In the beginning of Internet everything was free and an experimentally playground. In the last couple of years Internet got domesticated. Just a few services seems to dominate the Internet, even though there is still experimentally efforts made by users, the majority of the Internet community stuck to certain services as YouTube, Facebook and Google. Finding something on the Internet was in it’s beginning affiliated with big efforts, there were no search engines and by all advantages of these services, as saving of time, we all get to know the same which not automatically always is the best. Especially by holding in mind that the searching results can be manipulated. We often don’t start looking for something by ourself, sometimes perhaps, but because it’s so much easier to use Google we use Google, or any other service. On the one hand these services helps us to find our way on the Internet, which becomes so huge, on the other hand are we controlled by the big services on the Internet.
Anyhow, what I want to point out is, that even though the Internet offers us still a certain freedom as in it’s beginning, institutions of power and the companies tries to control it and destroy possibilities and opportunities the internet offers to get rid of a gender which is culturally and socially constructed. Cyperspace is immaterial and society tries to define what is female or male often by the body. To be incorporeal in cyperspace perhaps offered a new way to examine what identity is without getting “gendermarked” by your body. But we get forced already in cyperspace to decide which gender we are, e.g. when we sign in to facebook we have to cross if we are female or male, there’s nothing in between. We try to figure out if blogs are gendered or not. We transfer the boundaries of gender which we created in “real” society to cyperspace and as we are forced to ground our Identiy to our gender and our body in the real world the domesticated Internet controlled by the same power structures as in reality, cut our opportunities to create something new. Perhaps is Cyberfeminism a good way to get the experimentally aspect of the Internet back and to get a more non-gendermarked Cyberspace.
Interestingly in google+, it recognizes other gender. Try to sign in and they have three option for gender: female, male and other. It seems that google is recognizing other gender and not strict in the dual sexes.
When read the title of your blog post, then I questioned do we perform the stereotypical of gender in the cyberspace? This is also a critical reflection for my self when I am in the cyber world
Something that I started to think more about while reading your blog entry was about search engines. There is several other than Google, but still it is the one I tend to use again and again, just occasionally remembering others and using them as well. It is also interesting how we find different things depending on which one we use. Which actually show how information is chosen for some reason by some one to be added.
I’m impressed by you relating it also to gender and the gendered body.