By Estrella Gutiérrez
CARACAS, Mar 26 1997 (IPS)

Life in cyberspace, where more and more men and women communicate via the Internet, is becoming more like that on earth. Sexual innuendo across the Intenet is rampant to the point where “virtual reality is just like real life: machismo is everywhere!” says communications analyst Samira Saba Garcia.

At the same time, however, women are a growing force for activism on “the Net” and an IPS on-line survey revealed that the most creative Internet users are frequently women from all over the world. There is a search engine dedicated exclusively to women’s web-sites (http//www.wwwomen.com), developed in San Francisco, that provides information and site clusters likely to interest women around the globe.

Saba, an editorial assistent for Caracas’ “El Universal Digital” is the author of a thesis concerning “Journalistic Uses of the Internet.” She found that sexist jests are commonplace in internet exchanges, and gives as an example the relatively innocuous questions: “How do women use computers?”

Answer: “They gaze at the blank screen and apply their makeup.”

Whether in “chat rooms” or more serious on-line discussions, women often use pseudonyms – or men’s names – in order to avoid discriminatory treatment and erotic come-ons, the IPS survey discovered. An essay by Vietnamese-born feminist Haoi An Truong on “Gender Issues That Relate to On-line Communication” pointed out that “many women who use the Internet recieve invitations and other messages of highly erotic nature.”

Truong reported that women who participated in virtual encounters were often greeted by men carrying the same prejudices as those against women who happened to be alone in a bar.

One cybernaut reported to Saba that “the treatment of women on the Net is, disgraceful – the same as we find in any realm dominated by men.” Another informant reported that, “whether the interaction is fictional, virtual or real, women tend to be discriminated against.”

Saba reported that some women had been “violated’ during on-line encounters. One informant told how she had been playing a computer game with other users when – after having beaten all but one – the remaining contestant began to control all her movements.

The woman found it impossible to operate her computer ‘mouse’ and she was forced to watch helpslessy while the “doll” she had previously created on screen was “stripped of its clothing, and raped.”

Saba declared that this type of experience was extremly frightening since cybernauts tended to internalize their virtual encounters.

Available data shows an estimated there are presently about 50 million Internet users, of whom 70 per cent live in the United States. Most are upper middle-class white men.

Janet Cottrell, of the University of Vermont, reported that “women computer experts are often alienated.” Cottrell said that computer departments routinely discriminate againts women in order to maintain “men-only” policies.

Such discrimination is based on the prejudicial assumption that women are less mathematically adept than men, although recent studies show there is no gender difference which relates to men’s and women’s affinity for technology, according to the experts.

Truong pointed out that women earn 40 per cent less than men, and consequently are less able to purchase computers, modems, programs and Internet connection.

Limited access is one of the reasons why women only comprise 10 to 15 per cent of the cyber-community. Women cyber-nauts are also at a disadvantage since their assigned roles as home-maker and child-care provider – in addition to their work outside the home – left little time for “surfing” the Net, research showed.

Several studies of gender attitude, including one recently conducted by the University of Texas, showed that men and women, as a rule, had opposite views on the Net in the use of language.

These opposing linguistic styles were revealing, particularly since divergent characteristics were increasingly evident in cyber-space, where the physical cues of face-to-face relationship did not apply.

Researchers discovered that men tend to present as “fact” anything they say, stressing their certainty with words and phrases like “never,” “absolutely,” and “that’s the way it is.”

Women, on the other hand, do not objectivize their positions, but rather shade intended meaning with expressions like “it seems to me,” “my opinion is” and “I think that…”

Sociologist Erving Goffman says that “the masculine language style is to impose oneself with absolutist language that does not permit other points of view, together with a contextual style that can manipulate debate interminably.”

Goffman adds that “women constantly present themselves in a well-mannered fashion, seeking to elicit feelings of acceptance and esteem.”

All commentators share one observation in common: on the Net, women are the focus of endlessly proliferating pornographic web-sites, a phenomenon which leaves them defenseless before the onslaught of denigrating images.

For those who seek “real” information, there is the side to cyberspace. Whether in the United States or South Africa or Brazil, there are a large number of women who are displaying special creativity and perseverance in making their presence felt.

Sister Mary Elizabeth – a Catholic nun belonging to the Order of Saint Isabel of Hungary – directs Aegis, the world’s largest AIDS database with 3.2 megabytes of information housing 400,000 documents (http//www.aegis.com).

Sister Mary personally supervises every detail of a web-site that is notable for clarity, ease to navegate and accessiblity of crucial information. Her website is so well maintained that mainstream media providers – including IPS – supply her with content at no charge and she has obtained institutional support from a large pharmaceutical group.

Aegis is an example of what is good about the Internet. Behind a creative professionalism that doesn’t reveal its gender, one finds on many web pages a high level of personal sacrifice and commitment that is uniquely female.

Another case is that of Anne-Marie Pollowy, who, since April, 1996, has singlehandedly designed and maintained a Web-site called Women’s Bookshelf (http//www.womenbooks.com). The site came into being as a way for all women writers to be able to exhibit their work.”

Along with this objective, Pollawy added a commercial one – the sale of books. Pollowy operates her site from Montserrat, in the Antilles. She migrated there from the United States to live “in virtual isolation” although she remains connected and active through the world wide web.

In an on-line message, Pollowy told IPS that her goal is to offer users a global selection of books by women: “books from India, Australia or anywhere – in order that women’s own voices bring to light the joys and tragedies of women around the world.”

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