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Side-stepping for a moment the gender essentialism contained in such views
and looking at the pragmatic effects of such arguments, we can see how authors
like Spender, Turkle and Plant are working towards a redefinition of the Internet
from the exclusively masculine domain born out of the American military–
industrial–academic complex towards its feminine antithesis of peaceful com-
munication and experimentation. Thinking back on the history of the telephone,
for instance, and the way women had to fight their way into its acceptable use
(Martin, 1991), thinking of the masculine culture that still encapsulates the com-
puter, thinking more generally of the way technology has been made masculine
throughout its history (Oldenziel, 1999), one can recognize the relevance of such
a project of redefinition.
Feminist authors who claim the Internet to be a woman’s medium find them-
selves in an unexpected and unsolicited alliance with Internet marketing
researchers. They too claim the Internet to be a ‘woman’s world’ (VODW, 1999)
and female users of the World Wide Web are thought to be distinct in their goals
and online behaviour. Several marketing studies claim to show women are more
interested than men in personal interaction and support (e.g. email, chat groups
and forums). They seek to build a personal relation with a site and feel strongly
connected to online communities. In a trend report conducted for the German
women’s magazine Freundin (translation: Girl Friend), it is argued that woman-
hood offers many opportunities nowadays and very few disadvantages, new
technologies like the Internet make life easier, enhance the possibilities for com-
munication and offer new possibilities for consumption: ‘The new media enlarge
women’s horizons and scope of action. Women will shape the nature of the Net
economy’ (Wipperman, 2000). At present, marketing research constructs women
as communicative consumers for whom the Internet provides opportunities
never had before. This picture is so convincing that many e-commerce strategies
are built on it: the American portal women.com, for instance, offers not only an
enormous amount of online content (over 90,000 pages) on traditional women’s
concerns but also forums and chatline possibilities on a variety of traditionally
gendered topics.

Gender codes and the Internet: masculinity

Only 10 years ago, the dominant feminist vision on new information and com-
munication technologies (ICTs) was that they were male dominated. Structural,
social-psychological and cultural factors rooted in a patriarchal society were all
seen to prevent women from gaining access to ICTs, both as producers and as
users (see van Zoonen, 1992). The claims of the Internet being a technology true
and close to women and femininity might thus come as a surprise since the
structural, social-psychological and cultural factors that explained women’s
reticence towards ICTs in the early 1990s have not changed dramatically yet.
Looking at the actor networks, texts, representations and communicative prac-
tices on the Internet there is little reason to think it provides a whole new gender
context in comparison with earlier ICTs.