gender

Life is rough for men wealthy enough to own an iPad: “how to carry it in a manner that is practical and yet, well, masculine.”

This is from a New York Times story that chronicles the danger of the iPad on a man’s masculinity, specifically, the need for a carrying case that does not look too much like –gasp!– a woman’s purse. The horror of appearing slightly feminine runs so deep that CNET ranks bags with a “humiliation index” (would be better to call it a “heteronormativity index”).

The story turns especially dark when we learn that Apple’s neglect has resulted in some men not being able to leave the house with their iPad. Or even worse, not buy one at all in fear of not appearing masculine enough. But there is hope for these rich males: “Scottevest plans to introduce an iPad-compatible blazer in time for Christmas.” See the manvertising here.

It is long established that digital identity is a highly fluid concept. Since the earliest days of public engagement with the Internet, this has been a feature of the discourse: the realm of the virtual allows one to construct identity from the ground up, to assume a kind of control over self-presentation not possible in the realm of the flesh, to be or to seem to be anyone, anything, anywhere.

In practice, of course, this is clearly not the case–or not the whole case. Virtuality affords people a kind of power in the construction of the digital body that they do not have with their actual body. But when one presents the self online, they most often present that self in settings and contexts that other people have constructed. This is one place where problems with the presentation of the digital body tend to arise. When one plays in someone else’s garden, one might be expected to play by their rules. This is generally well and good, but things turn problematic when the “rules” involve the imposition of categories or identities that people may not accept.

This issue recently came to a head regarding deviantART’s “gender” field in its user profile. The trouble in question started when a user who identified as “neutrois” took issue with the fact that the choices in the field were restricted to male and female–there had been an “unspecified” option, but for unclear reasons it had been removed, forcing users to choose between only the two. There followed a number of exchanges with deviantART support personnel. These got rather heated, and it became clear that there was significant confusion on deviantART’s part regarding the difference between sex and gender (which amounts to the difference between genitalia and identity). In the end, though an “other” option was added, most people following the exchanges felt that it was not a satisfactory solution. more...

Facebook and other social-networking sites subsist on information, though not just any information. These sites have an insatiable appetite for the intimate details of their users’ lives. In fact, your personal information is a sine qua non for social-networking sites on two levels: 1.) People, primarily, use the Web to learn about the people and things they care about (like you). 2.) The same information that draws people to your profile, is useful in targeting advertisements to both you and your visitors.

Because these sites feed on personal information, they develop strategies to elicit such information from users.  For example, you may have to register and build a profile before accessing content.  The result as a sort of pay-to-play system where information is the common currency.  And, in order for this information economy to grow and intensify, it must continuously solicit new information and make more of the existing content public. more...

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has just released new figures on the use of what they are calling “location based” or “geosocial” services (e.g., Foursquare, Gowalla, or Facebook Places).  These services encourage social interaction through the sharing of location-based information.  Usage patterns break down along some interesting lines.  I have taken the liberty of compiling some tables for you.

Men are currently twice as likely to use geosocial services as woman. more...

check out this great comic about sexism on the web and the issues with calling it out [via Feminist Philosophers]