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The Wired World According to Womenby Leslie Regan Shade
Book Review:
wired_women: gender and new realities in cyberspace
It seems that a surfeit of Web sites and books, newspaper
and magazine articles, mailing list and Usenet posts, and
topics in university course have been devoted to the whole
"women and cyberspace" debate. Generally, the debates tend
to hinge on two phenomena: 1) the dearth of women on the
net; and 2) gender-bending role playing in cyberspace. It's
refreshing, then, to read a compilation of articles by women
on women's varied experiences in cyberspace, from
participation in
role-playing games and in
collaborative
workspaces and female-only forums, to perspectives on
harassment and censorship, and on
gendered communication online,
to the
In her introduction, editor Weise discusses her overlapping
Internet and RL community in San Francisco and the
connections which led to the creation of this book.
Emphasizing that her online activities are an adjunct to her
RL, not a replacement, she describes it as "a backyard
fence, a coffee shop, a favorite hangout, a weekly support
group" (p. xv). Indeed, all of the contributors emphasize
this intertwinement between their virtual and their real
lives. Could it be that women's virtual lives are less
obsessive than their male counterparts? That online
communications are an appurtenance to RL and face-2-face
interactions?
Leslie Regan Shade (shade@polestar.facl.mcgill.ca ) is in McGill University's Graduate Program in Communications. Copyright © 1996 by Leslie Regan Shade. All Rights Reserved.
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