Section II: Equality in Cyberspace?

Few could argue that the Internet and popular on-line computer services produce a welcoming atmosphere for women. Though household subscriptions make estimating the number of women on-line difficult, the percentage of women who are using the Internet and on-line services is remarkably low. (Hafner 50-51) Though the Internet itself reaches over thirty million people world wide and is usually free through universities, research organizations, and corporations, less than 10% of its users are women. (Hafner 51) Commercial on-line services are increasing in popularity, attracting subscribers through both home and the workplace, and they are far easier to use than direct links to the Internet itself. These services, however, are still typically male oriented and dominated. Prodigy, which boasts the largest number of subscribers, is estimated to only be 35% female. CompuServe, as second largest, estimates to only have between 10% and 17%. (Broadhurst 80) Both services have well over two million subscribers and cater to homes and businesses respectively, yet are remarkably monopolized by the male gender. America OnLine, though it is the fastest growing service and earning a reputation for being remarkably easy to use, is also only 15% to 30% female. (Broadhurst 80). The soon to be released Microsoft Network will include forums on women's issues, though its percentage of women subscribers has yet to be seen. Even the hip and gender-friendly services ECHO (East Coast Hang Out) and WELL (Whole Earth `Lectronic Link,) which host discussion groups exclusively for women, are only 40% and 20% female. Only the new service Women's Wire, with a mere 1500 subscribers, is predominantly female at 90%. (Hafner 50-51)

Though many have hoped that the Internet and on-line services would create egalitarian forums for the exchange of information and ideas, cyberspace has shown itself to be just as susceptible to social ills as the outside world. The Internet is not in a vacuum from the world of its subscribers but is a world created by these subscribers who do not lose their attitudes towards race, sexuality, politics, or gender when they log on. Though statistics on sexual harassment on the Internet and on-line services are impossible to compile, most of the 10% of women on the Internet are all too familiar with the boys network of computer networking. Stories of continual pick up-lines, put-downs, and sexual threats are common and have gained the attention of much of the mainstream press. Newsweek compiled many common stories of harassment on the net for a controversial cover story on gender and computers in 1994. Among the anecdotes was that of Janis Cortese, a physicist at Loma Linda University and her experiences attempting to join a Star Trek newsgroup.

Cortese noticed that these fans... devoted megabytes to such
profound topics as whether Troi or Crusher had bigger breasts.
In other words,.... [they] were all guys. Undeterred, Cortese...
figured that she'd add perspective to the electronic gathering
place with her own momentous questions. Why was the male
cast racially diverse while almost all the females were young,
white, and skinny?... The Trekkies... flooded her electronic
mailbox with nasty messages-- a practice called flamed on newsgroups and service forums. Many magazines such as Mother Jones, Gentleman's Quarterly, and WorkingWoman have assigned writers with obviously female computer handles to navigate around the Internet and describe their experiences. As the writers explored various bulletin boards, newsgroups, and forums, their female handles inspired unsolicited advances and flames. Writers were greeted with suave conversation starters such as "hi baby, how r u?" (Hafner 52,) "How tall are you and what color hair do you have?" and "When was the last time you really enjoyed having sex? Was it gooooooooddd?" (Peterson 12)
Such harassment is not surprising when one considers that the Internet environment is almost exclusively male and that participants are at least partially anonymous and held less accountable for their actions. Participants on the Internet can easily create an anonymous handle for themselves. Someone who wishes to flame anyone else on the net also enjoys the freedom of being physically distanced from those they attack. They will never have to look the person they insult or threaten in the face, their family and co-workers will never hear about the flames they post, and governments are still wrestling with how to regulate inappropriate materials on the Internet.
While statistics on how much of the Internet community is committing sexual harassment is as difficult to compile as the amount of harassment occurring, a quick browse on the Internet shows that abusive language, threats, misogynistic texts, and pornography are all plentiful on the Internet. Pornography and sexual topics take up large amounts of space in newsgroups and the World Wide Web. As one Carnegie Melon graduate student calculated, 450,620 pornographic works are downloaded 6,432,297 times every six months in America alone. (Quittner 63) Though feminists and social critics may debate the merits and harm of the accessibility of pornography on the Internet, an almost completely male network which primarily deals with women as objects of pornography is unlikely to deal with gender and female users in an egalitarian or even respectful fashion. An environment which only portrays women as objects of a confining male gaze can not help but "other" women who attempt to participate with men as equals. A male centered, pornographic atmosphere becomes incompatible with a egalitarian atmosphere being produced on-line towards gender.
Compounding this, Newsweek suggests that much of the on-line hostility from men towards female users stems "from resentment over women's slowly entering what has been an almost exclusively male domain." (Kantrowitz 54) As long as women remain at less than 10% of the Internet population, they can not help but be considered as other to men on the Internet. As women enter the male dominated and sexually voyeuristic environment of the Internet, they tend to be invading both a technologically elitist boys club and a private stag party. A male response of usurping a woman's power on the net through sexual advances and threats in this context appears to be an all too easy way to intimidate women to stay off the Internet. To sexualize the relationship between a man and a woman communicating on the Internet is to shatter to the egalitarian illusion that the Internet is merely a sharing of texts. While some women hope that the text based and faceless communication on the Internet will free their communications from sexist barriers, the introduction of a sexual comment or proposition instantaneously reasserts male/female power dynamics into their Internet conversation. As in the concrete world, sexual harassment is not foreplay but a power play.

Section III: "Pioneers on the New Frontier" Women and the Internet Home Page Help With This Site

Written by Patricia K. Bowers-- tricia@acpub.duke.edu-- last updated 4/23/95