Nattering on the Net: Women, Power and Cyberspace
By Dale Spender
Spinifex, 1995. $24.95
Reviewed by Patricia Brien
Dale Spender's most recent book deals with computer-based technology and its implications for women.
Spender engages with a historical perspective on technological change and compares this with the multimedia revolution happening right now. She likens the print revolution of the Middle Ages, when the monks lost their monopoly over the ecclesiastical manuscripts, to the present move away from print towards computer technology.
Spender suggests that the print-based revolution did little for women because they were excluded from equal participation by men. With print came a series of man-made structures like the dictionary, grammar and "correct spelling", whose purpose it was to construct divisions between the educated and the non-educated; women were usually excluded from serious education.
These literary devices were created by men from particular classes with pretensions of objectivity and democracy. The literary canon has until recent decades been "... essentially racist and sexist. It is elitist, imperialist and Western in its orientation."
She warns that unless women learn their lesson from history and join the cyberspace race now, the probability of being left behind in the multimedia revolution is high. Spender sees that there are already socialisation devices which engender technology and divide it into women's technology (household equipment) and men's technology (serious technology).
"Men tend to see machines as an extension of their own anatomy; where technology and gender intersect."
Spender argues that this division is found early in children. She claims that a possible reason why young girls are not using computers to the same extent as young boys is the plethora of violent video games and games with the hero rescuing the damsel in distress, which young girls probably prefer not to play.
The establishment of sexual stereotypes within multimedia technology extends further into sexual menace and terrorism on the internet, according to Spender. Women are being harassed on-line with threatening or sexual (or both) messages, making the space unfriendly at times. She suggests that in non face-to-face situations such as the internet, there is more scope for abuse because the usual social barriers are not present.
Spender goes so far as to suggest that the under-representation of women in the computer sciences at universities throughout Australia not only fits the stereotype but is exacerbated by aggressive male lab support staff who make it uncomfortable for female students to ask for help.
"The netiquette of cyberspace is not as yet entrenched. The scope to make changes still exists; but the opportunity will soon pass. Without change, the exclusion of women could be institutionalised."
Spender thinks that "women-only networks on-line" would be useful for women in establishing themselves in cyberspace. She also thinks that the humble telephone might be a useful example for women to associate with the potential of the internet; hence the title's "nattering". If women could appropriate the internet as a networking tool in the same way as they have embraced the telephone, then the transition from the phone to the computer might seem less daunting.
Spender also discusses the problem of pornographic material on the internet and how easy it is to access. She claims that "pornware" enables the users to become doers rather than simply observers. However, the whole notion of "doing" pornography on-screen is difficult to debate because of the boundaries between the corporeal and the simulated. It exists in the hazy world of virtual reality, and how far this extends into the corporeal is yet undefined or even undefinable.
I think the problem with much of Spender's perspective is that it fosters the image of "women as victim", needing protection. While I do not disagree with her assertions that the internet can be an unfriendly environment for women and that stereotypes abound and make it difficult for women to break into this arena, scaring women with the "dangers" of cyberspace and the potential for "data rape" can only result in further hesitation.
Of course, history has displayed huge inequalities and it would be very unwise to deny the potential for women to become excluded from multimedia technology. In this respect, the book is important both in its timing and its message to women that they must "seize the moment" and move with computer-based technology rather than leaving it for someone else.