Life in the Network

Here is my alter-ego: a skinny, dark-skinned, male sports fan. I think the clothes are supposed to be football, but the background seems more like basketball. As you might imagine, I don't know or care much about organized sports, and would probably not be able to carry this identity off very successfully. Like some other folks here, I noticed that on Meez, at least, we are given a rather false sense of variety... too bad for you if you want to be someone that isn't on the menu.

For the most part, I agree with Gurak's position that "Cyberspace is not cut off from the everyday sexism of the world" (Cyberliteracy, p.81), and that part of being a cyberliterate person is to recognize the similar social problems that affect us on-and-offline. Cyberspace replicates society at large, and can more easily accomodate the long tail (making it easier for users with obscure interests or concerns to find eachother) but as long as sexism ( racism, homophobia, classism, ageism, look-ism...) as long as these attitudes persist in the 'real world', they'll be replicated online. The Internet allows for safe spaces to exist in new ways, but I don't believe these spaces exist only because identities are disguised--there are real life spaces where men can safely behave or dress in "unmanly" ways, and where women can assert themselves without being labeled a bitch. Gurak reminds us that these spaces are increasingly mirrored on the 'Net: "We can construct sites that defy this trend, reject Barbie computers, create new role models for girls and women, and recognize that there is no utopia, even in cyberspace." (p.81)

in "Tinysex Gender Trouble", Turkel writes, " We are tempted to believe with the utopians that the Internet is a field for the flowering of participatory democracy and a medium for the transformation of education." (p. 12) I think it's interesting that both of these writers feel the need to remind us that the Internet is not a utopian paradise, and in such similar language. There are certain aspects of my life that are more convienient thanks to the web, but a new piece of communication technology does not an egalitarian wonderland make. I'm curious whether there are actually people who believe it does. I don't spend very much time socializing on the computer, but I have noticed some of the things both of these writers talk about: differing language styles and goals, men (or users I believe to be men) tending to dominate the conversation, and users in general being interested in knowing the gender of others, whether or not it's relevant to the discussion.