Gender & Online
Communication
"Feminism is a transformational force, an individual and social force. It is a way of looking at the world- a questioning of power/domination issues, an affirmation of women's energy."
- Charlotte Bunch
Introduction:
This web page embodies Charlotte Bunch's philosophy of Feminism. Through this page I seek to celebrate women's presence on the web, but also to question issues of power and gender inequality that unfortunately exist in cyberspace. When I first started researching information about Computer Mediated Communication, I felt that examining issues such as gender and differences in communication styles would be quite interesting, but instead found them to be disturbing. I guess I seemed to "buy" into the notion of CMC being gender-neutral and that there would be democracy in cyberspace, which is not what I found. Through my own experiences on the web as a newbie, I have encountered online sexual harassment, in my face pornography, and difficulty being heard in newsgroups and on listservs. Shocking, you might say? Actually, it is not. Women face the same gender inequalities online as they do in face to face communication. This is a problem that we as women have to change, for there is a whole cyberworld that can and will be available to women. Get involved & make our presence known!
Here are some links to various women oriented sites:
In addition to doing my own exploring on the web, I have examined current literature that critically analyzes this gender inequality on-line. These writings have expanded on the reasons for the inequality by conducting research that goes beyond the simplistic and superficial conclusions. The writings dig deeper into the cause of the cyber gender gap.
Review of the Literature:
The basic assumption in the literature reviewed is that computer mediated communication is not gender-neutral and therefore is not conducive to equal communication opportunities. The methods used in the research were ethnographic observation of online discussion groups, discourse analysis of the texts from the groups, and surveys used to determine reactions from the group. The findings supported the assumption that there are significant gender differences in computer mediated communication, and further showed that these differences are more pronounced in cyberspace. The reason for this division is because of linguistic and relational differences in the styles of communication between men and women. These two categories of stylistic difference are found to be consistent in all of the reviewed literature and therefore each of the research findings will be examined further.
In the research by Susan Herring, which focused on the issue of gender and democracy in CMC, an academic discussion list was monitored over the period of a year. Herring identifies the research methods that she used as ethnographic observation of the group, analysis of the content of the discussions, and survey/feedback forms. The data that Herring collected lead to the identification of several gender differences in communication, which she classifies as amount, topic, and manner of discussion. The first two classifications refer to the relational style differences, while the manner classification refers to the linguistic differences between gender.
The amount findings refer to the actual amount of participation, which Herring found to be higher for males and lower for females. She attributes this to women feeling intimidated and discouraged by the way that their posts are responded to (Herring p. 4). She does point out that when women do post concerning a personal strong belief or viewpoint, that men openly objected to this assertiveness. She states, "When women's attempts at equal participation are the cause of male dissatisfaction and disruption of list functioning, a message is communicated to the effect that it is more appropriate for women to participate less" (Herring p. 6). This silencing of women in discussion is yet another power/domination struggle in communication. The intimidation and aggressiveness is behavior that is off-putting to women, yet is commonplace in male communication.
Herring also addresses the topic of discussions and the relation of the amount of participation in specific topics. The research indicated that women participate in discussions that are more "real world", rather than those that deal with abstract theorizing. It is also indicated that men are more concerned with receiving information, while women are more interested in personal discussion (Herring p. 6). Herring presents a flow chart based on the findings depicting each gender's preferred topic types:
Men: issues> information> queries> personal
Women: personal> queries> issues> information
(Herring p. 6)
These findings indicate that CMC is in fact very similar to face to face communication, with women seeking personal topics and men wanting strictly information. If one compares this incident of online discussion with that of an in person conversation, the variables are not very different. For example, girls in high school are often chatting with each other and spending countless hours on the phone while boys are content to just converse as needed during school hours.
The element of linguistic difference is dealt with in the manner classification. Here, Herring shows that gender can be identified by the linguistical and rhetorical composition of the post. She differentiates between "men's language" and "women's language" with a table charting the features (Herring p. 7):
Women's Language: Men's Language: attenuated assertions strong assertions apologies self-promotion explicit justification presuppositions questions rhetorical questions personal orientation authoritative orientation supports others challenges others humor/sarcasm These attributes were based on observation /analysis of messages from the group, in which the results proved to be indicative of the the categorization in the table. The division of gender "traits" are certainly present in face to face communication as well, and it would seem to be wishful thinking to expect them to disappear online. Herring states: "However, given the existence of 'genderlects' of the sort identified here, it is doubtful that such discrimination would disappear even if everyone were to contribute anonymously" (Herring p. 10).
After a thorough analysis of these issues, Herring does not seem to offer a solution. In fact, she is almost pessimistic when she says, " Internalized censorship of this sort reflects deeper social ills, and it is naive to expect that technology alone will heal them" (Herring p. 12). She seems to stop there, not giving any suggestions or even asking for any. Has she thrown up her hands in disgust? I don't believe so, however, she only reports her findings and does nothing to enact change.
In the research conducted by Sharmila Pixy Ferris, CMC is examined to determine whether or not cyberspace is a gender-neutral communication environment. Ferris also questions if CMC simply mirrors social reality (Ferris p. 4). For her reseach, Ferris uses several methods to test her hypothesis: enthnographic observation of a discussion group, linguistic analysis of postings to determine conversational differences, and comparision to other research conducted on this topic (Ferris p. 4). She states that before CMC communication can be looked at that the characteristics of gendered communication in general must be looked at. Here are some of the difference Ferris provided:
Interruption: Men intterupt women and not vice-versa in mixed-sex conversation.
Topic choice: Men may (and do) reject women's topic choices in mixed-sex conversation, while women will talk on topics raised by men.
Speech act choice and realization: Men may use many more commands than women and tend to realize them congruently by means of mood choice.
Imperative: Women are much more likely to realize them incongruently, by using the Interrogative (would you mind......?) or Declarative (I wonder if you.......).
Hedges: Women use more 'hedges' than men
Slang: Men use more slang than women.
Swearing: Even more than slang, this has been regarded as men's territory.
Politeness markers: Women are said to use these more than men.
In addition to her own research findings, Ferris also compares her work with research that has already been conducted on this subject. She finds that within all the research conducted that CMC in fact does not promote democracy in communication. She states: "In fact, while CMC does appear to provide women some freedom to make their voices heard, it appears to exacerbate some of the differences in language use" (Ferris p.4). She also points out that some differences are not applicable online, such as interruptions, which actually gives women a chance to have their say. She does assert: " The nature of CMC plays a role here, as it is easy to 'ignore' unwanted communication by simply deleting messages" (Ferris p. 5).
While Ferris identifies these differences, she also identifies the benefits of CMC, such as networking and forming relationships. She suggests that further research be done into this realm of communication difference in order to really determine what and where these differences come from. Unlike Herring, she provides suggestions in combating this inequality and identifies the positives of CMC. Ferris also suggests and welcomes further research in this area of communication (Ferris p. 10).
Hoai-An Truong also focuses her research on gender and online communication issues. She takes a somewhat different approach than the previous researchers, by not analyzing the linguistic angle of communication as in depth and instead focusing on broad issues concerning CMC. Truong believes that gender is a factor in CMC differences and states: "Many women find that gender follows them into the on-line community, and sets a tone for their public and private interactions there" (Truong p. 2). She deals with issues such as legislation and network policies and the lack of women in technology related fields, by suggesting ways that women can become involved in these areas. Truong states: " If Network policies and legislation are going to determine access to information and participation in public media for this and the next generations, it is critical that they reflect and address the perspectives of women and people of color to avois further marginalization of these constituencies" (Truong p. 2).
Truong discusses differences in communication styles, but does not analyize the linguistics of the language used. Instead, she approaches an aspect that previous research has not dealt with. She states: " People will say things on-line that they will not say face to face. In addition, missing elements of conversation, such as facial expression, vocal cues, and other conventions have a complex effect on online interactions. Additionaly there are unresolved difficulties in the frank discussion and expression of sexuality between men and women, in which intent is often misunderstood" (Truong p. 6). To expand on this element would be an excellent opportunity for further research in this area. Elements such as facial, verbal, and non-verbal cues are not present in CMC, and it would be very interesting to examine the effect of this absence.
In other research by Susan Herring, the styles and values of computer mediated communication are examined. She approaches the differences in interaction styles of men and women by differentiating between a male style and a female style. She identifies these: "The male style is characterized by adversariality: put-downs, strong, often contentions assertions, lengthy and/or frequent postings, self-promotion and sarcasm" (Herring p. 3). The female style is identified as: " Supportiveness is characterized by expressions of appreciation, thanking, and community-building activities that make other participants feel accepted and welcome. Attenuation includes hedging and expressing doubt, apologizing, asking questions, and contributing ideas in the form of suggestions" (Herring p. 5).
Herring feels that this research has proved that gender inequlity follows women into cyberspace. She also goes so far as to suggest that each gender has it's own "culture" (Herring p. 10). By this she means that the different styles of communication are indicitive of different sets of rules and therefore each embodies a different ideology. She states: " These cultures are not however separate but equal, rather, the norms and practices of masculine net culture.....are inhospitable to women" (Herring p. 11).
After reviewing this literature concerning gender in online communication, I have realized that cyberspace is not democratic, and there is indeed a gender gap. While I think that this previous research has brought many important issues to light, I feel that more research needs to be done. Communication styles are a complex area to study, and there are many areas within it that have not been approached. For now, women must realize that there is a growing corner of the web that is women-friendly, and that is something we must help to keep growing.
References
Here are some picture of my beloved kitties:
SIMON
MAX
QUINN
