Ian & Stuart's Australian Mac: Not for Sale/Another.not.for.sale (Australia).iso/fade into you/being there/Issues & Ideas/Gender/gender_issues.online

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Gender Issues in Online Communications

By
Hoai-An Truong

with additional writing and editing
by Gail Williams, Judi Clark and Anna Couey

in conjunction with
Members of BAWIT -- Bay Area Women in Telecommunications

Version no. 4.2
Copyright 1993

BAWIT ['bay-wit'], Bay Area Women in Telecommunications, is
a group of women working with telecom, organized to discuss
women's professional and social issues and computer
networking, including industry gender bias. By doing so, BAWIT
seeks to advance the state of women who use telecom, to
provide a higher profile for women in the industry, and to
encourage women and girls in their exploration of computers
in general, and in particular, telecom.

Signed by: Judi Clark, Anna Couey, Lile Elam, Barbara Enzer,
Hilarie Gardner, Barbara Gersh, M Normal, Naomi Pearce,
Nancy Rhine, Rita Rouvalis, Leslie Regan Shade, Jillaine Smith,
Hoai-An Truong, Sue vanHattum, Gail Williams, Donna Zelzer.

 The principal author would like to acknowledge members of
BAWIT, and Mills College for education on the issues discussed
in this paper, and also Judi Clark, who proposed the panel on
gender issues and was instrumental in getting the paper off
the ground and throughout the process.

Contact information
e-mail: [e-mail]



Introduction

Despite the fact that computer networking systems obscure
physical characteristics, many women find that gender follows
them into the on-line community, and sets a tone for their
public and private interactions there -- to such an extent that
some women purposefully choose gender neutral identities, or
refrain from expressing their opinions.

The experiences of women on-line are both personal and
political. To a certain extent, their causes are rooted in the
physical world -- economics and social conditioning
contribute to the limited numbers of women on-line.
Additionally, on-line environments are largely determined by
the viewpoints of their users and programmers, still
predominantly white men.

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
avoid further marginalization of these constituencies.

The following is an overview of issues which members of BAWIT
feel need to be addressed. We feel that these are situations
worthy of further investigation and research.

 Access

The Clinton administration has placed a priority on developing
a National Information Infrastructure, envisioning that
computer networks will be the information highways of the
future. However, on many systems, women comprise between
10 and 15 percent of the on-line population. On electronic
bulletin boards or BBSs, which are rarely as supervised or
monitored as the more well-known on-line services -- such as
Compuserve, America On-line and Prodigy -- their numbers
tend to be far lower. Why? And what are the implications of
inequities in gender representation in the information
infrastructure?

It is likely that economics impact women's on-line participation
to a large degree. On average, women's salaries are 40%
lower than men's, leaving women with less disposable income
for computers, modems, software, on-line services and any
additional phone charges.

While electronic mail [or e-mail] is fast becoming common in
the workplace, it is still predominantly used by those in
technical fields, whether in educational institutions or in
business; or by those with technical facility or training. Men
who use the Internet have a higher likelihood of being in an
academic, management, or technical position offering free
access as one of the prerequisites of their jobs. Thus, a higher
percentage of men have both the technical training and
subsidized access to participate on-line than women do.

Additional deterrents to on-line participation may be
attributed to women's roles in society. While more women are
in the workplace, they often are still primary caretakers for
their children, and in a majority of households, women bear
the brunt of household chores. Women may find they have
less free time to learn to navigate on-line systems.

Women in Computer Studies

Another deterrent to women's entering the computer field or
making themselves at home on the net is the negative
stereotype of the socially isolated computer nerd. Women
may need help overcoming visions of becoming or
associating with technology-obsessed nerds and adolescents
who are seen as likely to populate on-line systems. This has
had research attention as a significant reason why females
students tend to drop out of computer studies.

Even when female students do as well or better than their
male peers, they tend to feel less competent. Professors tend
to call upon and address their remarks to male students more
often than female students, as several studies show.
Additionally, there are few opportunities for women to be
mentored in higher education or in their careers. Executives or
professors -- often male -- are likely to identify with, encourage
and mentor another male, rather than a female. By itself, lack
of attention or mentors may not be a deterrent; however,
coupled with other social factors and discrimination, it often
contributes to feelings of discouragement and isolation, low
confidence and feelings of unworthiness, and higher dropout
rates.

Despite the fact that women often use computers in business
settings, technical roles -- from programming of telecom
software to operating communications systems -- remain
predominantly male. Invitations to sysop gatherings addressed
"Dear Sir" and including "your wife is welcome," customers who
ask for a manager when they hear a female voice on a
technical help call, and the popular culture archetypes of
computer enthusiasts as male, are continual reminders of
common assumptions based on gender. In technical fields, a
common assumption by both men and by women themselves
is that women do not perform as well as men. Women are
then less likely to take on projects which may either prove their
ability or provide additional expertise, because they don't feel
qualified.

Interface

Access to on-line communications is not simply a function of
economics. The technical expertise required to establish
access to on-line systems, and the interfaces users encounter
when they get there can be significant deterrents to on-line
participation for non-technical users. While graphical user
interfaces can significantly ameliorate this problem, they are
system specific, a situation which can hamper access for small
or community organizations and lower income individuals who
can only afford older and non-standard equipment, if at all.

Studies have attempted to explain the reasons that fewer girls
than boys pursue technical fields. Some studies indicate that
gender impacts perception. Network interfaces are typically
designed by men; if the studies are correct, it would appear
that developing interfaces that rely on women's perceptive
skills in addition to men's would impact on-line participation.
Interestingly enough, Les Radke, who teaches a computer
class at Richmond High, finds that in his class boys gravitate
towards computer games, while girls use e-mail and read
USENET.

Perceived Usefulness

An even greater deterrent for non-technical users is the
perception of usefulness. As BAWIT member Donna Zelzer
explains: "...Look at the automobile. It's expensive, it's
mechanical... And, if you make a mistake, you can KILL
someone. And of course men make fun of women drivers all
the time. Yet despite these obstacles, millions of women own
cars and drive them every day. Why? Because they see cars
as useful and even necessary to their lifestyles. But most
women don't feel this way about computers or going on-line."

Network systems administrators and project managers geared
to serving non- technical users find that  education is a
tremendous part of their work, and that concrete benefits
must  be demonstrated to overcome a new user's investment
of time and money to learn  to telecommunicate. And what
are the benefits? Network users often describe  virtual
community as a benefit of being on-line; professionals and
activists  find they can gather, access, and disseminate
information and viewpoints not  readily available from mass
media. Yet while the networks can democratize  publishing,
they also impose additional cost on information. Herbert
Schiller's "Culture, Inc.," among other publications, describes
increasing  privatization of public information and space. As
the nets become increasingly  commercialized, they further
establish class differentiation between those who  can afford
the luxury of participating in on-line systems and those who
cannot.

Social Interaction and Gender-Based Perceptions

A newly created bulletin board in the Bay Area started up a
conference with a posting comparing women to pets that
occasionally need to be put to sleep. This type of demeaning
communication involving women is quite typical of bulletin
boards, which may provide an outlet for males to share
humor they would suppress in a mixed setting. This can be a
disincentive to participate, especially if this is an initial or
persistent on-line experience.

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 clues, and other conventions have a
complex effect on on-line interactions. Additionally there are
unresolved difficulties in the frank discussion and expression of
sexuality between men and women, in which intent is often
misunderstood.

An element of this technology is a tradition of sometimes
colorful diatribes or "flaming". Since women tend to use
language differently then men do, these highly aggressive
language patterns may be even more of a barrier to our
participation. Styles of communication (sometimes referred to
as "debate" and "relate" styles) often complicate messages.
While debating and arguing an issue is the normal style for
some people, others understand these debates as an attack
on them, causing them to pull away from the discussion. Being
sensitive to the style of communication can be as important
as the actual message being conveyed.

Deborah Tannen, among other authors and researchers,
describes the difference in language use between the
genders and between different families and cultures. Tannen
identifies a less direct, more inclusive style, designed to avoid
arguments and confrontation, as a more typically female
method of communication.

On-line Harassment

Many women who use Internet sites, electronic bulletin boards
or other on-line services, or even internal company-wide
networks report receiving invitations and messages of a
sexually explicit nature in real-time "chats" or via e-mail. These
messages are variously analogous to obscene phone calls or
whistles in the street depending on their tone. However, they
take on an added annoyance factor for women who are
paying to utilize the resources of the on-line environment.
Additionally, these messages may be experienced repeatedly
by the same women because there tend to be fewer women
on most systems. Women looking for information on-line are
often surprised to see that a female first name can bring a
distracting and ultimately expensive volume of unsolicited
contact, and give one the sensation of being the first female
to have arrived at a frontier since pay dirt was struck. The
problem is pervasive and annoying enough that many
women choose to switch to non-gender-specific login names,
for example, or to post to women-only conferences or mailing
lists.

A major obstacle that women have to deal with is that sexual
harassment is a relatively new concept in our society, and
that ignoring the situation can be a successful survival strategy
in the short run. Women may refrain from reporting
perceptions of abuse because of internalized peer pressure,
based on observations of other women being labeled
"prudes" or otherwise mocked. Or they may hold back due to
the fear, or anecdotal evidence that charges are not likely to
be taken seriously by management. Women may not know
that harassment is by its very nature subjective, and that they
may be entitled to more privacy than they get.

"All of the cases I have seen filed involving e-mail or voice mail
were settled out of court, which says something about the
strength of the evidence," said Frieda Klein, a sexual
harassment consultant, in an article in MacWeek dated Dec.
14, 1992.

Guidelines for Monitoring On-line Harassment

How can we prevent on-line harassment? The best way to
bring this about is education on the issues and recognizing
when harassment occurs. A MUSE role-playing community,
Cyberion City at MIT, tries to educate its participants with this
definition of the problem:

"Unwanted advances of hostile or forward nature are
unacceptable... If you think someone might be interested in
developing a closer personal relationship, it is your
responsibility to make absolutely sure of this before saying or
doing anything that would be considered inappropriate in
real life. Such inappropriate behavior includes, but is not
limited to, suggestive remarks; violation of the other person's
space; forward, intimate or suggestive conduct."

"People on this system are of all ages and backgrounds... Most
are not here specifically to form intimate relationships, and it is
inappropriate to assume that someone is so interested unless
you have received clear indications of it. If you are unsure
whether your behavior is appropriate, STOP, and ASK. Many
people are hesitant to say 'go away' in so many words
because they do not wish to be rude. It is your responsibility to
make sure they are saying 'yes' before pursuing a close
personal relationship."

Virtual or on-line harassment does not have a distinct legal
definition. Case law has not yet been established for many
situations, but preexisting harassment and stalking laws may
be used as guidelines. MacWeek, an industry publication,
suggests the following:

"Companies should print guidelines prohibiting sexual
harassment and distribute them to all employees. Those
guidelines should be followed up with training."

"The courts have held that sexually explicit posters hung on
walls can create a hostile work environment. Similarly,
pornographic computer programs or screen displays,
particularly if visible to passers-by, could constitute sexual
harassment."

"Managers should treat any complaints of sexual harassment
seriously. The company should have clearly enunciated policy
of progressive discipline, ranging from warnings to
terminations, depending on the severity of the offense."

"After receiving complaints, managers and personnel
departments immediately should seek to stop the harassment
and educate the employees involved. A company is
forbidden by law to retaliate against anyone making a sexual-
harassment complaint."

A company, including the network manager, may be held
responsible if on-line harassment occurs or continues to occur
in the office. We would do well to find personal definitions in
order to identify and address problems which arise. It is vital
that company managers educate themselves and their
employees, and have a anti-harassment policy that includes
on-line harassment. Awareness of the issue is the best
deterrent.

Increasing Our Participation: Possible Approaches, Future Directions

In the wake of the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings,
companies and individuals are beginning to address women's
issues in a variety of ways.

A Silicon Valley company recently arranged an all-day retreat
off-site for its women employees to discuss gender issues
faced by women in the computer industry and within the
company. Issues discussed included glass ceilings, differences
in pay, percentage of women working at the company, how
to achieve success in technical fields, and dealing with career
and home lives. The dialog continues.

Across the bay, Bay Mac Women, a women's Macintosh users
group, formed completely independently within weeks of the
creation of BAWIT. At meetings, the all-women format has
proven to be a more comfortable environment for women
computer users to ask questions.

Stacy Horn, who runs Echo BBS, wanted to ensure that the
board be gender-balanced. Using affirmative action efforts
such as telecom tutorials, outreach, and creating an
environment that women would feel more comfortable in, she
brought the number of women users up to about 50 percent.
Seniornet, an on-line network of senior citizens has about a 50-
50 ratio of women to men. On-line services which stress
community such as Seniornet, Echo and the WELL (the WELL
has between 15-20% women users) attract higher numbers of
women.

Women banded together to support one another on Santa
Monica PEN, a city system. This account is from an article
called "What's Really Happening in Santa Monica" in the
December issue of IMPACT! from the Boston Computer Society
Social Impact Group and Public Service Committee, by
Pamela Varley:

"PENners quickly discover[ed] that they must contend with
people who feel entitled to hector mercilessly those with
whom they disagree....When the system started up, women --
who were greatly outnumbered by men -- had problems with
harassment....By the summer of 1989, the few women on line
were fed up and ready to drop out."

"In response to harassment,...the women on PEN banded
together in July 1989 to form a support group called PEN
Femmes. The group makes a point of welcoming women
when they begin to participate in PEN conferences.
Harassment has subsided as more women have become
active in conferences."

System interfaces need to be evaluated in terms of user
preferences. Since research indicates that women tend to
learn and navigate somewhat differently than men, increased
participation of women as software and system interface
designers is an important goal.

Simpler interfaces are of benefit to all users, but especially to
those without technical training. As the BMUG BBS switched to
using a simpler electronic messaging system with a Mac-like
interface, enthusiastic users generated four times the number
of messages as on the old BBS. The familiarity of the new
interface attracts women Mac users both with and without
technical backgrounds who never or rarely used the old one.

Rita Rouvalis, a BAWIT member, observes that "a list of Net
Celebrities I saw recently included only *3* women -- none of
them for technical merit. Anita Borg, who runs the Systers
[electronic mailing] list, was not included. When I was taking
computer science courses in college, I knew that Niklaus Wirth
wrote Pascal and Modula2 and 3, and that Kernighan and
Richie developed C -- but I had no *idea* that Grace Hopper
[inventor of COBOL] existed until her death." Remembering
women pioneers is one way to transform the stereotypes of
computer innovators.

Managers of communications networks and BBSs have many
strategies to try in making women welcome. Employing
women as technical support staff, or in other informed
customer service roles, and encouraging women to volunteer
information to one another can help to take some of the
challenge out of learning a new set of skills. Special
approaches such as women-only tutorials, information
campaigns and rate subsidies are tools which may help
systems approach a gender balance.

Conclusion

How we address the issue of barriers to wider participation of
women has long-ranging impact on other issues such as racial
harassment versus inclusion, and the participation of gays,
and the disabled. Much is made of the tremendous potential
electronic mail and conferencing have to revitalize
participatory democracy, but intelligent, motivated
affirmative action will be needed if racial and gender barriers
are to come tumbling down. Affirmative action can be done
on the institutional level, and it can also be done on a
grassroots level, by friends.

Suggested Readings

First of all, read and communicate with women on-line.

There is as yet little published about women and
telecommunications. Meanwhile, the general experience of
women in computing is a backdrop worth exploring. BAWIT
has made a commitment to continue assembling a
bibliographic collection on-line.

Samplings from Available Research

Benston, Margaret Lowe. "Feminism and System Design:
Questions of Control." The Effects of Feminist Approaches on
Research Methodologies. Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier Univ.
Press, 1989, pp. 205-223.

Brusca, F. and Canada, K. "The Technological Gender Gap:
Evidence and Recommendations for Educators and
Computer-Based Instruction Designers." Educational
Technology Research and Development, 1991, 39, no. 2:43-51.

Carmichael, Joan. "In a Different Format: Connecting Women,
Computers, and Education Using Gilligan's Framework."
Masters thesis. Concordia University, Canada, 1991.

Durndell, A. "Why Do Female Students Tend to Avoid
Computer Studies?" Glasgow College, Scotland: Research in
Science & Technological Education, 1990 Vol. 8 (2) p. 163-170.

Erlich, Reese. "Sexual Harassment an issue on the high-tech
frontier." MacWeek, December 14, 1992, p. 20-21.

Edwards. Paul. "The Army and the Microworld: Computers and
the Politics of Gender Identity." Signs v.16, n.1 (1990):102-127.

Edwards, Paul. "Gender and the Cultural Construction of
Computing," adapted from "From 'Impact' to Social Process:
Case Studies of Computers in Politics, Society, and Culture,
Chapter IV-A," Handbook of Science and Technology Studies
(Beverly Hills: Sage Press, forthcoming).

Fish, Marian C.; Gross, Alan L.; Sanders, Jo S. "The Effect of
Equity Strategies on Girls' Computer Usage in School."
Computers in Human Behavior. CUNY, Queens College, 1986
Vol. 2(2) 127-134.

Frissen, Valerie. "Trapped in Electronic Cages?: Gender and
New Information Technologies in the Public and Private
Domain: an Overview of Research." Media, Culture and
Society v. 14 (1992):31-49.

Greenbaum, Joan. "The Head and the Heart: using Gender
Analysis to Study the Social Construction of Computer
Systems." Computers & Society v.20, n.2 (June 1990):9-17.

Halberstam, Judith. "Automating Gender: Postmodern
Feminism in the Age of the Intelligent Machine." Feminist
Studies v.17, n.3 (Fall 1991):439-459.

Harrington, Susan Marie. "Barriers to Women in Undergraduate
Computer Science: the Effects of the Computer Environment
on the Success and Continuance of Female Students."
Dissertation. Oregon: University of Oregon, 1990.

Kirk, D. "Gender Issues in Information Technology as Found in
Schools: Authentic/Synthetic/Fantastic?" Educational
Technology, Apr 1992, 32:28-31.

Kirkup, Gill. "The Social Construction of Computers: Hammers
or Harpsichords?" Inventing Women: Science, Technology,
and Gender. Ed. Kirkup; Keller. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992,
p. 267-281.

Kramarae, Cheris; Jeanie Taylor. "Electronic Networks: Safe For
Women?" The Electronic Salon: Feminism Meets Infotech: in
connection with the 11th Annual Gender Studies Symposium.
Speech Communication, and Sociology, March 1992. [This is a
draft of a paper prepared for the Gender, Technology and
Ethics conference to be held in Lulea, Sweden, June 1-2,
1992].

Kramer, Pamela E.; Sheila Lehman. "Mismeasuring Women: a
Critique of Research on Computer Ability and Avoidance."
Signs v.16, n.1 (1990):158-172.

Laurel, Brenda. _Computers as Theatre_. Addison-Wesley,
1991.

Lawton, George. "The Network is the Medium." MacWeek,
December 14, 1992, p. 20.

MIT Computer Science Female Graduate Students and
Research Staff. "Barriers to Equality in Academia: Women in
Computer Science at MIT." MIT Laboratory for Computer
Science and the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, February
1983.

Nelson, C. S. and Watson, J. A. "The Computer Gender Gap:
Children's Attitudes, Performance, and Socialization." Journal
of Education Technology, 4:345-3, 1990-91.

Ong, Aihwa. "Disassembling Gender in the Electronics Age."
Feminist Studies 13 (Fall 1987):609-626.

Pearl, A.; Pollack, M. E.; Riskin, E.; Thomas, B.; Wolf, E.; Wu, A.
"Becoming a Computer Scientist: A Report by the ACM
Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Science."
Communications of the ACM, Nov 1990, v33 n11 p47(11).

Perry, Ruth; Lisa Greber. "Women and Computers: An
Introduction." Signs v. 16, n.1 (1990): 74-101.

Rakow, Lana. _Impact of New Technologies on Women as
Producers & Consumers of Communication in the U.S. and
Canada_. Paris: Unesco, 1991.

Spertus, Ellen. "Why are There so Few Female Computer
Scientists?" Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT, 1991.

Tannen, Deborah. _You Just Don't Understand_, New York:
Ballantine Books, 1990.

Turkle, Sherry; Seymour Papert. "Epistemological Pluralism: Style
and Voices Within the Computer Culture." Signs v. 16, n.1
(1990):128-157.

van Zoonen, Liesbet. "Feminist Theory and Information
Technology." Media, Culture and Society v. 14 (1992):9-29.

Varley, Pamela. "What's Really Happening in Santa Monica."
IMPACT!, December 1992.