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

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, M Normal, Naomi Pierce, 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 for Bay Area Women in Telecom
e-mail: bawit-request@igc.apc.org


Introduction

Despite the fact that computer networking systems obscure physical
characteristics, many women find that gender follows them into the
online 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 online 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 online. Additionally, online 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 online
population. On electronic bulletin boards or BBSs, which are rarely
as supervised or monitored as the more well-known online services --
such as Compuserve, America_nline 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 online 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, online 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 online than
women do.

Additional deterrents to online 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 online
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 online systems. This
has had research attention as a significant reason why females
students tend to drop out of computer studies.

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. Even when female students do as well or
better than their male peers, they tend to feel less competent. In
technical fields, the common assumption by both men and by women
themselves is that women don't do 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 online communications is not simply a function of
economics. The technical expertise required to establish access to
online systems, and the interfaces users encounter when they get
there can be significant deterrents to online 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 online 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 online."

Network systems and projects 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 online; 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 information
and space. As the nets become increasingly commercialized, they
further establish class differentiation between those who can afford
the luxury of participating in online 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 online experience.

People will say things online 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 online 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.

Online Harassment

Many women who use Internet sites, electronic bulletin boards or
other online 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 online
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 online 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 Online Harassment

How can we prevent online 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 online 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
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 online 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
offsite 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, Berkeley 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 for women, 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 online network of senior
citizens has about a 50-50 ratio of women to men. Online 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 genezFted 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 Kernigie 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 online.

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 online.

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." Sign3hv.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!,