Gender Differences in CMC: Findings and Implications
Description
Starting with the early popularization of the Internet, and as recently as the mid-1990's, gender has been claimed to be invisible in text-based computer-mediated communication (CMC)-the absence of physical cues as to a message sender's identity was thought to remove all trace of information as to gender, race, social class, etc. from the message, making the medium inherently democratic and egalitarian. However, claims of widespread gender anonymity have not been supported by research on online interaction. In the present essay, I report on what has been found in a number of empirical studies of gender and CMC, and consider the implications of those findings for issues of access to online resources and social equality for women in the Internet Age.
This article is part of a special issue of the Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) Newsletter.
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