cyberspace so far has mainly consisted of hype about cybersex, the net as a place to pick people up, and horrifying tales of harassment and misplaced affection in a sea of fluid identities and gender ambiguity.

In this book, we would like to present a less sensationalist look at women on the net, considering what in fact it means to the women who spend time in cyberspace to exist in a male dominated communication sphere, as well as the kinds of community and culture women and men are finding, and creating, there. In addition, we would like to bring together feminist research and analysis of the meanings women are finding in a medium where gender is invisible, at the same time that it is omnipresent.

Some of the questions we are interested in addressing are listed below. Because we would like to see a volume develop out of the strongest contributions, without limiting in advance the particular subject matter of each chapter, we are leaving our interests broad until we have manuscripts to consider. The areas outlined will give some idea of our grasp of the issues that our contributors might tackle, however.

1. Does gender ever really disappear on the net, in the absence of physical and social status cues? The net has been claimed to be a place where hierarchical differences disappear, gender can be redefined at will and sexism vanishes. But we are increasingly seeing the benefit of women-only spaces on the net, and concerns about male domination in newsgroups and folk belief in the existence of gendered rhetorical styles (i.e., male "flames" versus female "cooperative" posts) raise concerns about whether the net really provides any escape from gender differences and conflict.

   Several women-only and women's-specific spaces have been created on the net. What do they feel like and in what ways are they different from mixed space? Examples include Women on the Well (WOW), a women-only space constructed on the California-based Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link and ECHO, where women can get a cheaper rate if they only use the women's conference. The founder of ECHO, Stacey Horn, has stated that one of her objectives is making cyberspace accessible and safe for women.

   Also, how have women's spaces on the net changed over time? Two of the oldest include Sappho, a women's mailing list, and the soc.motss news group (motss = members of the same sex) a gay and lesbian newsgroup founded in the mid-1980s. These lists have generated hundreds of thousands of posts over the many years they have existed and have created specific mobile communities which have waxed and waned over time. How have women experienced these lists during their lifetimes and how have they changed as the Net itself has grown up?

2. Do women worry about sexual harassment on the net, and what constitutes harassment, given lack of physical presence and virtual anonymity? Lots of women get random `talk' requests over the net, get personal email messages if they post public ly on USENET, get too much attention (often sexual propositions or offers of technical "help") in mutiparty chat services like IRC or MUDs. When does it become a problem?

   In text-based virtual reality systems like MUDs, what happens to women in places where gender and identity are as fluid as the few lines of text you write your character description with? "Net-rape" and other less obvious forms of harassment are only a few of the issues facing women who wish to take female-gendered characters. Adolescent boys who use female characters as lures for netsex and stereotyped role playing of clueless girls ("hi, I'm erryn, I'm not very good at these computers, can you help me :-) :-) ??") are some of the mind-twisting challenges to gender coherence and sanity in these worlds. There are also issues about race, gender preference, freedom of speech, ownership of space, authorship, and bodiless communication of feeling in MUDs that are yet unaddressed.

3. Do women feel alienated by being a minority on the Internet? Or is the gender ratio not an intrusive fact on the net? Statistics from public on-line services show a gender disparity of between 60 percent male to 40 percent female and 96 percent male to 4 percent female. Such statistics most likely don't reflect accurate numbers, since many couples share accounts, with the account "listed" in the male name. Are women "borrowing" other people's technology, or do they feel a sense of ownersh ip?

   Who has access to non-commercial net access? The two largest specific groups at the present time are students (who get accounts free through their universities) and people working in the computer industry. There, the men tend on the whole to be technical types, whereas many of the women tend to be technical writers without the range of technical skills the men have. How do users perceive their access and right to the medium and how are these affected by how they gain that access?

4. What is the future demography of the Net, given access issues like race, gender, and economic barriers? How will it be used and developed? In a very real sense, such decisions are being made now and in the near future, and minority advocacy is crucial, since women's and racial issues tend to disappear when the majority is the white male with money.

   For instance, children are an often overlooked group. Increasingly more and more K-12 students are coming on-line via school programs and their parent's accounts. What kinds of experiences to girl have in cyberspace, both with their peers and adu lts? Are they running into the same problems women on the net do? Is pedophilia on the net a serious worry for parents? An essay on this topic would need to include input from the girls themselves, though it might be written by an educator.

5. Finally, we would like to include a critical review of articles that have appeared in the popular presses about the net as a social phenomenon, with a particularly acute look at the portrayal of the net as a pickup joint. We are concerned a bout the nature of virtual harassment and the propagation of sexist stories about women as clueless, lost in cyberspace, only connecting to meet a man, eager to open up to strangers and tell all, interested in a date more than a conversation, waiting to be hurt by CyberRomeos who can't be trusted with two email addresses. We are concerned that many of the horror stories in the press have been written by male journalist, some of them actually masquerading as female, apparently to get at "what it's like for women on the net." Clearly these are stories that women should be telling instead.