Book Reviews
"We believe it is vital for women to help shape the Internet so that we can create a space where women feel a sense of belonging. We need to take ownership of a technology that has immense potential for social change." (Senjen and Guthrey,1996, p. x).
I had initially picked up The Internet for Women after seeing an excellent review for it in the UK lesbian magazine DIVA. I had been searching for practical texts that specifically attended to the gendered component on using the Internet, which the majority of "how-to" books seem to ignore. The Internet for Women appeared to be a potential valuable reference.
After purchasing The Internet for Women, I was even more impressed with the text and the sheer wealth of information that is provided. My interest in the text was determined by the focus upon the technical components to the Internet - practical and clear information on what to do to get connected on-line, what tools to use, how to negotiate the Internet once connected. Where the text is significantly different from other "how-to" books is in its focus upon women as users of the Internet. Teaching women how to get on-line is not simply a matter of providing access to the technological tools (though access is certainly a key issue). Recognizing the social and cultural barriers that intimidate women or the cultural construction of technologies that exclude women must be addressed in order to increase women's participation on-line. Educating women about the Internet is about teaching women how to get connected and why it is important to be part of the Internet. Education should include sharing knowledge about the practical uses of the Internet, how it can be used in ways that are empowering to women's lives and examples of how women are currently participating in creating Internet culture. The Internet for Women provided all this and more.
The first three chapters to the text provide the reader with an introduction to Internet culture from a historical and theoretical perspective. Answering preliminary questions about the shape and face of the Internet provides a basic starting point for the beginner. Showing how women have participated in the development of computer technology and how women are using the Internet at present locates women on a historical time-line where women have traditionally been made invisible. Addressing gender issues on-line, such as harassment and pornography, recognizes these as real and possible barriers to women's comfort and ability to participate in the Internet. Through a clear and frank discussion of the issues, Senjen and Guthrey illustrate how topics such as pornography are being framed for discussion in society and give practical advice on how to negotiate these problematic areas on the Internet. By demystifying the issues, it helps to build women's confidence about going on-line and what to "really" expect (in contrast to the media hype about the dangers of the Internet).
The remainder of The Internet for Women gives practical, hands-on advice and suggestions about using the Internet. By breaking the different components of the Internet down into easily digestible chapters, Senjen and Guthrey have framed the sometimes intimidating technical information into bite sized chunks. With individual chapters on getting connected, using e-mail, surfing the Web and using FTP and Telnet, the text summarizes the major features to the Internet without bombarding the reader with information overload. Within each chapter, the focus is upon practical and technical instruction. Given the intimidation women can experience with computers, the authors have tried to provide highly detailed and comprehensive instructions. While not all software packages for using different aspects of the Internet may be contained in each chapter, the attention to major current applications (such as Eudora mail or Netscape) will help the majority of readers get connected.
As women, we use the Internet in many different ways for many different reasons.
The Internet for Women has something to offer all readers at all levels. As a
beginner, it helps clarify technical terms and the basic features of the Internet. For more
advanced participants, it provides detailed material about aspects of the Internet women may not
be familiar or comfortable utilizing. In all cases, the concise, friendly and informative style of
writing helps demystify the Internet and the barriers that women can face. The emphasis is on
the "how-to" practical component with attention to why certain features of the Internet work in
specific ways. Unlike other "how-to" books, The Internet for Women does not
fill space with extensive lists of interesting Web sites that are outdated by the time of printing.
Each chapter ends with a short Web site list for reference, but does not rely upon those sites for
the exchange of knowledge. Each chapter stands on its own for supplying the necessary
information to use each feature. A separate resources chapter at the end encapsulates some of the
ways in which women are using the Internet for the benefit of women. These are broken down
according to common topic areas (health, sexuality, parenting) with clear instruction on how to
subscribe to mailing groups or descriptions of relevant web pages. Like any good reference text,
The Internet for Women also contains an extensive bibliography that is relevant,
current and informative, using sources from books, journals, fiction and web pages. Every
woman with an interest in using the Internet or issues surrounding the Internet would benefit
from this text.
"We wrote this book because even though women and girls from many walks of life are doing extremely fun, fabulous and useful stuff on the Internet, this myth still persists that the Net is a "guy thing" or a "geek thing" or a "white thing" or something only for the affluent, the businessmen, or those interested only in the alt.sex newsgroup hierarchy." (Gilbert and Kile, 1996, p. 4)
Cybergrrls, surfergrrls, net chicks: The new world of Internet culture is young, hip, cool and female. In this new publication, the intent is to provide women with the theoretical and technical knowledge to increase their confidence in exploring the Internet. Overall, I found the text to be informative, amusing, and confidence building. Jargon is avoided and how to increase confidence and skills is heavily emphasized. Most importantly, focusing on why ALL women need to become a strong presence on the Internet clearly shows the ways in which the Internet is being presently culturally coded and valued. The Internet might seem masculine, but how and why it is being used is not set in stone. According to SurferGrrls, having women on-line and doing their own thing will help change the beliefs and metaphors we have regarding the Internet.SurferGrrls is split into three distinct sections. The first section is aimed towards the new learner who might not be familiar with the terminology and the workings of computer systems and the Internet. The middle section is a confidence building check list of learned skills and abilities. The final section pertains to theories about the "Wired World", detailing the cultural construction of technology as masculine domain and activity. To challenge this artificial and social association, the authors interviewed 10 significant women who are challenging and changing the shape and face of the Internet.
In Part I, the intent is to provide a preliminary technical background. The book opens with a helpful, concise and understandable glossary of Internet terms. From Archie to WWW, the glossary captures the "expert" language that is needed to both negotiate and discuss Internet culture. What I found most beneficial to this section is the detailed description of the parts of the computers: everything I needed to know about hardware, software and externals. Increasing women's confidence in using new computer technologies necessitates increasing their knowledge about how it works. Being able to speak the language helps women when they go to upgrade their system, get a service provider or need to trouble shoot their systems.
Part II might seem at first glance to be a playful way to help build their knowledge and skills. In working your way through the merit badges ( I was immediately brought back to my early youth as a Brownie and Girl Guide), your progress can be charted and you can see new areas for further growth and development. Not only does this section help women develop their skills and abilities, it helps women to set goals and feel less overwhelmed by the technical knowledge that is viewed as being "necessary" to use Internet technologies. I was particularly impressed with the very first goal, to acquire a mentor to provide assistance. Overall, the text stresses the importance of women helping each other with technology, why female mentors are needed for women of all ages and abilities and the benefits that arise when women freely exchange knowledge with each other. Supporting each other is the best way to ensure more women create spaces for their voices in cyberspace.
For those more interested in the culture of the Internet, the third section of the book will provide a wealth of information pertaining to cultural constructions of the Internet for women. By pointing out the many constructions of technology and gender in television, advertising and film, Gilbert and Kile illustrate how the cultural depiction of the relationship between women and technology is positively changing. Similarly, the authors go further in suggesting that the representation of women within the Internet is another venue for discussion and further exploration. While men such as Marty Rimm and Rob Toups are choosing to construct the Internet as a space consisting of pornography and "babe" pages, women such as St. Jude (Mondo 2000 magazine), Amy Goodloe and Heather Reddy are all taking back the space and creating web spaces by and about women's diverse realities.
While SurferGrrls may turn off some readers due to its "cybergrrl", pop culture flavour, it is a valuable text for the beginner web surfer. By attending specifically to gender, concerns and barriers to participating on the Internet are brought to the forefront and legitimized as an important topic for women (and men) to address. SurferGrrls encourages women to take control, to stand up and shout their voices and opinions into cyberspace. It is not about playing with the boys, sharing their games and rules. It is about the creation of spaces that reflects the reality of women's lives, in all their shapes and forms.
From the CyberGrrrl
Oath:"We are wired women. We would rather be cyborgs than goddesses. We have made a
special vow to help guide our sisters, our mothers, our daughters and our friends into a
cyberspace of their own....In the name of global good and human freedom, we vow never to
surrender the internet and its successors to dangerous, self-perpetuating myths of the
technological incompetence of women". (Gilbert and Kile, 1996, pp. 239-240).
"The rapid expansion of interest in ICTs in both industrial and academic circles has spawned a raft of research and writing on an exciting array of issues from virtual identities to cybercrime. Curiously, the gender dimension of these areas has received limited attention, historically often limited to discussions of women's absence from technical disciplines, their problems with office automation, and their supposed 'technophobia'" (Green & Adam, 2001, p. xiv).
I will state my bias towards this book up front: I am third author of one of the articles included in this anthology. That being said, I believe this text to be a very informative, solidly researched, and well-argued collection of papers.
The articles in Virtual Gender are organized around four central themes: access, consumption, community, and Identity. Within each theme, the role, purpose and impact of gender upon the social processes at play are explored in great depth.
In Part 1 (Access), the editors made a logical decision in opening with a study by Scott, Semmens & Willoughby that explored the historical origins of women and the Internet. This is a wonderful narrative for those unfamiliar with changes in women's presence and participation on the Internet, and a strong reminder that women have yet to reach equality in the physical world, let alone the electronic world. Their reframing of how to conceptualize "access" was invaluable in suggesting that contemporary literature and research posits access in terms of consumption. Another way to think about access to the Internet is to relocate the user as an active citizen. This in turn begs the question, are women to be thought about as consumers or equal citizens in cyberspace? This question is addressed in many ways by authors throughout the anthology. It was fascinating to discover in this section that while some gender issues surrounding access to ICTS and the Internet remain the same (our own research in this chapter suggested women have some different concerns from men about Internet safety and identity), others have changed. I particularly enjoyed reading Micaelson and Pohl's article that showed that there were no significant gender based e-mail communication differences in their study on private correspondence. This is a wonderful challenge to early feminist research on Internet communication that argued male communication styles dominate the Internet and subsequently cause a chilly environment for women to participate.
Part II is my favorite chapter in the book, largely because it is on consumption practices - a social process that guides and motivates my own doctoral research on entertainment technologies. Yates and Littleton's study on female gamers and gaming culture is a fascinating read, as they deconstruct the social assumption that men are gamers and women are not interested in gaming due to the violent content. The term "gamers" itself carries negative connotations, and to understand the culture of gaming and gender, it is necessary to reject these two basic assumptions. Women do take pleasure in gaming, and the use of computer games for women's leisure time activity requires much further analysis and research. The main theme to this section on consumption is that to understand the consumption of technologies, the every day context of its usage and consumption must be understood. For example, Green's article on the construction and consumption of virtual reality argues that immersive technologies can only be understood in reference to the locales of their creation, and the identities that they (re)produce.
Citizenship and the ethics surrounding on-line relationships and interactions acts as the organization theme for Part III. The three articles in this section explore the extreme boundaries of internet communities, from cyberstalking of women to the formation of a Finnish IT community of women on-line. Adam's article on cyberstalking is at once a chilling read (as in the real world, women are likely to be the victims of male stalkers) and illuminating to the beliefs that underlie government regulatory bodies. In particular, Adam's makes the argument that officials are uncomfortable accepting cyberstalking as a problem largely because liberalist beliefs in free speech, the free market economy mentality that dominates the Internet, and the thrust upon individual self-protection. By contrast, Vehvilainen's study on the formation of a women's internet community is an empowering read, where women in North Karelia formed NiceNet, an IT group for women. NiceNet exists in the real world, where women in the community meet at a neighborhood center in Marjala. At the meetings, women teach other women how to use computers and the Internet to get things accomplished. The group of women choose topics for each of their meetings based on their own lives and priorities, and reject having a supervisor or coordinator to arrange the sessions in favour of working cooperatively.
The final part of the collection addresses the theme of identity, which was explored in many other ways throughout the entire anthology. While gender identity and gender swapping on-line has been widely discussed prior to this book, Roberts & Parks conducted practical and empirical research on gender swapping of MOO users. While the current conception in mainstream society is that gender swapping is quite common in cyberspace, their research revealed that the participants they surveyed (MOO users) infrequently switched gender, and when they did, it was typically male to female or female to male. In MOOs, gender goes beyond the traditional binary identities available in the real world, where one can be neutral, plural, or non-binary gendered (i.e. Royal, or Spivak). However, while gender could be altered, adjusted, or ignored in MOOs, the majority of players did not use this opportunity to break the gender boundaries. In fact, many recreated their real world gender in the formation of their on-line persona. Gender switching, when it did rarely occur, was more typically for short term experimentation than any long term expression of identity, personality, or sexuality. Jimroglou's discussion on the construction of Jennifer Ringley's identity on the JenniCAM website further explores the construction and rejection of binary feminine identity in favour of Haraway's female cyborg subject. She argues against the framing of the JenniCAM site as a simplistic pornography site, in favour of a reading that shows Jennifer's awareness of her own power, agency, and ability to disrupt traditional gender stereotype boundaries. The book ends with Graham's highly engaging read on cyborgs and goddesses as key contemporary creatures by which feminine identities are destroyed, explored, and reconfigured. These mythological role models for cyberfeminists serve as reminders and challenges to the complex constructions of gender, technology, nature and culture.
What I most enjoy about this anthology is that while the research is based on solid qualitative
and quantitative research methods, many authors insert themselves into the text. That many
authors research topics to which they themselves are involved with is necessary to acknowledge
and realize.
These are a few films that I feel can be read as positively constructing a technological identity for women. They are all recent films and readily available at your local video store for an evening viewing. In each case, an analysis of the film suggests that women are still being constructed in terms of traditional societal beliefs about gender identity. However, their identities in relationship to technology are more positive than other modern films such as Eve of Destruction or Virtuosity*. Women, in these more positive films, are constructed as having technology as part of their everyday reality and take active roles in utilizing technology for their own means. In addition, these women are also depicted as having a playful relationship with technology - it might be used for work but it can also be used for ordering pizza, hacking TV stations or taking on the bad guys!
* If you have not seen these films, they may be worthwhile to watch, even if only to gape and get annoyed at how women are traditionally recreated as objects for male consumption and control. In Virtuosity, the only female virtual reality character is a chess playing, barely clothed woman who desires to be killed when a man won't play with her. In Eve of Destruction, a female cyborg inplanted with weapons goes "insane" and threatens humanity as a result of her female creator's emotions interfering with her programming. I kid you not.
Brainstorm (1983)
Natalie Wood (Dr. Lillian Reynolds) and Christopher Walken (Dr. Michael Brace) play two computer scientists who develop technology that allows them to record actual human memories and experiences for playback. Though it is initally designed to assist with human communication, emotional intimacy and entertainment applications, the military quickly becomes involved as its potentials for weapons guidance and mind torture are discovered. Dr. Reynolds objects to military involvement, as well as to the sexual uses to which the technology has been utilized. After Dr. reynolds dies in the process of a recording session, the military appropriates the technology, and Dr. Brace must fight back to reattain control of the technology.I simply LOVE this film! It was one of the most important films I can vividly remember seeing as a youth, because it was the first time I had seen women positively depicted as intelligent and emotional scientists. It is Dr. Reynolds who adminsiters the facility, develops the technology, and fights the male military commanders who want the technology for destructive purposes.
The Net (1995)
Sandra Bullock plays a computer savvy programmer who works from her home and has few, if any, direct "real life" relationships with people. When she accidentally stumbles across a hacker crime in progress, the "bad" team use computers to erase her identity. While initially confused and upset by the loss of control in her life, she takes charge by fighting back against her enemies using her expert computer skills and techniques.
Hackers (1995)
While the focus of the film is on Dade, the legendary superhacker "Zero Cool", the more interesting character is Kate, a.k.a. "Acid Burn", a feisty, independent and strong hacker who is sexy, smart and outcools the boy's club. She has the fastest computer around (I especially appreciated this!) and holds her own in battle over being called "elite". While she is problematically constructed as a sexual/love interest for Dade (as a prize to be won), she still has an active and powerful role as a woman in control of technology. It is also refreshing to see a young woman in a role that positively depicts women using computers.
Tank Girl (1995)
Based on the cartoon character and series, Lori Petty plays Tank Girl, an ultra-hip, rebellious and free-spirited rebel living in the wastelands of the USA in 2033. Water is under the control of the Department of Works and Power, who kill her friends, take her prisoner and torture her. With the help of her friend Jet Girl, some very impressive technology, and The Rippers (a gang of mutant kangaroos), she destroys the company. While the film is not explicitly about computer technology, it is still great to see women being able to rebuild tanks and planes from scratch. Tank Girl and her "love scene" with her tank shows women taking pleasure in technology/machinery while simultaneously sending-up the construction of technology (in this case the tank) as phallic imagery and masculine identity.
Conceiving Ada (1997)
While I have not seen this film, I'd like the chance!
According to various reviews, Emmy Coer, a computer genius, devises a method of communicating with the past by using information waves. She contacts the world of Ada Lovelace, "mother" of the idea of a computer language and proponent of the possibilities of the "difference engine." Tilda Swinton plays Ada, brought to life and interacting with Emmy through her computer. The film addresses how a computer woman of the 20th century interacts with a woman of the 1800's, where each is an outsider in her realm of knowledge.
The Matrix (1999)
As Trinity, Carrie-Anne Moss may not be the central character. In fact, as the film progresses, we learn she is to ultimately fall in love with "The One" who will bring freedom to the people (as opposed to doing it herself). Neo, who becomes "The One", is the true hero of this film. However, the film offers a vision of the future in which women and men fight together against oppressive technology that controls the reality of all humans. Trinity is a strong women, independent, fighting for what she believes. She knows computers, the film opening with her fingers furiously dancing over the keyboard as she seeks escape from the agents. She is a rebel, a freedom fighter, and a computer specialist, all rolled into one. In fact, in the one rare moment of true feminist consciousness in the film, the awareness of the masculinization of technology is revealed. When Neo first meets Trinity and learns her name, he realizes she is a legendary computer hacker, of advanced knowledge and skill. He laughs to himself, and when Trinity asks why, he explains he always thought Trinity had been a man. With no laughter or smile, Trinity replies that men always seem to think that. Of course, with the exception of the film's opening, the audience never actually see women using computers. It will be interesting to see how her character is depicted in the two forthcoming sequels.
eXistenZ (1999)
Another classic Cronenberg film where technology and the physical body blur in new ways...
Jennifer Jason Leigh stars as Allegra Geller, a top notch computer programmer who creates a virtual-reality game called eXistenZ that taps into the players' minds. It is refreshing to see a film where a woman is a software designer, a field where women are typically under-represented in the real world. Geller has the ultimate control available - control over reality - and creates a world that is fantastic and unbelievable. By the end, who and what is actually REAL is in serious doubt!
The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
Trinity is back! But while she is still a very strong and capable woman in her own right, Trinity seems to have little to do in this film except be the romantic partner of Neo, and require saving by Neo. However, she is shown hacking into the Power Station's computer, as well as the Matrix, so her hacker skills are still being put to good use.
