:: Netwoman ::

:: Sunday, February 29, 2004 ::

New Blog

Though I don't have too much time on my hands right now (shown in the lack of blogging I am doing right now), I sometimes stumble across new blogs.

I just found Suzanna's blog, a Canadian graduate student using her blog to document her thoughts concerning her research. Looks like a good blog with some good critical commentary. I am looking forward to reading it. She points to an interesting article called " The Mobiles: social evolution in a wireless society".

"In this study, ethnographic researchers looked at how mobile behavior had changed worldwide from 2000-2002, across a variety of ages (teens, young adults, older adults) and locations (Australia, China, Italy, Sweden, Brazil, and the US). One of their conclusions is that wireless communication changes the nature of how relationships and community are created and maintained - AND that these social patterns are tied into how deeply each person has adopted a mobile lifestyle."

:: Netwoman 8:04 PM [+] ::
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Technology in the Home

I usually don't blog about my daily life too much, unless something techie happens to me. Today is one of those days.

My washing maching broke down this week, flooding my basement.

I am a stubborn woman. I do not ask for directions. I don't read instructions. I don't follow diagrams telling me how to put things together. I do not ask for help. I do not call repair'men' to fix things. I do not call my landlady when things go amuck.

I decided to tackle the washing machine - this gift from the domestic heavens sent to empower women, freeing them from handwashing so that they could enter the paid labour force more freely (yet not from the gendered domestic binds to do the laundry itself).

I am convinced that it was not a woman who invented or designed the washing machine. Because if she had, it would be much easier to dismantle and fix.

I took the front panel off to investigate what was going, only to discover that the problem lay behind the barrel - impossible to get at and requiring further unscrewing. After wrestling with the washer for a good 20 minutes, I was able to get at the problem, fix the broken hose and reassemble the beast.

If I were to design washing machines, I would put one water hose on either side - not one hidden from easy access and certainly not near all the wiring and hardware where the current cold water hose is located. I would not design a machine that requires full disassembling for a quick fixer, or one that would require someone to come fix it for you (ah, but this is capitalism yes? call a person to come fix it for a large fee).

I must admit, it was quite empowering to fix the washer beast by myself. I felt proud, content and comforted by the dirt and grease that I was covered in. There is something to be said about understanding technology and being able to navigate it, repair it and ulitmately understand it. Technology is power. Understanding technology (innovator vs user) is Uber-power.

I think I should take an automotive course....Today I feel like Rosie the Riveter...

:: Netwoman 1:45 PM [+] ::
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Men Are Computers Women Are Cell Phones

Can we stay connected?
By Rhonda Rhea - located here.

Much like the biological determinist arguments of Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus - Christianity Today has this article about how 'different' women and men are when it comes to communicating. Unfortunately, the article is based on presumptions and assumptions of people's 'hardware', blaming biology instead of considering socialization - the typical nature vs nurture debate....

"Different wiring
I don't know about that whole Mars/Venus thing, but I think I can safely say men and women certainly operate on different hardware. We're wired differently. To me, it seems as if men are computers and women are, well, cell phones. The computer's communication is most often a one-way communiqué. Cell phones, on the other hand, require two-party participation. They're all about communication."

While women are often the communicators within relationships (I wrote a paper about how women more then men use the internet to communicate with family and friends - the 'kinkeepers'), it is gender and the construction of gender roles - especially within domestic settings - that often shapes and influences people's actions....

:: Netwoman 8:59 AM [+] ::
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The Cyborg Mother: A Breached Boundary

I just found this article via Cyborg Mommy by Jaimie Smith-Windsor

Snipit (see article for full citations)

"Motherhood -- a Breached Boundary: A Critical Questioning of Who is Mother in Cyborg Culture?

My daughter's birth was a post-human, cyborg moment. She became cyborg, "the illegitimate child of the twentieth-century technological dynamo -- part human, part machine, never completely either."[3] Using this moment to grapple with the concept and implications of cyborg culture reveals some important questions about the amalgamation between the technological and the biological, and "not just in the banal meat-meets-metal sense."[4] Breaching the bio-techno boundary forces an engagement with "new and complex understandings of 'life', consciousness, and the distinction (or lack of distinction) between the biological and the technological."[5] Becoming cyborg is about the simultaneous externalization of the nervous system and internalization of the machine. Thus symbiosis of human and machine makes possible the genesis of the cyborg consciousness. Ultimately, the breached boundary of the human body is a diasporatic phenomenon: the dispersion of an originally homogeneous entity (the body), "the diasporas of the human condition into several mutually incomprehensible languages."

:: Netwoman 3:00 PM [+] ::
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The Internet as a Weapon of Mass Education

A research firm in the US called Adaptive Path released a report recently that rated each Democratic candidate's site on on design and navigation, what it provides to those who plan to vote for the candidate, those who want to volunteer, and those who are undecided.

Adaptive Path's report also offers general recommendations for political-site designers.

See:

1. Can Tech Turn an Election?
The Internet can help campaigns, but early returns show its influence is limited
here.

Conventional wisdom states that John F. Kennedy won the 1960 presidential election because he made better use of a new technology: television. Fast-forward more than four decades, and the Internet is generating considerable buzz as the principal campaign tool of 2004.

But is that buzz justified? Many observers credit a well-designed Web site and an fficient e-mail system for Howard Dean's spectacular rise from obscurity to front-runner. But that lead disappeared as actual votes came in from Iowa and New Hampshire. As a way to attract voters, the Internet proved to be, as former vice-presidential candidate Lloyd Bentsen famously said of a rival, "no John Kennedy."

2. Presidential Campaign sites
User Experience Analysis here.

"An in-depth analysis of the nine major Democratic candidates’ Websites. Find out how Dean compares to Kerry, Sharpton, and the rest. Learn best practices for supporting grass-roots campaigns, swaying undecided voters, and keeping your core constituents informed."

:: Netwoman 12:12 AM [+] ::
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New PEW Results

Rural Americans' Internet use has grown, but they continue to lag behind others located here

WASHINGTON (February 17, 2004) - There has been steady penetration of the Internet into rural areas in recent years and more than half of rural adults -- 52% -- now go online. However, a corresponding rise in the percentage of urban and suburban residents going online has left a persistent gap between rural areas and the rest of the country. Some 67% of urban residents and 66% of suburbanites are online.

A new study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project finds that the gap is probably tied to the fact that rural residents as a group earn less and are older than their urban and suburban counterparts.

Rural areas' are also distinct in how rural users get online. Some 19% of online rural residents have broadband connections at home, compared to 36% of urban residents and 32% of suburbanites. The availability of broadband connections may be partially responsible for this difference. Nearly a quarter of rural Internet users say they can't get a high-speed connection in their area, whereas 5% of urban users say this, and 10% of suburban users say a high-speed connection is unavailable.

In addition, rural Internet users are distinctive in some ways for what they do and don't do online. They are more likely than others accessed religious or spiritual content. In addition, they are more likely to have used instant messaging. On the other hand, they are less likely than others to have engaged in transaction activities such as online banking and online purchases.

"Rural Internet users aren't entirely a breed apart from other online Americans," said Peter Bell, Research Associate at the Pew Internet Project and principal author of the new report. "When it comes to using email, employing search engines, visiting government Web sites, and pursuing hobbies, they are just as likely as everyone else to perform some of the most popular activities online. Many of their differences can be explained by the fact that the Internet hasn't diffused into everyday life in rural areas at quite the same clip as it has in others locales."

The report, titled "Rural Areas and the Internet," is based on primarily on survey data collected between March and August 2003. The Pew Internet & American Life Project is a non-profit, non-partisan research organization, fully funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts to explore the social impact of the Internet.

Some other data highlights from the report:

Many rural residents are enthusiastic users of the Internet at an early stage in their adoption of the technology: 45% of rural newcomers go online daily.

Rural users with three years or more online are more likely than others to seek health information online. Almost three quarters of experienced rural users have done so, while 68% of similarly experienced suburban users and 64% of similarly experienced urban users have sought health information online.

Data collected in October 2002 shows that 29% of rural Internet users say the Internet Service Provider they use is the only one available to them. In contrast, 7% of urban users reported a single ISP, and about 9% of suburban users were serviced by a lone ISP.

There is a large gap between rural African-Americans and rural whites. While 54% of rural whites go online, 31% of rural African-Americans do so. This disparity can probably be traced to income and education. Over 70% of rural African-Americans live in households with incomes under $30,000 a year, compared to 44% of rural whites.

Rural users' online connections to groups are more likely to stretch beyond their physical community. While 15% of suburban users and 19% of urban users say that most members of their online group live "in my local community," only 8% of rural users' say that most of their group's members live in the same local community. Rural users' online community connections are more likely than those of urban and suburban users to be directed beyond their physical location. Half of rural users say that most of the other members of their online group live "all over the country." By comparison, 42% of suburban users say so, and 39% of urban users say so. Not surprisingly then, rural users are more likely than other to say that the Internet is more useful for becoming involved in things going on outside their local community. Some 77% of rural users say so, while 66% of suburban users and 64% of urban users say so.

:: Netwoman 11:39 PM [+] ::
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Another Blog Break

Yup. I did it again - I took a break - went to Vegas for some rest and relaxation. Vegas is a technological Mecca really - lights, camera - action! Surveillance cameras galore - watching your every move and players cards tracking your dollars spent....While it was a needed break, it was hard not to sociologically analyze what was going on....

:: Netwoman 10:11 PM [+] ::
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Gender, Avatars and the Looking Glass Self

Interesting discussion over at Terra Nova here.

"Some players create the same type of character over and over again, while others never play the same one twice. Some players create avatars that become idealized versions of who they are (or want to be) while others create antitheses of who they are in real life, and some develop emotional attachments to their avatars while others are perfectly willing to sell their avatars. I like to think of avatars as personality projections. Looking at one avatar may not say much, but knowing the avatars that a player has created over time might be very revealing. Has the question of how gender, age and personality intersect with avatar creation and use already been explored quantitatively somewhere already? In either case, what are other interesting avatar creation/use/conceptualization differences that might be interesting to explore using survey data?"

:: Netwoman 12:35 PM [+] ::
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Virtual Friends in Virtual Spaces

The Orkut community continues to grow with many academics and researchers that I am familiar with. I tend to look at other people's friends to see who is on Orkut, and I came across a "person" called Gollum, complete with a LOTR picture. I was amused - but truly fascinated by the number of friends this virtual person had.

Lisbeth makes some interesting comments about Gollum and how he even wrote a testimonial about her. Fictional characters are not allowed on Orkut - though I would argue that some of the profiles that people post can be deemed as fiction. I mean, we are presenting our physical selves in a certain way in the virtual world - aren't we all ficticious to a point? What is real and what is imaginary? Which self are we presenting?

Torill notes that Gollum has been removed from Orkut: "He was active, had a sense of humour and a lot of friends, what more does a person need to be real?" Very true. If we are presenting ourselves with a pseudonym - isn't that fake/pretend as well ? There is a real/physical person behind Gollum - where is that person? Will the real Gollum please stand up?

:: Netwoman 12:06 PM [+] ::
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This Week's Feature Blogger

This week's feature blogger is Torill Mortensen. You can find her blog - thinking with my fingers - here. Torill is an associate professor at Volda College and is on the steering committee of Blogtalk 2.0 in Vienna, the 5-6th of July.

TK: What do you think is the key to bloggers who become so popular?

TM: I am not sure what you mean by that question, because I think the reason blogs became popular and the reason come blogs become popular are two different things. Let's assume you ask about certain bloggers.

1) network. People who are already involved in cyber culture or some other network which is already adapted to the net have a huge advantage, as they know about and write about material which is adapted to the net, and they get feedback, attention and links from their friends, who are in the same cultural sphere.

2) writing (or visual expressions of other kids). If you write well and express yourself clearly, you have an advantage - same with phot-blogs, if you take and post good pictures, people like it.

3) Portals. Good blogs that work as portals for certain topics are very much used. If you are good at using a search engine or five, know how to skim read and can spot a good article or fun item quickly, you have what it takes to make a good portal.

4) immediacy. Blogs are immediate and quick, and when they become too moderated they change into something too close to online journals or newspapers. Good bloggers are not afraid to have to say: "ooops, seems like I was too quick there, if you follow this link you'll see something which influences what I said two posts ago."

5) Topics. If you really know your field, the blog can easily become a resource for others who want to study it, or have an opinion on it.

6) Political Correctness. Blogs are ways to display yourself and all your nice opinions to your chosen subculture. This doesn't mean PC in general, but PC in relation to the subculture you wish to identify with, be it academia, the business, gamers, right wing fanatics or librarians.

7) and then there are the fun people you'd like to know no matter what they talk about: the personalities that make you feel welcome to their world.

TK: The Perseus results indicate that more women are blogging than men. But it does seem that the blogs that get the most attention are authored by men. What are your thoughts about this?

TM: Where do they get more attention? Who gives them more attention? If by "attention" you mean attention by the other more established media, by academia or the entertainment industry - well, who are the gatekeepers in these media? I think it's simple: the established media institutions are still controlled by men, and will be for generations to come. Until that has been equalised for long enough for female culture to have influenced the cultural hegemony, innovations by men and activities enjoyed by men will get more attention than the other way around.

TK: What are your thoughts on why there are so few women deemed to be 'A list'? The recent Top 100 seems to highlight this as well.

TM: Are you talking the old A-list? Isn't that just the most active early users and developers? I thought there weren't all that many women who had blogs back then.

As for the recent 100 - I have no idea who they are, I don't care much about lists like that, so I just made a google search. Are we talking about blog street top 100, BlogShares top 100, or Blogrolling Top 100 (offline at the moment)?? I guess that pretty much reveals my attitude to "who is who in the blogosphere"...

TK: What are your thoughts on the blogosphere as gendered space?

TM: I don't think there are non-gendered spaces, and if there are , I don't want to be in them. Men and women have different experiences, reactions and desires, so I don't think male and female culture will ever perfectly overlap. What I dream of is a world where male and female culture is equally respected and is considered mutually fullfilling and has equal status.

I don't know if the blogosphere will be this kind of utopia, as blogs exist within the same cultural framework as does more clearly male-dominated spaces. What blogs does, though, is give women a channel through which we can make our own thoughts, ideas and issues public to others.

TK: Have you ever had any negative responses to your blog - in the comments perhaps, or via email? What was your response to this?

TM: I don't have comments, because I have the blog for myself and my own pleasure. If others like to read it, I am very happy about that. If others want to discuss issues with me, I am exstatic. If they want to tell me how I should do things, I get unhappy and angry. Not having a comment-box and making people click a couple of times to find my email slows the response rate and sorts away most comments, but the comments I do get are are largely nice, friendly or genuinely interested in a topic. Those I love, and disagreement is no big deal. The unkind - I have had a couple that were snotty and one very unpleasant stalker, that's all.

TK: What has been your biggest challenge in the Blogosphere?

TM: Reading all the stuff I really want to read ;-) I never thought about "the blogosphere" as a place to be challenged in. I am having fun, writing stuff when I feel like it and reading other people's interesting writings. No challenge there!

OK, perhaps the language. I would really like to be a better writer, but at the same time I want to be able to use the blogs to give messages and participate in English-language discussions, and so I can't write in Norwegian. That is frustrating. The net should switch to Norwegian.

TK: How has blogging influenced or changed your life?

TM: I know a lot of people I would not have known otherwise, I think about issues and problems I didn't dream about a few years ago, and I participate in things like this, which I didn't imagine would happen before I started blogging. I may have lost the opportunity of getting to know an other set of people.

Sure it has influenced my life. Changed it? I am still in the same job, same office, same pay, same family...

Thanks Torill for taking the time to respond.

:: Netwoman 11:45 AM [+] ::
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The Internet as (Gendered) Coffee House

Interesting article in the Economist here....

"WHERE do you go when you want to know the latest business news, follow commodity prices, keep up with political gossip, find out what others think of a new book, or stay abreast of the latest scientific and technological developments? Today, the answer is obvious: you log on to the internet. Three centuries ago, the answer was just as easy: you went to a coffee-house. There, for the price of a cup of coffee, you could read the latest pamphlets, catch up on news and gossip, attend scientific lectures, strike business deals, or chat with like-minded people about literature or politics."

This is much of what Habermas wrote in "the structural transformation of the public sphere" - and my comments about it are much the same.

"Coffee-houses were centres of scientific education, literary and philosophical speculation, commercial innovation and, sometimes, political fermentation. Collectively, Europe's interconnected web of coffee-houses formed the internet of the Enlightenment era."

I think we cannot ignore that the elite had access to these coffee houses. In "The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere", Jurgen Habermas proposes a public sphere rooted in the development of salons, coffee houses and table societies that allowed 'rational-critical' discussions between people who visited these sites. Habermas argues that "Transcending the barriers of social hierarchy, the bourgeois met here with the socially prestigious but politically uninfluential nobles as 'common' human beings" (p35). However, I would argue that this might not be the case.

My essential inquiry is one of exclusion and access to the public sphere. Who is excluded or isolated by this construction of public space? Can it be an adequate representation of individuals. If not, what are the implications of this exclusion on Habermas' notion of 'public'?

In terms of exclusion, I would question the critical discussion between 'rational individuals'. I think there is a certain expectation of communicative abilities. If people are to argue their points, then they truly must be educated and able to participate in the discourse. There is an implicit expectation of capability to logically and rationally engage in a discussion or debate in these locations. This seems to relate back to debates concerning who is (and can be) a rational being. What other types of communication or dialogue does this exclude? Does communication have to be face to face and does critical discussion as verbal presentation dismiss other forums or means for debate?

Habermas notes that the coffee houses only admitted men (p33). This certainly indicates exclusion based upon gender. Again, I would argue that his notion of public 'open to all space' does not apply in this instance if women are not allowed to participate. However, he further indicates that the salon was 'shaped by women'. It is evident that women did participate actively in critical discussions in some element, yet their discussions were limited by gender segregation. I wonder how much influence these gendered forums had on formulating 'public opinion'.

As well, I would also question what kind of women were able to actively participate in the salon debates? Presumably women who frequented the salons were representative of a particular social location. As women are responsible for the family, many women are restricted to child care and other domestic work. Women who had the social capital for 'nannies' could surely attend the salons for critical-rational exchanges. The women with social capital also have more leisure opportunity than women who are engrossed in domestic labour.

Furthermore, the location of the salon, coffee houses and table societies are primarily located in an urban setting. This raises issues of accessibility to the salons, coffee houses and table societies as troublesome because only people within the city or town would have easy access and be able to frequent the sites. Where does this leave agricultural workers? Habermas states that the coffee house "public was recruited from private people engaged in productive work" (p34). I question what Habermas deems as productive work as there were obviously so many people excluded from his public sphere.

Therefore, I am persuaded to believe that the 'public' sphere that Habermas purports (and the Economist article) was created in the discussions at the salons, coffee houses and table societies are problematic."Their intent was that in such a manner an equality and association among personas of unequal social status might be brought about" (p34). The public sphere as a site for inclusion and 'equal footing' is not what it appears to be. It is also somewhat unrealistic to think that this utopian public space could adequately represent 'public' opinion, as it seems to represent a public within a certain group of people. Therefore, Habermas' notion of 'public' as 'open to all' becomes the very site that he defines public against - one of exclusion.

The same can be argued about the Internet - an arena of exclusion based on race, class, gender, sexuality, ableism and age. The Economist article does nothing to address this at all. We can't forget that certain voices are deemed 'worthy' of being heard and recognized, others are ignored, undervalued and unheard on the Internet.

:: Netwoman 9:46 AM [+] ::
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The Pornography Industry vs. Digital Pirates

New York Times article located here.

"Let the music industry sue those who share files, and let Hollywood push for tough laws and regulations to curb movie copying. Playboy, like many companies that provide access to virtual flesh and naughtiness, is turning online freeloaders into subscribers by giving away pictures to other sites that, in turn, drive visitors right back to Playboy.com."

:: Netwoman 11:58 PM [+] ::
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ICTs for the advancement of rural women's empowerment

Strategies, platforms, tools and training. Invitation to participate in an online discussion and information sharing e-consultation. 11-24 February 2004.

Women'sNet, with the support of the Food and Agricultural Organisation's (FAO) Dimitra Project, is hosting an International Workshop on the above topic from 23-25 February 2004 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

To increase the number of voices in the workshop and to widen the space for dialogue and the sharing of experiences, information and resources we are hosting a 2 week e-consultation forum from 11-24 February 2004 and you are warmly invited to participate.

Not all those interested in attending the workshop can be funded and we feel that it is imperitive that more voices are included in the workshop deliberations. One way of doing this is through an e-consultation.

We will create a synergy between the workshop and the e-consultation by presenting the outcomes of the e-consultation at the start of the workshop and circulating the final outcomes document post the workshop.

This is also a space to share input from the workshop presenters as well as resources related to the topic.

To join either email jenny@apcwomen.org or go here and follow the instructions.

**Goals of the e-consultation**

Here are the goals of the e-consulation with some meta questions which we will use to guide our discussions. These are merely guides to frame the e-consultation and we welcome your questions.

1.Explore the different strategies and platforms used by development organizations to facilitate rural women's expression of their issues and their concerns.

*What are the lessons from and challenges of projects that use different media to capture women's voices?
*In your view, do particular communication technologies and media platforms (television, radio, Internet, etc) lend themselves better to certain applications like facilitating policy inputs, economic empowerment activities, etc. targeted at women in rural areas?

2.Understand how to make existing information infrastructure more gender inclusive and responsive to the information and development needs of rural and disadvantaged women.

*What are the opportunities and challenges facing rural information centres?
*How can these information centres be used to facilitate rural women's development?
*What strategies and processes have worked in the different contexts where you work/live, in making existing public access infrastructure more accessible for women and inclusive of their concerns?

3.To explore how a broadcasting model is used in different parts of the continent to address rural women's issues and concerns and broaden their participation in decision-making over matters that impact on their living conditions

*How are radio and television broadcasting being used to advance women's human rights?
*How can we use radio for women's empowerment?
*What are the strategies and opportunities for linking rural women with radio?
*What are the difficulties experienced in linking women with public, private and community broadcasters? And does this make a sustainable impact on their programming?

4.To highlight different training initiatives that specifically target rural women, as well as initiatives that facilitate the work of ICT trainers.

*What training initiatives that specifically target rural women are effective and sustainable?
*What are the ingredients that make these effective?
*What initiatives that facilitate the work of ICT trainers are working and why?

Throughout our e-consultation we encourage people to contribute personal and organizational stories, resources, activities and events that would contribute to the discussion and to the workshop deliberations.

:: Netwoman 11:50 AM [+] ::
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Orkut Objectification

Yesterday when I checked my Orkut mail there were strange emails from people I don't know. I am receiving them because of the friends-of-friends email system. It was a bit disturbing to me:

"ok, you guys have now knocked .danah off my top-nine friends view on my dashboard (why can't we order and sort other wys?), so now it's nine guys. i may have to drop one of you guys, no hard feelings, just to improve the scenery on my orkut home page."

They are talking about Danah Boyd and how they want to see her pretty face and fuzzy hat when they open Orkut. I was immediately struck by the poster-girl notion of this email, and was bothered by it. It made me uncomfortable that she was being objectified in this way.

When I checked Misbehaving today, Danah blogged about this experience as well.

"The joke hurt because it made me feel like an object, like the baseball card that Orkut encourages you to collect. If a person has more friends than all but 8 other people on someone's list, they end up on their front page. Apparently, to this guy, the aesthetic of my fuzzy hat and False Profit T-shirt is more important for his front page than his actual friends. He barely knows me; he wants me there so that i can improve the scenery of his home page. That makes me feel genuinely gross and sad. "

People (and I mean men and women here) often just don't understand how this is demeaning. See this discussion about it here:

"I think Danah is getting worked up over nothing. Women are the fairer sex. That's a fact of life. For a straight man to express that is not to objectify women or demean them, but rather more simply to say that he appreciates beauty. Using the terminology "improve the scenery" does not equate a woman with wallpaper but is a round-about way of saying that someone's face is pleasant to his eye. It's not the most elegant phrase, but it's obviously not used with misogynistic intent. To appreciate beauty is not the same as appreciating objects, and I don't think the two should be confused."

I often wonder how men can comment so freely and unsympathetically to how women feel about men discussing their beauty (and sometimes lack thereof). To appreciate women as something to be viewed, to be looked at - is this not objectification? The male gaze?

Xian responds with this in the comments:

"Well, the "scenery" crack didn't help, as it did imply a dehumanizing kind of objectification, twisting what was meant as a silly joke and comment on the predominant maleness of my network to sound much more like old-fashioned sexism. I think I've learned a bit more about the context of social software and friends vs. "friends," unfortunately at the cost of potentially losing a possible friend."

More of Xian's thoughts here :

"What I crossed over into was that "unwelcome gaze" issue, not unlike in one of danah's earliest posts to misbehaving in which she wrote about being invited to a coed hot-tub party by a professional colleague and finding that uncomfortable as well." He made a public apology.

See more unsympathetic comments here.

Danah comments more about it here and other comments in the blogosphere here .

I am not going to lighten up about it either, as some commenters have suggested - that would be trivializing and minimizing her feelings about the situation. Some might have reacted the same or different - but the point is that Danah felt the way she did and that should be validated. Some jokes just are not funny - and yes, feminists do have a sense of humour.

:: Netwoman 12:37 PM [+] ::
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Internet Communication and Harassment

For the second time in six months, another friend of mine called to tell me about a terrible email from a student. The first situation happened to a friend of mine in the US, where a student harassed her via email and tried to convince of her of how terrible she was at teaching. She was the instructor for the course.

This time, it has happened to a friend of mine here in Canada, she is the head Teaching Assisstant for an undergraduate course.

What do these two friends have in common? They are women.

My Canadian friend posted instructions to the class list serv about what to do for upcoming tutorials - basically to make sure the students were prepared for discussion and not lecturing. She received an email from a male student telling her to F*** off and who the hell did she think she was. He signed the email with a happy 'cheers'.

Needless to say, she is beside herself, upset and concerned about her safety.

There are two issues here. The first, the continual sexist harassment that young male students direct towards female academics, and the convenience of internet communication to express these sexist sentiments.

What is it about internet communication that leads people to believe that they can say anything to another person? Do people think that there are no implications of such actions? Do people forget that there is another 'real' person on the other end of the email?

Why do female faculty members (Teaching Assistants, Lecturers and Professors) need to be subjected to this harassment by male students? Why do female faculty need to justify or prove their skills twice as much as male faculty? Why are the views of female faculty continually challenged by students or deemed less worthy than male faculty?
Why does a male graduate students think that it is ok to email a female teaching assistant, spew profanity at her and challenge her authority in the course?

Interestingly enough, the course's focus right now is sexuality; heterosexual priviledge and they just finished a discussion of feminist perspectives on deviance and crime. Needless to say, the discussions concerning feminism created much resistance and negativity in the class. Men just don't want to talk about it.

What is all about? It is about power.

The intent of this male student was not to actively debate the material or engage with the content or issues in an analytical way - but to simple demoralize and oppress the female teaching assistant. Why didn't the student just choose not to go to tutorial (no participation grades awarded)? Why didn't the student approach the professor about any concerns regarding the course or content - oh wait, the professor is female too. Hmm. Instead, this male undergraduate student chose to attack and harass the lead female teaching assistant, to put her in her place - to impose his male power upon her.

I am sure that this is happening in many other universities. If this happens to you, or someone you know, here is what to do:

*First of all, try not take the insults personally - the intent is to make you feel less than worthy. Don't give them the satisfaction.
*Don't ignore the assault. Don't delete the email from your Inbox and make sure you print it off. If the email address comes from a Hotmail or Yahoo account, your IT services can use a "Stop It" and locate the IP address that the email came from.
*Call your Sexual Harassment or Equity Issues office immediately to report the incident
*Call your IT services department
*Contact the department chair and the Dean - and the course instructor if you are a TA
*Contact Campus Police to document the incident. You should especially do this if you are concerned for your safety
*Contact your local police authorities if you feel threatened or afraid for your safety
*If the email has been forged - It is also a violation of the Canadian Criminal Code to use someone else's name or computer userid to impersonate them in sending e-mail. Students should be aware that the Canadian Criminal Code applies to e-mail, and that violations can be turned over to the local police for investigation.
*Stay calm, get your support network and talk about the incident. You are not alone.

Don't question your initial reaction to the post - if you are upset or scared, there is probably good reason. You are probably asking yourself - IS IT HARASSMENT? Yes!
Harrassment is defined as vexatious conduct or comment that is known or ought reasonably to be known as unwelcome.
Ask yourself these questions:
1. Did the incident cause stress that affected your ability, or the ability of others, to work or study?
2. Was it unwelcome behavior?
3. Would a reasonable person of your gender/race/religion/sexual orientation subjected to this behavior find it unacceptable?

These students need to understand that this behaviour is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Internet communication is not to be used to intimidate and harass women, and that there are sanctions for these actions.

:: Netwoman 11:31 PM [+] ::
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bits o blog

Hilde asks What gender is your computer?

Interesting article -
"Pushing the Wrong Buttons: Men's and Women's Attitudes toward Online and Offline Infidelity"
Author(s): Monica Therese Whitty PhD
Source: CyberPsychology & Behavior
Volume: 6 Number: 6 Page: 569 -- 579

Abstract: Despite current researchers' interest in the study of online sexual addiction, there is a dearth of research available on what constitutes online infidelity. This paper attempts to redress this balance by comparing 1,117 participants' attitudes toward online and offline acts of infidelity. A factor analysis was carried out that yielded three components of infidelity: sexual infidelity, emotional infidelity, and pornography. More importantly, this study revealed that online acts of betrayal do not fall into a discrete category of their own. A MANOVA was performed and revealed a statistically significant difference on the combined dependent variables for the interaction of gender by age, age by relationship status, and Internet sexual experience. The hypotheses were, in part, supported. However, counter to what was predicted, in the main younger people were more likely to rate sexual acts as acts of betrayal than older individuals. It is concluded here that individuals do perceive some online interactions to be acts of betrayal. In contrast to some researchers' claims, it is suggested here that we do need to consider how bodies are reconstructed online. Moreover, these results have important implications for any treatment rationale for infidelity (both online and offline).

Kaye has a great post on keeping your blogging identity private - and protecting your "secret blog".

:: Netwoman 11:44 PM [+] ::
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Strange Search Hits

Looking at my tracker, I noticed some strange search through google, yahoo and earthlink and items - in particular, stuff about the superbowl and Justin and Janet's antics at the halftime show. I checked the search engines and for some reason my blog is coming up as having talked about it = which I didn't (until now).

Does anyone have any ideas why these search engines say I talked about this when I didn't? Have I been hacked? Spammed? what is going on?

:: Netwoman 7:06 PM [+] ::
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