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19 Gendering the Internet:

Claims, Controversies

and Cultures

Liesbet v an Zoonen

Internet is a contested medium as far as its social cultural meanings and signifi-
cance are concerned. A core issue in the debate is the meaning of the Internet for
gender: how does gender influence Internet communication, contents and use,
and – the other way around – how do Internet communication, contents and use
impact upon gender? In the terms common to cultural studies of technology,
what is at stake is the mutual shaping of gender and the Internet (see van Oost,
1995). The Internet arose in the early 1960s out of the collaboration of American
universities and the Pentagon (see Naughton, 1999). It thus has its roots in the
so-called military–industrial complex, which according to many feminist critics
inevitably constitutes it as a medium deeply embedded in masculine codes and
values (see van Zoonen, 1992).
In recent years, however, other feminist authors have reclaimed the Internet
as a technology close to the core qualities of femininity (e.g. Spender, 1995). Yet
other, cyberfeminist authors contend that it enables a transgression of the
dichotomous categories of male and female, constructing transgender or even
genderless human identities and relations (e.g. Braidotti, 1996). This article dis-
cusses these three claims on the gender codes of the Internet, and shows that
interpretations of the Internet as masculine, feminine or even transgender are
based on limited conceptualizations of both gender and technology. An alterna-
tive analysis based on particular use cultures of the Internet in everyday life
shows how both technology and gender are multidimensional processes that are
articulated in complex and contradictory ways which escape straightforward
gender definitions. To begin with, I briefly review the gender codes of the Internet’s
enabling technologies: the telephone and the computer.

Gender codes of enabling technologies

At the end of the 19th century the telephone appeared in American society. The
technology was still in its infancy: one needed operators to connect calls, there
were still few subscribers, there were more party lines than private lines and
competition between telephone companies was fierce (Fischer, 1992). It was in
Source: EJC (2002), vol. 17, no. 1: 5–23.