Staging gender online: gender plays in Swiss internet relay chats

Abstract

The relationship between chat and gender is a topic that has been discussed for more than 20 years now. Feminist theorists have claimed that virtual reality effaces gender. Others have pointed to the fact that gender matters online as well as offline; linguists in particular have shown that `real-life' gender leaves traces online in the form of discourse styles and patterns. This article has a somewhat different focus. It analyzes blatant plays with gender in Swiss internet relay chats (IRCs). In these games, chatters make use of gender, and put it on stage. These plays are possible because the construction of the gender in IRCs is achieved almost exclusively by communicative means. They might also be possible because the IRC releases the pressures of social constraints with regard to gender. And they have an effect, which could be described in gender theoretic terms as `queering.' But it has to be observed that these plays are made visible as plays, marked, and temporally limited; afterwards, gender constraints are effective again.

Humor support in synchronous computer-mediated classroom discussions

“…The computer medium has been associated with playful or "non-serious communication" (e.g. Crystal 2001Crystal , 2005Danet 1998Danet , 2001Danet et al 1997;del-Teso-Craviotto 2006;Georgakopoulou 2005;Hancock 2004;Herring 1999Herring , 2001North 2007;Rellstab 2007;Rouzie 2001) and may foster joking (Fisher et al 2000;Sotillo 2000) and foreign language play (Belz and Reinhardt 2004). However, Warner (2004) points out that the computer medium may simply serve as a "magnifying glass" (Warner 2004: 81) in drawing our attention to features of verbal interaction between language learners that would have been overlooked in oral communication.…”

Multiple Perspectives on the Influence of Gender in Online Interactions

“…Other research explores practices of gender transgression in online settings such as chat rooms and social network sites (Rellstab 2007 ; van Doorn 2010). According to Boyd and Ellison (2007) social network sites are ‘web‐based services’ where participants can create public or semi‐public profiles, display their network of connections, and see the connections between their list and others within the system.…”

You Crit Like a Girl: the Performance of Female Identity in the Virtual Gaming Community World of Warcraft

“…Through analyzing the communication of male and female participants, marked differences present themselves. One can make the assumption that, particularly in Western society, our psyche is deeply ingrained with gendered conventions and, thus, differences in communication persist whether we are conscious of it or not (Rellstab, 2007). In the author's analysis of real-time Internet Relay Chat rooms (IRCs), he emphasizes that when participants of a perceived gender violate gender norms either willingly or through interactions with other members, they tend to then re-affirm their originally intended gender.…”

“…For example, in one instance a presumably male and female chatter engage in an argument where the female establishes clear dominance. At the end of the argument, the male chatter announces that he will retire to have sexual relations with a female, thereby asserting his masculinity (Rellstab, 2007). The male chatter felt compelled to re-establish dominance by invoking sexual imagery, because that is the stereotypical association with masculinity, the hypersexual.…”

“…Because CMC is so text-rich, textual and language cues are invariably important. Users attempt to determine the gender of others through the social cues evident in their use of language (Rellstab, 2007). Through analyzing the communication of male and female participants, marked differences present themselves.…”