Directory:Akahele/Gender bending, 2.0

It has been a long standing rule of thumb on the web that there are no girls on the Internet. This is not to say there are no female personalities on the Internet, but rather that at any given time, many (if not all) of the "females" in a given area on the web are probably actually men.

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Watch out! It's a trap!

What proof do you really have that <a href="http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=19932&st=0">the hot, blond, nude Norwegian chick</a> who has starred in porn movies is the real McCoy? For all you know, (s)he might actually be an aging, fat, 50-something guy who gets his jollies out of manipulating healthy young men. Or, it could be an undercover cop. Or even your dog. There's simply no way, currently, of telling. This often leads to some rather interesting situations when people finally figure out that the person that they imagined is not the person that they finally get.

Part of the problem is that men actually do pursue the Internet <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2005/How-Women-and-Men-Use-the-Internet.aspx">more intensively</a> than women. Even Wikipedia <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias#The_origins_of_bias">acknowledges this</a> on their Countering systemic bias page:

The average Wikipedian on the English Wikipedia is (1) a man, (2) technically inclined, (3) formally educated, (4) an English speaker (native or non-native), (5) white, (6) aged 15–49, (7) from a majority-Christian country, (8) from a developed nation, (9) from the Northern Hemisphere, and (10) likely employed as a white-collar worker or enrolled as a student rather than employed as a labourer (cf. Wikipedia:User survey and Wikipedia:University of Würzburg survey, 2005).

In terms of how all of this testosterone floating around works in practice, I described a possible scenario in a <a href="http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=5879">Wikipedia Review post</a> several years ago:

1. A closed set of individuals who represent a specific demographic sample make a hierarchical system based on their belief systems, knowledge base, and values. The negotiation of the shifting point of view of this population is defined as "reaching consensus". When points of view are not compatible, the hierarchical structure makes decisions that work from the top of the pyramid down to impose the viewpoint of the people at the top of the structure. With refinement of this process, the views expressed correspond more and more to those at the top of the power structure. As the material which could present contrasting views is excluded, it in turn validates the information within the system as "important", "notable", or "correct".
2. Sources are selected to validate this view of the world. However, because the sources that are presented are those which have already validated the views in question, the sources also validate the idea of consensus. Other sources (which, outside the system, may be perfectly truthful and authoritative) are dismissed as being "pseudo-science", "original research", "POV-oriented", etc., as a means of excluding them from the sample. As the process of exclusion creates conflicts which in turn exclude those who are thinking outside of the sample, the vision presented corresponds more and more to the views of those at the top of the power structure.
3. The result of this process is then labeled "the gift of knowledge" or "making the Internet not suck", and we are expected to receive this "gift" even if we reside outside of the system's demographic segment and may have (read, "almost certainly do have") life experiences which contradict the information presented to us. We may also object to the inherent cultural value of this information. The idea not expressed but ultimately present here is, "you need to think like us, because if you do, you can be part of this rich and successful enterprise founded by our great leader, Jimbo".

It would seem, for example, that such a process dominated by men would most likely cause women to be excluded from positions of power within it. Some studies as Ono and Zadovsky's <a href="http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:k22WP4GZq8wJ:www.frbatlanta.org/filelegacydocs/wp0210.pdf+gender+internet&cd=3&hl=fr&ct=clnk&gl=fr&client=firefox-a">Gender and the Internet</a> suggest that the reason that women are less likely to be present on the Internet is mainly due to an inherent lag in the way women approach new technologies. However, Danielle Citron's work has suggested that <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1352442">women may be objects of what she terms Cyber Gender Harassment</a>.

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Pauline and her perils

With fewer women participating, and those who are finding themselves the object of cyber attacks, the question remains as to exactly what would prompt a man to pose as a women on the Internet, since it would appear that this would be largely counterproductive to both his participation, access to positions of power, and success in getting his message across.

The fact is, there are advantages to posing as a woman in a male-dominated society such as the Internet. One needn't look any further than your neighborhood bar to see exactly why this might be so. Amy S. Bruckman examined the <a href="http://www.cc.gatech.edu/elc/papers/bruckman/gender-swapping-bruckman.pdf">phenomenon of "gender swapping"</a> in <a href="http://www.linnaean.org/~lpb/muddex/mudline.html">multi-user online worlds</a> during the 1990s and found that men posing as women were much more likely to be "helped" by other male players than if they were playing as male personae. As one player named Dennis explained:

I played a couple of MUDs as a female, one making up to wizard level. And the first thing I noticed was that the above was true. Other players start showering you with money to help you get started, and I had never once gotten a handout when playing a male player. And then they feel they should be allowed to tag along forever, and feel hurt when you leave them to go off and explore by yourself. Then when you give them the knee after they grope you, they wonder what your problem is, reciting that famous saying "What's your problem? It's only a game". Lest you get the wrong idea, there was nothing suggesting about my character, merely a female name and the appropriate pronouns in the bland description. Did I mention the friendly wizard who turned cold when he discovered I was male in real life? I guess some people are jerks in real life too.

A few months ago, it was discovered that a single individual had been <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/19/wikipedia_civil_servant_scandal/">juggling no less than 15 different personalities</a> of both sexes on Wikipedia and Wikipedia Review in what has been called the "Poetlister incident", after the name of the principal persona.

Without getting into the specifics of the particular situation, what is interesting to consider is how the personae of each gender were used. The male personae were generally used in a straightforward, business-like manner, while the female personae were much more playful, needy, and prone to more fanciful details (such as a private "wedding" forum on the Wikipedia Review for one of the characters, or the overt sexually masochistic fantasies of the "Taxwoman" persona).

The female characters were also used as instruments of revenge whose actions were then defended by the male personae. It is obvious from the way the gender roles were played off of each other that the puppet master behind it all had exploited more ways to manipulate people by simultaneously using both sides of the gender equation, rather than just one.

Until some way of verifying identity on the Internet becomes standard practice, these sorts of role-playing games are going to be standard practice. While it may be argued that it simply does not matter what sex anyone says they are, the fact remains that people are manipulated by gender. Someone who is playing both male and female roles is much more likely to be able to manipulate social media environments to create his (or her) intended outcome. It would be refreshing, however, if just once it turned out that the fat, balding, fifty-something man was actually a twenty-something blond co-ed... but of course, there are no girls on the Internet, after all!

Photo credits:

• Montreal drag queen Mado Lamotte, by User:Montréalais, <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mado.jpg">CC license, Wikimedia Commons</a>

• The Perils of Pauline cover, public domain (according to <a href="http://http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Perilsofpauline.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>)