Women Online :: Internet Feminist Technology Essays

Women Online Is it better to be a woman online or a man online? Which sex is more respected? Do women have better conversations then men or is it the other way around? Can women participate in a debate with men and still be heard? Are women being treated equally online in comparison to their male counterparts? These are some of the questions that are asked in the articles of Dale Spender and Laura Miller. Dale Spenders article entitled Gender-Bending, and Laura Millers article entitled Women and Children First: Gender and the Settling of the Electronic Frontier. In which the two female authors give their opinions about the good side and bad side of being a woman online. In Dale Spenders article she describes how womens behaviors alter depending on if they are talking to a man or a woman. Their behaviors alter by the terms and tones they use to their posture/demeanor and weather or not eye contact is made. Spender observed such behavior in a study she preformed. When a man entered a conversation uninvited women would automatically give him the floor, as was to be expected. But what wasnt expected was that women would change the way they were sitting and they would look up to him rather then down. In another experiment a baby was handed to a group of women with its sex unidentified. When the sex was identified as a female the baby was held closely and tightly. The females heads were bent down and they spoke quietly and soothingly to the baby. When the women where told that a mistake was made that the baby was in fact a boy the behavior altered. At some points the baby was almost dropped when the women changed the way the baby was being held. The baby was held further away and was bounced up and down. The womens tone changed from soothing to loud and robust. The child was also raised to eye-level when talked to. Even in the case of babies Spender believes that all of our words, actions, and body language are gender-loaded(71). She believes that only when we know the sex of who we are talking to can we actually conduct a conversation. Due to these studies and experiments Spender came to the conclusion that the only way to gain respect is to be a man. Not only when we are young but in writing and conversation.