Green, Eileen and Alison Adam (Eds.). Virtual Gender: Technology, Consumption, and Identity.

Raphael, Chad

Green, Eileen and Alison Adam (Eds.). Virtual Gender: Technology, Consumption, and Identity. New York/London: Routledge, 2001. Pp. xxi, 330. ISBN 0-415-23314-3 (hb.), $100.00, 0-415-23315-1 (pb.), $27.95.

Gender's influence on our experience of information technology is a theme that runs through much of the history and sociology of the media. Among other subjects, scholars have repeatedly investigated inequalities of access to technology among males and females in schools and the workplace, uncovered differences in masculine and feminine orientations to communication tools, shown how the design of communication media socializes users into gender roles, and mused on how we use technologies to construct and deconstruct our gender identities.

Green and Adam present 16 essays about gender and information technology, some previously published in a special issue of the journal Information, Communication, and Society. The anthology brings together research conducted in Europe, North America, Africa, Australia, and, of course, on the Internet. Essays treat both male and female experiences, mainly with new media. Most of the essays are empirical in nature, using a broad range of research methods.

The essays in part one examine how gender shapes access to and uses of the Internet and email in several contexts, from the workplace to social life to international politics. Part two focuses on virtual reality, the multi-user online worlds known as MOOs, the telephone, and computer games as leisure spaces where we fashion our notions of gender and self. In part three, authors consider issues of online ethics and citizenship rights raised by cyberstalking, an Internet women's community, and the design of a digital city. Part four returns to questions of self-transformation through technology, analyzing the reasons for gender-switching online and proposing a new cyberfeminist orientation toward technology.

Virtual Gender should be accessible to advanced undergraduates in courses on gender and media, or technology and communication. It includes an annotated list of contributors and a subject index. Each essay is followed by references.

Chad Raphael

Santa Clara University