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Woman: Well, as he says, I don’t use it very often. I don’t understand much
of it yet. I think if I knew more about it, I would use it more as
well. Now I always need Norman’s help, to mail and stuff. That is
because my work does not involve computers, his does.

In this interview fragment we see how the social position of one of the partners
(he works with computers, she doesn’t) translates into a traditional culture at
home around the computer and the Internet. Thus the social dimension of gen-
der comes into play here, normalizing and legitimizing the specific media cul-
ture of these two partners and coding the Internet and PC at a symbolic level as
male territory in the household. Most couples whose computer and Internet use
could be typified in these traditional terms, recognized the traditional nature of
their use, but did not consider it very problematic. That might testify to a rela-
tively neat fit between the social, symbolic and individual (identity) dimension
of gender, although the acknowledgement of the traditional nature of these
arrangements also shows that this arrangement is no longer self-evident. What
is further striking in this fragment is that the Internet has drawn the woman to
the computer, negotiating the former exclusively male codes of the PC.
In other cases, the media culture could be typified as deliberative: the partners
negotiate about the use of the PC and the Internet, and also consider them to be
a subject of common concern:

Woman: I like the PC best for the Internet applications. You do too, don’t
you Marc?
Man: Yes, some e-mail as well.
Woman: And to look up things for the holidays, or about living or garden-
ing and stuff.
Man: It is about the same for me, sometimes some random clicking and
surfing, but the novelty has worn off a bit and now we don’t use
it that frequently anymore.

This interview fragment shows clearly how PC and Internet use are instrumen-
tal in constructing a sense of togetherness among the partners (‘we don’t use it
that frequently anymore’), instead of them being the domain of the male partner
as in more traditional use cultures. The collective identity as a couple overwrites
in this case the individual (gender) identities of the partners. A deliberative use
culture is simplified because most couples in this study identified the PC and
the Internet with work or school-related tasks. That makes their use relatively
easy to prioritize: work or studies take precedence over surfing or gaming.
Notwithstanding the gender neutrality of such a priority, it turns out to be male
biased in the context of Dutch households where – even among young couples –
men are the main or primary providers:

Woman: He usually has more important things to do on it than I have,
I only want to [go on the] Internet a bit. So he goes first and I will
do something else.