Book ReviewAuthors: Eillen Green and Alison Adam

The articles in Virtual Gender are organized around four central themes: AccessConsumptionCommunityIdentity.

explores the historical origins of women and the Internet

a strong reminder that women have yet to reach equality in the physical world, let alone the electronic world.

Access is defined in terms of consumption for women

In 1995 the commercial potential of the world wide web was realized.

The birth of this technology has been in the male world:- with military, the academy, engineering industry

Historically women have been excluded from the Internet

Graphics, Visualization and Usability Centre page 5

Early figures show a very low participation over the period from January 1994-8. The US has the highest numbers of women on the Internet; European women, only represent between 15-25 per cent. Only 5 per cent of Japanese and Middle Eastern Internet users are female.

What should be done?Women’s exclusion from the Internet, described

as ‘a white male playground’ (Semmens and Willoughby 1996).

Historically if new technologies are to gain acceptance they must, in some way, have acted to construct a social and cultural context in which they ‘make sense’ and in which they are needed.

The gender and ICT problem thus is an urgent one, because women who fail to fit well within this system will have to accept marginalization.

New technological standards, protocols, products and structures are being developed at an incredible speed.

And with them you have new organizational structures, institutional forms, cultural traditions, educational practices and forms of discourse are emerging to provide a context for them.

Women are locked into locality have constraints of time, space, money, educational background, cultural expectations and employment opportunities

Men are more likely than women to be in jobs with the internet.

Boys tend to dominate computer clubs and gaming networks.

wives/mothers made less use of machines than other family members (1992).

The most frequent cited barriers to women’s ICT access were lack of training and the cost of equipment, lack of time, information overload, language constraints, lack of privacy and security, fear of backlash or harassment, skill deficiencies and alienation.

Positive case-studiesActivists have successfully employed the

internet for political end.For example: Systers, cyber-grrls and other

feminist networks have opened up women-friendly spaces on the electronic networks

EducationEducation has been agreed upon by both men and

women to make computer technology more accessible

Another problem is language: the English language dominates the Internet which creates the obstacle of community-wide parcticipation which is limited

Important to identify the cultural differences between men and women and their approaches to accept technology

To determine their comfort level, expectations and perceptions of the balue of technology

Need to be implementation of technology traning programs

Citizens at Work and in the Community

Computer games pervade contemporary popular culture

Computer gaming involves the use of ICTs for leisure purposes

There is evidence that gender differences exist in the use of ICT for leisure purposes

Work on gender and computer gaming has therefore traditionally focused upon women and girls’ exclusion from gaming and gaming culture

However there is a growing number- if still a minority – of women and girls who activiley use computer games.

A recent study (1998) girls account for 23.2 per cent of ‘heavy users’ of computer gamers

However there remains a male domination of the production and consumption of computer games; and games often contain very seixst or male-oriented content

The gender interplay of a typical video game has traditionally been one where female characters are passive supporting figures, prizes to be won or princesses to be saved, while male characters are the active protagonists who experience and create adventures.

Then, in the late 1990s, the video game industry finally gave audiences what they wanted – an action third-person shooter game with a femaleprotagonist. The Eidos-made “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” seemed both empowering to women, and appealing to boys and men

Nicole Green and VR What is sold and consumed in VR sites are not tangible objects, but

rather a series of effects; pleasure, entertainment and spectacle these effects compelling is the opportunity to rework embodiment and

subjectivity through the collapse of distinctions between body and technology in sites which encourage these boundary crossings.

VR provides an ‘escape’ from reality, but that it provides a temporarily alternative reality

The opportunities for men to play out qualities of masculinity (such as ‘competitiveness’ or ‘aggression’) in these public spaces seems to prompt some staff, operators and consumers to agree that VR has its highest appeal with men because it requires/allows exactly this kind of bodily movement.

spaces such as leisure centers remain dominated by men masculine spaces tends to reinforce VR as an enterprise of consumption

in which a material body is simultaneously suppressed/erased in a masculinized transcendence; a digital body digital world

http://cust.educ.ubc.ca/Wstudents/TSED2/TechEmotion/VideoGames/gender_gaming/strange%20yet.pdf

Pg. 15Rules to participate in Virtual Relaity