Gendered Communication in the "New Frontier"
Analysis of user interactions on the Cinema-L list reveals that some aspects of gendered communication styles have been carried over to the "new frontier" of Cyberspace. Cultural messages related to women's uses of "gender-appropriate" technologies, coupled with the unique challenges of the environment's dynamics, can influence women users' comfort and participation level in online discussions. In spite of these factors, data from April 1993 and April 1996 document a significant increase in the level of participation by female members on the Cinema-L list. This chapter analyzes those comparative data and explores possible reasons for the gender shift. Issues related to gendered communication in public vs. private forums--and the impact of those variables on females' online activities--are also addressed.
Cultural Messages: "Gender-Appropriate" Technologies
Cultural messages regarding gender-appropriate behavior influence women's perceptions of the desirability of computer usage. While certain technologies are perceived as "appropriate" to women, others have been delineated as "male" technologies. Margery Davies, for example, has documented the process through which the typewriter was defined as a "women's" technology (Davies 1988). Several authors have described the ways in which household technologies such as the washing machine have been viewed as "women's" technologies (Bose and Bereano 1983; Leto 1988). And women's magazines the world over are replete with advertisements for beauty technologies. However, over the course of recent history, skills related to computer technologies have been viewed as the domain of male "experts" who have in many ways shaped the production and consumption of computer-mediated avenues of communication.
The political and economic implications of a more widespread cultural emphasis on the importance of computer technologies have been explored by other researchers; and concurrently, one of the most well documented aspects of this shift has been women's avoidance of the newer technologies. Sherry Turkle, in The Second Self, points out that for some members of our society, machines (and especially the "intelligent" machine we know as a computer) evoke anxiety:
And when these people (in our culture, often women) meet the computer the problem is taken to a higher order. Here is a machine that goes beyond all others in its promise to reflect human competence. It is not always welcome. For some, its challenge may be felt as an alien contest. (Turkle 1984, 90)
Also, history reveals that women may have greater cause than men to fear the entry of the computer into the workplace. In industrializing societies, the jobs that are displaced by machines are often those previously held by women:
The people who market computers say one computer can take the role of 20 women in an office. When a machine enters a new field, it usually drives out female expertise, and women tend to be restricted: technology in these cases means job losses for women. (Smith 1983, 68)
For these very practical reasons, women workers may base their fear and/or avoidance of technology on a real--and not merely imagined--threat.
Gendered Communication in Public vs. Private Forums
Characteristics of the "one-to-many" LISTSERV environment play a role in women's level of participation in online discussion, as well. About a month after I conducted Phase I of my study, research participant Bill wrote to me with the following suggestion, which may highlight gendered perceptions of relative safety and danger in public vs. private spheres:
BTW, has anyone brought up the interesting phenomenon of off-list conversations? I find it interesting that women tend to be more apt to correspond personally than men. I have roughly three women I regularly correspond with, and only one man. I wonder why my personal exchanges with men tend to be limited to only a few posts & then, back to the list!
Musingly,
Bill
I noted the same kinds of dynamics in my off-list research. While the average daily percentage of messages posted to the list by females during April 1993 was 23%, as many women as men took part in my survey that month: a perfect 50/50 split. The female survey participation rate, much higher than their overall participation on the list, may have resulted from the fact that some women subscribers felt more comfortable communicating directly with me than they did communicating with the list. This phenomenon may very well reflect women users' perceptions of off-list discussions as "less public," and therefore less personally risky. Bill's comments suggest the possibility that male users' perceptions of the two environments may be inverted. (Or perhaps male users prefer the different kind of personal gratification that can be obtained from participating in the more "performance"-oriented forum of the public domains of the list.)
Electronic communication is perceived differently by different individuals. The anonymity of the list can be viewed as a source of safety, especially for the lurkers and for those who prefer having a few minutes to reflect on their words before they "speak." Several list members commented that one of the aspects of list communication they most appreciate is that writing messages and posting replies in the sanctity of one's own private environment allows the construction of a measured and thoughtful response. This anonymity gives those who might be intimidated or uncomfortable in a face-to-face discussion a greater sense of control over their level of participation in the communication process.
This may sound really dumb, but I'm not much of a people person. I'm not only somewhat shy/bashful, but I also, for the most part, like being alone. So it's nice that I have these people to "talk" to "at will." I can listen to them when I'm ready to listen, and respond when I'm ready (and prepared) to respond. You don't get that freedom with face-to-face confrontations (Molly).
Molly elaborated further on the relative convenience of electronic communication via the LISTSERV:
Some claim that this type of communication is harmful because we're learning to be impersonal. While it is somewhat impersonal, I disagree that it's harmful. Many of us simply don't have time or the inclination for personal, face-to-face discussions, whereas these listservs give us the luxury of taking part in discussion, communication, the expression of ideas when it is personally convenient.
The ability to compose a response in one's own time was viewed as highly positive. However, more female than male respondents commented that they felt uncomfortable in "flaming" situations. Female volunteers' comments suggested that women may view the LISTSERV environment as concurrently both more and less risky than face-to-face communication, due in part to the absence of physical presence and the nonverbal cues that contribute to the problems and the benefits of face-to-face discussion. It has been suggested that "the reproduction of old [male-dominated] patterns of power and privilege" are reflected in the "socially structured silence" of women in the current information society (Jansen 1989, 196). Ellen Ullman observes that one of the reasons why fewer women than men have chosen to participate in online communication may be that "for women, online messages constitute one means of communication among many, one type of relationship among many. Maybe this is why there are fewer of us online: We already have company. For the men, their online messages are their relationships" (Ullman 1996, 10).
The perceived social risks related to flaming were briefly addressed by several female posters during the on-list and off-list discussions of electronic gender dynamics I initiated near the end of April 1993 by posting my preliminary research results to the list and inviting comment. Several female respondents identified the possibility of becoming involved in flame wars as a source of major concern, and therefore one of their reasons for not posting more often. However, at least one male survey respondent, Sergio, identified flame wars as a source of excitement and/or amusement--just another part of what made the list experience interesting for him. Deborah Tannen, in her book You Just Don't Understand, has observed that men and women perceive social aggression quite differently: "For boys and men, aggression does not preclude friendship. Quite the contrary, it is a good way to start interaction and create involvement" (Tannen 1990, 163). On the other hand,
To most women, conflict is a threat to connection, to be avoided at all cost. Disputes are preferably settled without direct confrontation. But to many men, conflict is the necessary means by which status is negotiated, so it is to be accepted and may even be sought, embraced, and enjoyed. (Tannen 1990, 150)
Susan Herring has also noted:
The existence of gendered styles has important implications, needless to say, for the claim that CMC [computer-mediated communication] is anonymous, "gender-blind," and hence inherently democratic. If our online communicative style reveals our gender, then gender differences, along with their social consequences, are likely to persist on computer-mediated networks. (Herring 1994)
"Newbie" Dynamics: The Silence of the List
The unfamiliar dynamics of joining a large group of unknown individuals for a discussion that is already in progress can be perceived as a source of great interpersonal risk for those new to the experience. I remember the nervousness that accompanied my first posting. It was like giving a speech in a dark room where it was impossible to read the faces of the audience. Likewise, a female lurker commented that when she spoke up, she felt as though floodlights were being turned on her. The crucial moment, however, may not have been the moment of "speaking" into that deep electronic silence, but the long wait after taking a risk and sending that first message--listening for the first friendly voice to answer back.
Participating in the list, initially as a novice and later as one of the core list members, I observed that new list members who posted their first several messages only to be ignored were often unlikely to post again. Susan Clerc has noted that this phenomenon may be perceived as especially unwelcoming by women:
Women, regardless of their previous fannish experience, just don't talk as much in public as men, partly because they are socialized against drawing attention to themselves by seizing and holding center stage. If a newly online fan does pop her cherry and post, reaction to her maiden messages will affect her future posting rate. If everyone ignores the post, the newcomer may interpret the lack of response as a sign she's not welcome. However, not responding shouldn't necessarily be construed as a conscious attempt to bar women from discussion; it's often, rather, a sign of reluctance by members of both sexes to waste time on people who may not be in for the long haul. But getting no response does tend to happen more often to women than men. (Clerc 1996, 81-2)
Novices to the list are sometimes called "newbies" and ridiculed for bringing up topics that have already been discussed to death; on any list, it is wise (as some of the lurkers pointed out) to listen in for a while to see what topics are being addressed before sending that first post. It generally takes several postings from one individual before he or she achieves the social "critical mass" on the list to generate comment by others. In the meantime, the list's silence may be perceived as rejection or lack of interest.
It is important to note, however, that the structure of a LISTSERV is such that (as Susan Clerc noted earlier) it is not accurate to interpret the list's silence as evidence that participants are not reading one's messages, paying attention, or valuing one's contributions. This fact was made explicit several months after Phase II of my research, when the following discussion occurred. Dan, a teenage boy who had been the cause of flames on the list during his previous attempts to join it, had just "crashed" the list again, posting numerous incendiary messages and inciting flames among the regulars. Kara, a relatively new list member who had made several earnest previous attempts to generate discussion on the list, sent the following message to the LISTSERV describing her experiences:
I am a lurker on this discussion group and have tried in various manners to get responses to my own postings, either by creating a provocative posting ("Kingpin-debriefing") or responding directly to Suzanna or Robyn (neither of whom picked up my thread, which is fine, I know everyone is busy, etc.).
So when I saw Dan's entrance into the group, I was intrigued. I asked myself "how will Suzanna and Robyn respond?" while being somewhat relieved that there was someone more gauche than myself attempting communication with the cultural elite.
Kara had interpreted the absence of a response to her posts as a lack of interest on the part of the other list members. She had attempted to engage in dialogue with several list members whom she perceived to be at a higher level on the list hierarchy, and had failed to generate feedback. On the other hand, Dan, the party crasher, was receiving lots of attention--proving perhaps that sometimes when someone is trying to join a list, starting a fight may be the most efficient way to draw attention to oneself and engage others in intensive interaction. Robyn sent the following encouraging response to Kara:
Please don't not (double negative, does that work, who cares) post because people don't respond. Probably 90% of my posts don't receive responses and usually that 90% are the ones on which I spend much of my time and hope for a response. For some reason that is the way of cinema-l. For example, when Bob sends one of his hilarious reviews, I almost always want to remark on something he says but I figure it would waste everyone's time and space so I think in the back of my head, "Jeesh, that was hilarious." Or Don's incredibly insightful reviews I *always* read and sometimes re-read (in fact, on my list of movies to see, I'd say most of them were recommended by Don in one or the other of his reviews) but I rarely tell him how fascinating I think his reviews are. Perhaps I should but in the face of such completeness, what's to say?
So please, post away and eventually you too will be ignored routinely in your brilliance just like everyone else. :-)
Suzanna's subsequent response to Kara's message follows:
>I am a lurker on this discussion group and have tried in various
>manners to get responses to my own postings, either by creating a
>provocative posting ("Kingpin-debriefing") or responding directly to
>Suzanna or Robyn (neither of whom picked up my thread, which is fine,
>I know everyone is busy, etc.).
Well, Kara! Why the hell didn't you say so! Sheesh.
>So when I saw Dan's entrance into the group, I was intrigued. I asked
>myself "how will Suzanna and Robyn respond?" while being somewhat
>relieved that there was someone more gauche than myself attempting
>communication with the cultural elite.
Cultural elite? Try "nothing better to do with their time" (me, I mean, can't speak for Robyn). And believe me, the more gauche the better, for my taste. This is an odd discussion, though, isn't it? When I first started on this list no one gave me the time of day unless it was to correct my always-bad spelling and grammar. Two things, well, three things seem to go on here--one is that some people genuinely like to discuss movies and are curious to learn more about them, to improve their own writing about movies and to share new and interesting movies with people who don't have access to them. These people generally write wonderful reviews that nobody reads or responds to, unless it's privately. For the most part I stay on the list for those people. The second thing that goes on is just what you'd expect to find in a bar or a coffee shop-- regulars get together daily or weekly and try to make each other laugh either by making fun (good fun) of the people who wander in unaware of the dynamics already set or by writing funny things or by joking back and forth. There are some people on the list who write the most hilarious things I've ever seen--much better than television. The third thing that goes on is the occasional angry flare-up which always seems funny to the people who have been around long enough to recognize it.
But all in all there is no need to feel "lower" than anyone else. Just have some fun. If people ignore you do what I do--write about sex. That *always* works in a pinch. Or you can address people directly as I do. Or you can write about movies while writing about yourself. All of the above will work. And you have to also realize that there are many lurkers who are reading what you write regardless of whether or not they respond.
And pay no nevermind to the egomaniacs like me who are just out for an ego boost at every turn. It's a sad, desperate state of affairs.
Many new members who post messages only to be met with silence generally respond in one of two ways: they keep posting messages until someone replies, or they give up and either become a lurker or leave the list. For users who require any level of self-validation on the part of others in order to continue the "conversation"--including many women participants, according to user self-report and existing research evidence--the list can seem like a pretty unfriendly place. [28]
Joining a list and immediately beginning a new thread involves both speaking when nobody knows you and attempting to direct the list discourse--a risky proposition in a discussion space where new topics are often initiated by key members of the group. Such behavior can be perceived by the group either as a breath of fresh air or--in some cases--as a challenge to the existing list hierarchy. A less risky tactic is to address one's comments, as Suzanna suggested, directly to another contributor, on an existing thread. Such a strategy is more likely to elicit a reply.
A Dramatic Increase in Female Participation on the List
When I conducted my preliminary Cinema-L research in 1993, one of the aspects of the LISTSERV environment that concerned me most was the low participation rate on the part of female list members: female list members were not contributing nearly as actively as male members by posting messages.
Three years later, I returned to the list to discover a much more active and vocal group of female participants. A total of 1714 messages were posted to the list during the month of April 1996, with 220 individuals participating in on-list discussions during that time and the average daily number of messages being 57. Overall, 49% of the messages were from males and 47% were from females. Seven list members each posted 50 or more messages during the month: four females and three males. In contrast with Phase I of my study, where daily "top posters" were on every occasion male, the person posting the most messages during Phase II of my study was a woman who had posted a total of 106 messages. The average percentage of messages per day posted to the list by females during April 1996, 47%, was more than double the 23% I had documented during April 1993. An additional finding was that although more male than female participants had posted messages to the list over the course of the month (118 males to 73 females), female posters who did contribute had averaged a higher number of messages during that time period: 11 messages each, compared to seven each for males. Detailed statistics related to the numbers and percentages of both messages and posters for Phase I and Phase II of my research are presented in Appendices J and K; an at-a-glance comparative summary of key statistics is included in Table 1.
Before sharing my comparative statistical findings with the list, I had asked Phase II interview volunteers to estimate the gender split (in percentages) of the daily messages. Four female respondents replied that there were more female than male postings (at a ratio of about 60/40 in favor of females), and two females replied that there were more male than female postings (and they categorized the split similarly: around 60/40, this time in favor of males). Most of the respondents, however, were very close to the actual statistics: eight respondents (all five males and three of the females) replied that the split was either "50/50" or evenly balanced. In general, their impressions of the on-list gender balance were fairly accurate.
The increase in the level of female participation on the Cinema-L list has been distinct and noticeable over time, and I hypothesized that over the past few years women have been making greater cultural inroads into the processes of information creation and consumption on the Internet. [29] In order to test this hypothesis, after interviewing the research volunteers, I posted my statistical findings in late April 1996 and invited discussion and/or explanation of the changes I noted (that message is included in Appendix I). Only one list member publicly responded to that message, but additional comments pulled from interview volunteers' responses confirmed a noticeable increase in the number of females on the Internet in the recent past. Kent, who has been accessing the Internet for the past nine years, voiced the following observation: "I'd say maybe the female percentage has been gradually increasing, as the Internet becomes less male-dominated over time." Kent pointed out that he had noticed this shift across all of the 12 lists he participated in.
Mary, another interview volunteer, revealed that this aspect may be one of her selection criteria for belonging to a particular list: "I don't belong to any groups that exclude or discourage women participants." She also pointed out, however, that "Cinema-L has always had many active and articulate women."
Still, the shift in gender dynamics that I documented on Cinema-L is not uniform throughout all corners of Cyberspace; national surveys reveal that males are the primary users of the Internet. In October 1995, the Nielsen Internet Demographics Survey's Executive Summary reported:
Users of both the Internet and on-line services are primarily male. Males comprise 66% of users of the Internet. In addition, males tend to use the Internet with both greater frequency and duration than females, accounting for approximately 77% of the total usage. Males comprise 59% of the users of on-line services and are responsible for 63% of the total usage. There is less of a gender skew on on-line services than there currently is with the Internet.
More current Web demographics indicate that about 68% of Internet users are male, and that 87% of users are white. [30] Clerc has observed in her research that "there are dozens of newsgroups and mailing lists out there, and women are on all of them, although women favor mailing lists while men go for the high-profile Usenet newsgroups" (Clerc 1996, 83). According to my interview volunteers, participation by gender varies across the Internet newsgroups, depending greatly on the subject matter. Discussion of cinema is a leisure pursuit, with many social aspects that evoke personal disclosure and interaction on topics of interest to both genders; and on the more socially oriented lists, the gender balance tends to be more even, with females sometimes outweighing the males. Cinema-L interviewees reported that on lists where more technical information is discussed, however, the balance tends to shift toward male participation.
The social interactions on the LISTSERV--and acceptance and validation by the group--were perceived as highly desirable by many female research volunteers. Several of the female participants used analogies related to family structure when discussing the more positive aspects of LISTSERV dynamics. Schement and Curtis have noted that society is undergoing some significant structural changes, one of which is that for many people, family get-togethers are rare and, consequently, immediate work and social groups are being called upon to fill some of the voids left where family-related activities used to be:
For others who seldom see extended family members, the office has become a surrogate family. There, a person can find confidantes, parental figures, hierarchies organized by age, imposed obligations, and power struggles for influence similar to those played out by family members in earlier times. (Schement and Curtis 1995, 48)
They note that the global interconnectedness we are beginning to experience has led to some changes in interpersonal relations, as well:
For most people, this means an increase in the number of relationships, but a decrease in their depth. That is, we are in regular--if not frequent--contact with more people, but we don't know many of them very well. (Schement and Curtis 1995, 47)
Additionally, researcher David Brown has suggested that the relative decrease in stability that many of us may be experiencing in our daily lives challenges the sense of local community that we used to rely on:
The sense of community is elusive or short-lived when 17 percent of us move at least once each year, 50 percent of us change jobs every two or three years, and 50 percent of our marriages end in divorce. We are now, more than ever, strangers to one another even as we depend, more than ever, on one another to cope with the complexity of everyday life. (Brown 1995, 7-8)
Changes in the workplace, family structure, and traditional definitions of community may indeed leave a social void that Internet discussion groups and other types of online interactions can help to fill.
While there is no guarantee that one month's statistics are evidence of a profound gender shift on the Internet in general, anecdotal information from my interview volunteers supported those observations. Factors contributing to the number of female users venturing online might include economic issues, increasingly user-friendly interfaces, and increased media attention to electronic technologies. In Tendencies and Tensions of the Information Age, Schement and Curtis point out that a breakdown of the workforce by job categories reveals an increasingly high percentage of jobs that require skills related to information processing. It would not be surprising to discover that linking information processing skills to job procurement and salary would generate increased interest in the Internet for individuals who might not previously have viewed technology-related activities and skills as desirable.
Advances in communication logistics also undoubtedly play a role in the changes I noted. Several years ago, the Internet consisted primarily of a maze of Gopher servers and clumsy electronic mail interfaces, with any graphics that were available located in FTP archives that required some user sophistication in both interface and graphic manipulation; graphics and text documents accessed in this format had to be downloaded, decoded, expanded, and opened on the desktop, a process that required several steps on the user's part. The World Wide Web, with its easy-to-manage and attractive interface, makes maneuvering through volumes of electronic information easier and less intimidating. For the non-expert user, the Web provides a much more welcoming environment for exploration than ever before. "This craze for the Internet, it's become a frenzy because of the Web. The pretty point-and-click navigators. The pictures and sound. The Rolling Stones' live broadcast. The Web is turning the net into television--TV for the ostensibly intelligent" (Ullman 1996, 6).
In the past few years, media attention to the Internet has exploded, with the creation of a host of new Internet-related magazines geared to every level of user imaginable. A December 6, 1993, Time magazine article, titled "First Nation in Cyberspace," sported the following tag line: "Twenty million strong and adding a million new users a month, the Internet is suddenly the place to be" (Elmer-Dewitt 1993, 62). Additionally, Time and Newsweek featured special Internet issues in spring of 1995. Daily newspaper headlines and glitzy advertisements on television and in magazines showcase the joys of "surfing," "cruising," and "browsing" the Web. With the Internet being portrayed as attractive, desirable, and "the place to be" in the mass media, computer culture is becoming less "expert"-oriented, and consequently, more users than ever are venturing online.
The Decentered Self: Theoretical and Practical Implications
Amid the current emphasis on the importance of the Internet, and in the midst of rampant speculation regarding both its impact and its implications, various groups have presented alternately dire and hopeful predictions on the subject of technology and the value of human life. Within this debate, feminists are deeply split on the issue. One of the most alarming aspects of some branches of feminist rhetoric is their distinct anti-technology tone: their assumption that technology is and always has been a vehicle through which a dominant group subjugates the oppressed. This perspective can presuppose the easy dismissal of technology as a force of evil in our world.
While such approaches provide valuable food for thought, some of the postmodern feminists present a more flexible perspective on the issues. One of the most interesting aspects of the online environment suggested by postmodern approaches is that it invites philosophical reflection and rumination on the human condition itself. How such an environment changes interactions among and between groups, as well as how it alters our cultural perceptions of the larger social order within which we live, are topics that are worthy of exploration. New and surprising alignments are suggested. Donna Haraway, for example, in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women, observes that woman, nature, and machine--because they have always been viewed as "other" than man and therefore outside of the cultural mainstream (and, consequently, as something to appropriate)--can be viewed as much more similar than different (Haraway 1991). Haraway goes on to suggest that there is the potential for great pleasure and individual empowerment to be found in the "fractured identities" and the "confusion of boundaries" that exist in the postmodern world of the late twentieth century (Haraway 1991, 155, 150). Noting that the situated position of the oppressed is one of the conditions that makes individuals and groups vulnerable to continuing oppression, Haraway foresees in the "polyvocality" of this new environment the potential for liberation from old patterns of subjugation: "The dichotomies between mind and body, animal and human, organism and machine, public and private, nature and culture, men and women, primitive and civilized are all in question ideologically" (Haraway 1991, 163). All told, it may be more difficult for oppression to continue in an environment in which individual and group identities are a moving target.
Judith Halberstam, in "Automating Gender: Postmodern Feminism in the Age of the Intelligent Machine," points out that the argument could be made that machines and women are aligned because gender itself can be viewed in terms of constructed behavior, just like artificial intelligence: "Gender, we might argue, like computer intelligence, is a learned, imitative behavior that can be processed so well that it comes to look natural [ . . . . ] In other words, gender, like intelligence, has a technology" (Halberstam 1991, 443). Many traditional cultural explications of the origins of gender have placed men at the center of creation and women at the periphery: within such views, woman is positioned as "other" than or secondary to man. Females' comfort level in regard to technology, which may be hampered by women's negative perceptions of computers, may benefit from this new perspective: the Age of Technology should seem more comfortable than alien to women if indeed, culturally speaking, woman was the original "intelligent machine."
As I noted earlier, the anonymity and decenteredness of the electronic communication experience can be a source of perceived risk. The ambiguities and fluidities of identity that become evident when self relates to machine (described by Halberstam 1991 and Turkle 1984) become even more apparent in the electronic communication environment. All participants are operating in an environment where the rules of interaction are different than what most of us are accustomed to. We explore new aspects of personal identity as well as interpersonal relationships with the birth of each new communication technology: in this case, how self relates to other through a new machine.
I have observed the assorted positive and negative aspects of participation in an electronic community with great interest throughout the course of this study, defining such interactions as "postmodern" in the way that Jameson meant it: the environment's transcendence of "the capacities of the human body to locate itself, to organize its immediate surroundings perceptually, and cognitively to map its position in a mappable external world" (Jameson 1984, 83). In the real world, identities are fairly set, and they are bounded firmly in flesh. When we meet new people, interpersonal judgments often begin at the surface and move from there to the internal: looks, voice, personality traits, then the exchange of ideas. In the Cyber-world, however, the elements of individual being are more fluid than fixed, the verbal is privileged over the visual, and identity is more negotiable. The order of how we learn to know others is changed as well. In the virtual environment, we learn to know others first through how they express themselves and how they think. The engagement of emotion and intellect happens long before we interact with their physicality. The relationship thus begins at a more internal (intellect/emotion) rather than surface (appearance) level, which may be one of the reasons why both romance and antagonism begin earlier in the course of a relationship through this medium.
Sherry Turkle (1984) has written extensively on the ways in which computers themselves are "evocative objects" because they provoke self-reflection. My research supports her comments, and I would add that electronic communication may provide an even greater opportunity for self-reflection and self-definition. Participating in online discussions and observing how virtual identities are constructed (or maybe more accurately deconstructed) has proven to be a useful exercise, in that it has provoked the kind of self-reflection Turkle describes. Although I was quite comfortable posting messages to the list (and posted frequently for several years), I must admit that I was more than a bit startled near the end of the first phase of my study when one of the self-confessed lurkers identified mine as "a loud voice, a female loud voice." In real life, I become shy amid large groups; Virtual Anita is perhaps somewhat bolder. I was almost as surprised when a co-worker and friend who also belonged to the list told me that she had described me to a Cinema-L pen-pal as "Meg Ryan, with a thesaurus." Electronic mail can indeed be educational as well as entertaining.
The postmodern aspects of the virtual environment can invite contemplation of where "real" identity resides. I have noted through my own personal experience that the electronic environment promotes the almost "out-of-body" freedom that some of the feminist writers have described: as a female, one of the aspects of electronic communication that I found most exhilarating when I initially joined the list was the ability to create a new character that would not, for once in my life, be measured by my appearance, or my physical body. Laurel Sutton nicely captures the thrill of establishing human contact with others in an environment where your words are all you are measured by:
Communication through computers can bring people together, regardless of their distance or location. For once in your life, you can be sure that people are paying attention to what you're saying, and not the way you look or how nicely you dress. You contribute to a newsgroup from your quiet little room (or big, fluorescent-lighted work space) and within hours, or in minutes, you have responses from people you've never met but who are interested in what you have said. You sent out a message in a bottle, and you got an answer. Your voice was heard! (Sutton 1996, 171)
Researcher Judy Anderson comments on both the positive and negative aspects of such an environment:
Usenet, while it can be nasty, acerbic, uncaring and unsympathetic, is a truly nondiscriminatory society. It judges you only through your postings, not by what you look like, your marital status, whether you have a disability, or any of the other things that are traditionally used for discrimination. (Anderson 1996, 138)
These aspects of online communication can bring about interesting changes in an educational setting, as well. Fanderclai has commented on the variety of ways in which an online writing project altered the traditional dynamics of classroom "dialogue" when she allowed her students to "talk" with one another using a MUD (multi-user domain) environment:
Some of the students who seemed more willing to talk on WriteMUSH [the MUD] commented to me privately that when they talked online, they felt as if they were being listened to according to what they said rather than according to how they looked, how they sounded, whether they were male or female or black or white and so on. For example, two students who were not native English speakers remarked that they liked having a place to communicate where they didn't have accents; a few female students said they felt they were taken more seriously online; and a student athlete told me he was less afraid of being taken for a "dumb jock" when those he was talking to couldn't see him. (Fanderclai 1996, 232)
One of the most important personal revelations I brought back from my journeys in Cyberspace was that the fluidity of identity we experience in the virtual environment can help us begin to free ourselves from our own preconceptions of a predefined self. If we are offered the opportunity to remake ourselves into anything that we can dream of--not as a situated being that has already been judged as "other" to the dominant and therefore found lacking, not as an image that can be evaluated by superficial criteria that do not tell us the true measure of our selves, but in terms of a voice and an identity that we ourselves have constructed--who and what will we become?
Not all female users find the experience so liberating, however. Current media are filled with horror stories about women's harassment in Cyberspace, and about the wealth of pornographic resources on the Web that may make some female users feel intimidated or uncomfortable. But Stephanie Brail has suggested that what the Internet needs is not more regulation but more education. "Women can and should learn more about their online environment so they can exert more control over their corner of cyberspace" (Brail 1996, 154). I have been fortunate in that the majority of my online experiences have been quite positive. I joined the list in the early 1990s as a techno-novice. I was not overly comfortable with the computer on my desk, and only began to relax after social "play" made gaining computer savvy seem comfortable and even desirable to me. I met a host of new and interesting people, and along the way I even learned some of the new skills that are required as part of my everyday job. I am now, for instance, the competent owner of no fewer than a half dozen work-related lists of my own, and am learning to develop educational materials for electronic delivery on the Web. Although I do not by far qualify for certified "geekdom," much of my small but growing retinue of computer proficiencies rests on the foundation of incidental skills I learned while "playing" on the Internet.
Skills related to the use of assorted technologies have become increasingly important in our culture, and technology in general has become an integral part of our social, political, educational, and economic systems. Because knowledge of, and comfort with, emerging technologies is an essential component of women's ability to achieve emotional and intellectual fulfillment and economic prosperity both now and in coming years, it is important that women attain a level of computer competency and comfort that will enable them to adapt to technological innovation. There are both practical and philosophical reasons for teaching women and other underrepresented groups not necessarily to love the technology but to become more adaptive and cognizant of our responsibilities in relation to it. Women need to help define the ways in which technology will shape our world and our sense of what it means to be fully human, so that we are prepared to seize ownership of it and put it to our own uses, be they economic, political, educational, or social. I would argue that in some corners of Cyberspace, patterns of unequal gender representation may already be changing, as new groups learn to challenge the status quo and step forward to make their own voices heard in the online environment.
The social dynamics of the one-to-group communication that takes place on a LISTSERV present particular challenges and opportunities. For some, "speaking" in such an environment can seem very appealing, in that one has more control over the logistics and content of one's communications. For others, participating in such an environment without immediate regulating feedback or interpersonal validation is perceived as a source of great risk. For women, the challenges presented by the electronic environment can be compounded by cultural messages related to gender-appropriate behaviors in regard to technology, and by a perceived element of economic threat.
Comparative data from April 1993 and April 1996 document a significant increase in female participation on the Cinema-L discussion list over time. Although the percentage of female list members remained relatively constant, the percentage of messages per day that were initiated by females more than doubled, and the percentage of females who participated in the daily on-list conversations by posting messages increased substantially.
That gender shift might be attributed to a number of factors: the "mainstreaming" of the Internet in the past several years due to media and other attention that has made exploration of the electronic environment appear desirable; the easier-to-navigate and more appealing graphic interfaces of the World Wide Web that render it less formidable to the non-expert user; and the increasing emphasis on computer and electronic communication skills in the job market.
Postmodern feminism presents interesting perspectives on the impact that the virtual environment might have on group dynamics. Some researchers have observed that the fluidity and anonymity of the virtual environment can provide users a new opportunity to define self, which can be an empowering experience. It can be especially liberating for members of those groups--such as women and minorities--who have often struggled to define themselves in their own words rather than in terms identified by other, more dominant groups. Members of such underrepresented groups must seize a responsible role in helping to direct the thoughtful uses of technology in our increasingly interconnected global community.