http://transgenderhate.blogspot.com/
Transgender Americans face high suicide riskNew survey paints a portrait of trans people's lives in the U.S.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40279043/ns/health-health_care/
There are many reasons this number is so high. It can be one thing or a combination of many things that push someone who is transgender to end their life.

Some of these might contribute to this
Inability to afford Gender Reassignment Surgery
Being ridiculed for being transgender
Being bullied for being transgender
Bombarded by negative news involving transgender persons
Intentional disrespect of proper pronouns and name usage
Being demonized by religious groups
Being homeless due to no legal protections
Being fired and unemployable due to legal discrimination
Constant fear of trans-panic attacks
Fear of trying to have intimate relationships
Rejected by family

These are just some of the things that transgender people are subjected to. I am sure there are many more.
I believe it is important to address as many of these issues as possible to minimize the negative impact on transgender humans. One aspect I am currently working on is confronting news agencies and bloggers on usage of offensive and demeaning articles and coverage on these issues. Using incorrect pronouns, using inappropriate headlines to add shock value, using transphobic verbiage can cause severe anguish to transgender people and also influences the entire community that it is okay to degrade and humiliate transgender people.
I have started a blog to deal with this issue. I have had two successes in having offensive content removed. I need help with this if anyone can pitch in.

My blog on fighting offensive transgender related news and blogs.

Contains 40,000 articles from more than 100 journals, magazines, newsletters, special reports, unpublished papers and conference proceedings devoted to gender and women's issues. Holdings: The database contains a large body of archival material, in some cases, as far back as 1970.

Call#: Van Pelt Library HQ1410 .E54 1999

Brandweek, 12/15/2008, 49(44), 8.

 

Internet Research: Electronic Networking Applications and Policy 13(5), 375-385.

Lori D. Wolin and Pradeep Korgaonkar, (2003).

This article explores the differences between male and female internet advertising beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors.  The authors hypothesized that males would have in general more positive beliefs about internet advertising, stronger positive attitudes about internet advertising, and more internet consumption behavior.  A survey was conducted with 420 respondents.  Six dimensions of belief were tested: enjoyability, offensiveness, informative, deceptiveness, annoyingness, and usefulness.  Regarding attitudes, respondents were asked how good or bad they found internet advertising, how much they liked it, and how essential it was in general and to them.  Behavior was measured by whether respondents had purchased something over the internet in the past year, and how often they visited 22 different websites.  Results mostly supported the hypotheses.  In particular, men held more positive beliefs about internet advertising, and had slightly stronger positive feelings about internet advertising.  Interestingly, these positive beliefs and attitudes converted into behavior as well.  Men reported more frequent internet purchases.

Wolin and Korgaonkar's study provides specific information on the effect the consumer characteristics of gender have on attitudes about internet advertising.  It indicates that, while other articles assume the ineffectiveness of internet advertising because of low click-through rates, some groups, particularly males, may not feel as negatively about internet ads as would be expected.  Other studies, such as the one reported in "Report: Most Men (18-34) Don't Mind Online Ads" (Brandweek, 49(44), 8; not included in this project), have found similar trends.  Wolin and Korgaonkar's study also reveals an unusual trend: females tend to have more negative attitudes and beliefs about internet ads and, as predicted, less purchase behavior on the internet, but reportedly prefer shopping sites more then men.  Wolin and Korgaonkar note that belief, attitude, and behavior do not necessarily have the hierarchical, causal relationship often expected, as this is an example of.  Rather, one or two of the dimensions may align with each other while another may be completely opposite.  Lastly, this article also details ways that advertising may be better targeted to the respective genders.  Particularly they should target women through ads in traditional media and offering tangible rewards when utilizing the internet.

Smith, Valerie. “Reading the Intersection of Race and Gender in Narratives of Passing.”  Diacritics Vol. 24, No. 2/3 (Summer - Autumn, 1994): pp. 43-57. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/465163>.

Valerie Smith shows Imitation of Life’s attempt at creating a hierarchy of gender and race as a way to manipulate spectatorial allegiances.  However, focusing on the resistant spectator, or black female viewer, the author states that this spectator would refuse the film’s attempt at disaggregating class and race from gender identity.  She argues that an oppositional viewer would rearticulate these connections, thus disrupting, at least partially, the overdetermined logic of the film.   This viewer would question the premise of the film, that the black woman should remain in her place.  Likewise, such a spectator would also challenge the film’s logic. She would also notice the film’s attempt at glossing over the racial differences between the two women’s circumstances in order to establish People’s story as a metaphor for Bea’s. 

Very much in line with bell hooks, Valerie Smith argues that the resistant spectator (her term for the black female spectator) would pose questions and delve further into the text while watching Imitation of Life as a way to gain pleasure through the deconstruction of myths and stereotypes within the film. Smith contends that the oppositional viewer would refuse Imitation’s attempt at downplaying racism so as to propagate more so the notion of sexism to its viewers and make her own judgments based on personal examination.

Freeland, Cynthia A. The Naked and the Undead: Evil and the Appeal of Horror. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000.

In Chapter 4 of The Naked and the Undead: Evil and the Appeal of Horror, Freeland offers a feminist interpretation of Stoker’s novel, Dracula, and three of its film incarnations, including Browning’s Dracula (1931). She focuses on the sexual transformation of Dracula and the changing nature of his evil through his incarnations in these works.

This section of the book is ordered chronologically and charters the evolution of Dracula through Stoker’s original novel Dracula (1897), Browning’s Dracula (1931), Badham’s Dracula (1979), and Coppola’s Dracula (1992). In the novel, as in Nosferatu, Dracula is unremittingly evil, symbolized by his ugly, disgusting appearance, hairy palms and nostrils, and bad breath. He is an abomination of nature, a thing that causes revulsion and disgust. Freeland asserts that, for this Dracula, “the threat of gender transgression lurks amid scenes of erotic abnormality and rape.” She compares this Dracula to Browning’s, noting Dracula’s transformation into a “sex icon with continental flair.” Perhaps this sort of Dracula was more appealing to contemporary audiences. The nature of this Dracula’s evil was primarily that of a sexual threat and male predator, not that of the intrinsically foul. Freeland goes on to analyze more recent films, in which Dracula is increasingly portrayed in a sympathetic light and with a greater depth of character.

Gendering Mobility: Women, Work and
Automobility in the United States
MARGARET WALSH

History
Volume 93 Issue 311, Pages 376 - 395
Published Online: 28 Jun 2008

ABSTRACT

This article examines women's relationship with car driving in the United States. The growth of American 'automobility' increased throughout the twentieth century, but most historians have ignored its relationship with women. They have assumed that the motor car was a masculine vehicle in terms of both its technology and use. Even those who recognized the motor car as a machine for changing lifestyles and interpersonal relationships considered that the male head of household had authority over choosing and driving the family vehicle. Some women, however, always drove. Though their numbers were relatively small in the years before the Second World War, they quickly seized the opportunity to get behind the wheel in succeeding years as more and more cars were produced in the United States and imported vehicles became popular. Women needed to drive to manage their unpaid work in the home efficiently and, when they entered the paid labour force in increasing numbers, they needed to run their households and to travel to their paid work. By the end of the twentieth century American women were as likely to drive as their male counterparts, though their patterns of driving were different. In the process, the automobile had become a sex neutral vehicle.

 

Papke, David Ray. “Peace Between the Sexes: Law and Gender in Kramer vs. Kramer.”
University of San Francisco Law Review 30.4 (1996) 1199-1208. (available at http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/lpop/etext/usf/papke30.htm)

    “Peace Between the Sexes: Law and Gender in Kramer vs. Kramer,” Papke focuses on the legal intricacies of divorce in America from colonization to the time of Kramer vs. Kramer. He identifies the criteria used to determine child custody by American courts and how this criteria has changed dramatically several times over the past few hundred years. Contemporary to the release of Kramer vs. Kramer, child custody laws were being radically overhauled. In 1979, New York changed it criteria for child custody, moving away from maternal preference to accounting for which situation would be in the “best interest” of the child. Papke identifies the dramatic inaccuracy of Kramer vs. Kramer’s depiction of standard legal proceedings in a child custody case. He demonstrates, however, how these inaccuracies are purposeful and meant to underline the important of gender and gender roles in the movie. An example of this lies in the depiction of a lackadaisical judge who allows Joanna’s attorney to slander him in court without factual basis. Although inaccurate, such actions are derived from common divorce attorney stereotypes and do serve the purpose of eliciting sympathy for Ted Kramer. These mistakes also demonstrate the public resentment towards many figures involved with child custody judicial processes. Papke also discusses the appearance of the “male gaze” in the movie as it relates to the movie’s plot and feminist theory.
    This article is very relevant due to the number of unique views on Kramer vs. Kramer. The article gives a history of the judicial processes handling divorce and child custody, but in addition discusses general public opinion regarding these events and how these attitudes surface in Kramer vs. Kramer. In addition, the article incorporates a prominent idea in feminist cinematic theory, that of the “male gaze,” and it discusses how this element presents bias as truth.

For this project, I have chosen to investigate Ousmane Sembene's 1975 film Xala. The film raises a multitude of issues pertaining to post-colonial African government and culture. Sembene largely criticizes the incompetence of the new governments, using the sexual impotence of the film's main character as a metaphor. For the research portion of the project, I sought to answer the following closely-related questions: How have post-colonial African peoples navigated the dichotomy between tradition and modernity in the realms of gender, sex and womens rights? Is it even beneficial to think about this subject as a dichotomy? Not all of my sources pertain directly to this, but the majority lean heavily in that direction of thought.

Mushengyezi, Aaron. "Reimaging Gender and African Tradition? Ousmane Sembene's Xala revisited." Africa Today 51, Number 1 (Fall 2004): 47-62.

Aaron Mushengyezi’s Reimaging Gender and African Tradition? Ousmane Sembène’s Xala revisited is written in direct response to Ousamane Sembène’s film Xala. The article challenges Sembène’s polarization of Western and African influences in post-colonial Africa, setting out to raise questions about the director’s vision for the country. The author argues that Sembène romanticizes and idealizes as he reimages Africa for foreign audiences, demonizing Western modernity and idolizing the “purity” of African tradition. It critique’s Sembène’s views of gender, his reimaging Africa and the symbolism of the Xala in an attempt to uncover the director’s worldview.

The article questions whether Sembène includes gender in his list of polarized worldviews, as he depicts males as incompetent, greedy and weak, and females as redemptive, wise and more “masculine” in spirit than their physiological counterparts. Although each of the female characters is comparatively strong, they individually represent different point on the continuum between African traditionalism and Western modernism. The author gives special attention to Rama, Sembène’s idealized heroine - educated yet untouched by Western corruption, speaking her mind, both true to her African heritage and disapproving of her father’s polygamy. The author, however, cites Rama as the primary example of Sembène’s idealism. He argues that such a person does not exist in Africa. The author questions Sembène’s criticism of the paternal system of family and government, hoping to determine what he would suggest in its stead.

The article does admit that Xala raises important questions as to whether Western modernity is solely to blame for the impotence of post-colonial African government. At its conclusion, it explores the paradoxical metaphor of the xala as both a curse and a redemptive force in cleansing El Hadji, the main character, of his Western and African fetishes.

Rachel Lewis, "Love and Persuassion in Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione Di Poppea," Music and Letters 86.1 2005
According to the Galenic tradition with which Monteverdi would have been familiar, there was no stable biological divide between male and female; the Renaissance lackeda scientific discourse that could even claim to establish a definitive method by which one distinguished male from female.¹⁴ Sexual identity was relational, not a fixed bodily condition, but a response to contexts that were always changing.15

14 See Ann Rosalind Jones and Peter Stallybrass, 'Fetishizing Gender: Constructing the Hermaphrodite in Renaissance Europe', in Julia Epstein and Kristina Straub (eds.), Body Guards: The Cultural Politics of Gender Ambiguity (New York and London, 1991), 80–110 at 81.

15 Ibid. 104.

 

Essays by: Karen Barad, Anne C. Bellows, Charlotte Bunch, Nao Bustamante, Elaine K. Chang, Marianne DeKoven, Leela Fernandes, Susan Stanford Friedman, Coco Fusco, Radha S. Hegde, Cheryl Johnson-Odim, E. Ann Kaplan, Debra J. Liebowitz, Rajeswari Sunder Rajan, Cynthia Saltzman, Lynne Segal.

 "My purpose in this book is to show that third-wave feminism must go beyond the dualisms of global and local and of theory and practice," says DeKoven, who distinguishes "third wave" feminism from the Western-focused second wave of feminism that emerged during the 1970s and also from the first wave of feminism defined by the women's suffrage movement of an earlier century.
"I wanted to show -- and not in some mediating, peacemaking way -- that inevitably you can't see these dualisms as opposing. You have to view them as mutually dependent, mutually informing."

Because this article takes a methodological approach, it is not very accessible for the average film scholar. It also talks about trends as a whole, leaving out the detailed scene analyses that those interested in films often enjoy. But the article does a good job of trying to examine what the medium of film might have to say about our culture, and its strength lies in its ability to offer empirical evidence of trends, such as an explosion of romantic comedies in the 1990s, as opposed to individual examples. In this way, we can look at the trends of particular decades. When Sabrina was released, in the 1950s, for example, romantic drama was more popular than romantic comedy, a reversal of what is currently true. Other subsets that are popular now, such as teen romances or romances that feature supernatural elements (like 1990's Ghost), were nearly nonexistent in the 1950s.

The study also found that cultural conditions have effectively killed many formerly popular plotlines of romance movies. Couples in different classes, for example, no longer offer a "convincing dramatic impediment." Movies that feature these aging romantic conventions," then, can only remain popular today as "relics of an earlier era." This statement serves to justify Sabrina's ongoing popularity despite its perhaps hard-to-swallow plotline. All in all, romantic films, even the current ones, do continue to reinforce some of the more conservative romantic tendencies in our culture, namely the importance of marriage and fidelity, and this has not changed since the days when Sabrina was released.

All three versions have the same essential Cinderella story skeleton. The "Cinderella" terminology that is often used in describing them is not quite apt, however, because the character of Sabrina is self-reliant and never depends on a man to save her. How strong she is does vary from version to version, though.

Wood argues that in the original play, Sabrina is autonomous, politically active, and well-educated. She returns from Paris not because she is in love with David Larrabee, but to escape a marriage proposal that she doesn't want to be tied down to. She doesn't need to be rescued, and her relationship with Linus becomes one of mutual companionship. Gender and class issues are sidestepped when Sabrina declares herself as self-supporting and her chauffer father comes into a windfall of money.

In the play's original adaptation for the screen, Wilder and his associates conceived Sabrina as a teenager in puppy love. Though her time in Paris leaves her sophisticated, this Sabrina is not educated or assertive, like her predecessor, and becomes an object to be passed between the Larrabee brothers. She chooses Linus, in the end, because she wanted to care for him. Wood argues that this allows the movie to become "a dark study of gender," because "Sabrina feels strongest when she is helpful to others, when she denies her own needs and desires." Wood refers to the theories of developmental psychologist Nancy Chodorow, which state that while boys develop intimacy problems, girls learn to doubt their identities. This can lead to passivity and vulnerability to manipulation in women like Sabrina.

Wood reasons that the 1995 film version, while not without problems, is instilled with better representations of gender politics. The Sabrina character is in the fashion industry, less domestic than cooking, and while in Paris she "finds herself." This autonomous description is at odds with her actions, though, as she still displays a tendency towards caretaking.

All three versions are at fault because class and gender problems disappear without explanation during the happy ending. The film versions, though, let Sabrina be manipulated by men and lose her own identity.  Wood's analysis of the role of gender in the play and films gives readers a way to understand these ingrained cultural messages, rather than just consuming the film as entertainment.

A great internet resource for finding International organizations dealing with womens' issues around the world.

Director John Whitesell literalizes tropes of gender and racial identity confusion in his Big Momma's House 2, which meditates upon the nuanced difficulties of existing in society as an obese African-American woman, while in reality being a skinny black man. Martin Lawrence plays Malcolm "Big Momma" Turner, a humble FBI agent whose passion for national security motivates his subtextual fascination with cross-dressing as a 250+ pound, festively patterned muumuu-sporting woman.

To appeal to a wider audience, Whitesell has ingeniously pitched Big Momma's House 2 as mind-numbing comedy, pregnant with redundantly inappropriate and awkward quips and gags. However, Big Momma House 2's purportedly feather-light farce grapples with many a complex and politically-charged question regarding the role racial minority cross-dressing plays in contemporary American culture.

Martin Lawrence's dual identity as an ambitious young sharp-shooting National Security agent, driven by his unremitting patriotism to go incognito as an elderly corpulent female, provokes comparisons between his two radically different personae. In doing so, it raises an interesting question: how does our society corner successful young black men into performing absurd self-caricatures in order to be embraced by mainstream culture?

By challenging us to laugh at our own violent and repressive racial and sexual stereotyping, Big Momma's House 2 instigates important cultural conversations regarding America's deep-rooted societal prejudices: have these bigotries really evolved since the Civil Rights Movement, or have they just been transformed and made less recognizable?

The film suggests that if we can allow ourselves to reflect openly and honestly upon these questions and anxieties, instead of displacing them onto a grossly caricatured 250+ pound African-American woman, perhaps we can also preclude the culmination of a Big Momma's House trilogy.

Analysis across a variety of relevant feminist theory.

An important feminist compilation.

South East Regional Office of the World Health Organization includes indicators, publications, and links to gender resources in the region. The South East Region includes: Bangladesh, Bhutan, DPR Korea, India, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Timor-Leste.

GWH brings attention to the ways in which biological and social differences between women and men affect health and the steps needed to achieve health equity. Includes links to major NGO's and regional gender and health issues.

Call#: Van Pelt Library HQ1410 .E54 1999

Contains 40,000 articles from more than 100 journals, magazines, newsletters, special reports, unpublished papers and conference proceedings devoted to gender and women's issues. Holdings: The database contains a large body of archival material, in some cases, as far back as 1970.

This full-text database provides international coverage of current issues such as employment and the workplace, social & political issues, violence and exploitation, development and human rights, health and reproductive rights, legal issues, education, culture and customs, demographics, contemporary family life, and arts and media. Holdings: 1992 to the present, (selected reports back to 1990).

"Gender Ads.com was begun a number of years ago to provide gender studies educators and students with a resource for analyzing the advertising images that relate to gender."

"The Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at New York University conducts a broad interdisciplinary investigation of gender and sexuality as keys to understanding human experience."

"The mission of the William Way Center is: to encourage, support, and advocate, within and beyond the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities, a positive sense of self-acceptance and appreciation of these communities and their diversity; to provide and encourage education within and beyond these communities about gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender culture, history and contributions to society at large, and; to promote mental and physical health and well-being for sexual and gender minorities."

Gilman, Sander L. . Fat boys : a slim book / Sander L. Gilman. [0803221835 (cloth : alk. paper) ] Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, c2004.
Call#: Van Pelt Library RC552.O25 G54 2004

This web site provides statistics and indicators on women and men in six specific fields of concern: population, families, health, education, work and politics and human rights. The data are compiled mainly from official national and international sources, as these are consistently authoritative and comprehensive. Other sources and estimates that have been subjected to peer review are used to supplement official sources. All sources are given at the end of each table, as are technical notes on the indicators presented.

Gender statistics portray the status of women compared to men and serve as tools for measuring progress towards gender equality and the empowerment of women.

WomenWatch is a central gateway to information and resources on the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women throughout the United Nations system. Information is broken down by topic, and region with links to local groups and statistics.

GenderStats is an electronic database of gender statistics and indicators designed with user-friendly, menu-driven features. Data by region, country, or topic.

Chinese women, living and working / edited by Anne E. McLaren. [0415312175 (alk. paper) ] London ; New York : RoutledgeCurzon, 2004.
Call#: Van Pelt Library HQ1767 .C45253 2004

website for Maori Karmael Holmes director of Scene Not Heard (ihouse link)

article on pew study...gender differences in web use (and some generational differences)

"The Bibliography on Gender and Technology in Education has been created by gender equity specialist Jo Sanders. Focusing primarily on information technology, the bibliography is comprehensive as of 2005 and draws on international research as well as intervention literature. It contains nearly 700 entries and is extensively annotated, key-worded, and searchable. Sanders compiled the bibliography for her 2005 review article, "Gender and Technology: A Research Review.""

Krolokke begins her essay by recapping recent research in gender and language in cyberspace, including the role of "grrrls" who specifically resist male domination.  She then describes her study of 5 MSN channels of Internet Relay Chat (IRC): gay chat, lesbian chat, transgender/transsexual chat, politics2000 chat, and African-American chat for what she calls "playful chat".  She analyzes the transcribed speech for 4 types of language play: abbreviations, paralinguistic cues, hybrid language, and insulting speech. Krolokke uses performance theory to explain gender play online such that she considers "linguistic gender" to mean performing a speech pattern that follows social and cultural expectations or stereotypes associated with the speech of that gender. She explains that in some cases,  "IRC provides a space for participants to play out their most convincing performances of parodic linguistic identities."  As such, she provides an argument away from earlier linguists who argued about the inherent differences in male/female communication and towards later "third wave" linguists who see all communication and all contexts as marked for gender, not the speaker him or herself.

PDF/text available

In this article, Bromseth discusses his research into 2 Norwegian email lists: Radical Forum (a socialist/Marxist forum) and The Doctor's List (a forum for general practitioners) in which the membership was divided approximately 85% men and 15% women.  While the political group tended towards confrontational discussion and raw polemic, the medical forum was characterized by face-saving strategies and an emphasis on "brotherhood".  Bromseth argues that the latter behavior should not be seen as "feminization" of male speech, but rather as an example of positive and definitively male social practices in modern (2001) Norway.  To him, gender is constantly being constructed in relation to other social phenomena and contexts must always be examined independently to show such construction without stereotyping behavior.  This argument runs in counter to the generally accepted thoughts towards men's speech and should definitely be considered as a reminder to readers to not make generalized assumptions based upon previous theories, but instead, to take into account mitigating cultural and social factors when analyzing any speech community.

Gefen and Ridings, both local Philadelphia scholars, begin by recapping women's and men's sociolinguistic patterns of discourse as prior discussed in the literature. They hypothesize that women, more than men, will wish to both receive support from and give support to a virtual community in which they are participating.  In addition, they hypothesize that such support will influence women's assessment of the quality of that virtual community, and that women will more constantly than men rate their virtual community as having higher quality.  They surveyed 39 discussion boards, which they divided into men's, women's, and mixed boards.  As to be expected, women more than men were found to go to discussion boards for support. One of the interesting results they found is that the men surveyed also sought rapport and support, but did so more often in men's-only communities, presumably where an expectation of common language would be held, and did not rate them lower in quality, even though rapport-seeking can be considered as indicating inferior social status among men according to past sociolinguistic studies.  When the men did seek rapport in mixed-gender groups, it did not affect their assessment of the board's quality because there was an expectation of rapport-seeking inherent in the mixed-gender environment, since women were present and rapport-seeking is a characteristic of women's speech.  The authors admit that even as they tried to control for gender-bias in the chosen bulletin boards, that some of the communities were specifically support/rapport based (eg. cancer support) and that may have skewed the data towards women's speech and away from men's speech.

Penntext/PDF available

In this article, Herring discusses her research into both asynchronous communication via discussion list and synchronous communication via IRC in which women were subject to harassment and demeaning characterizations by men.  In both instances, the result was that the affected women fell silent or complied with the male behavioral normatives.  I think it is important to note the forums chosen, as there may have been some issues inherent to the discussion which should be considered above and beyond the linguistic patterns. The discussion list was Paglia-L, a group dedicated to discuss the writings of the cultural theorist Camille Paglia, who is often referred to as an "anti-feminist feminist" and who often generates polemical discussions among women as often as in mixed company.  The IRC channel was #india which is primarily composed of expatriates from India living in English-speaking countries, and as such, specific Indian cultural patterns may have also influenced the speech found on that channel.  What is most useful to me from this essay is how Herring defines harassment online, shows examples of its resistance and escalation, and finally shows how the female participants accommodate or conform to the degrading situation.  If these examples can be extended across the internet, it would indicate that male-female communication suffers from similar breakdowns as those that can occur on the job or in any face-to-face situation where harassment may surface and as such, that we have a long way to go to address gender equality online.

 

PDF/full text available

Winter and Huff's study focuses on a 1996 survey of a women's only online bulletin board for computer scientists called SYSTERS. Although the study is 9 years old, it still brings voice to women who were previously marginalized as gender minorities in their field of work/study.  The authors discuss the issue of same-gender boards being both "havens" and "ghettos" for women online, and also provide some support for Cass Sunstein's theory that the internet allows for the consolidation of like opinions - both positive and negative, as in the case of women's forums and online sexual harassment, respectively.  Based upon their work, the authors felt that the differences between the genders in online communication was equal or magnified to that present in speech.

Penntext/PDF available

Soukup's study focuses upon two chatrooms - one sports-related and male-dominated, and the other female-based and female-dominated.  His results support the ideas cited by Tannen and others in linguistic studies of discourse, in that the male chatters were more aggressive, argumentative, and power-seeking than the female chatters.  It's unclear to me whether the results can be viewed as reliable or representative, since there may be an inherent social context to a sports-related chatroom/bulletin board that goes above and beyond being merely a male-dominant community.  For example, Soukup cites the fact that the sports-related chatroom essentially turned into a locker room replete with profane and sexist language, including sexual put-downs and challenges between male chatters.  He goes on to note that when male chatters entered the chatroom of the female-based community, that there was frequent inappropriate behavior such that groups of male chatters would take-over the room with sexist remarks or propositioning of the female members. 

 

Tannen's text on gender and conversational interaction seeks to present research into gender differences in conversation as evidenced by direct speech data. The first section is comprised of data about friendship rapport, focusing on "girl talk" (Eder and Eckert, respectively) and storytelling among men and women (Johnstone).  The second part focuses on "conflict talk" both among children at school (Sheldon and Goodwin, respectively) and adults (Brown).  The third section becomes more theoretical as it attempts to rethink the nature of discourse in terms of power vs. solidarity (Tannen) and turn taking (Edelsky).  Finally, James and Clarke review the literature and attempt to reframe the discussion of conversational interruptions among men and women.  While none of this research deals with online communications, I believe that  such analyses can be extrapolated to apply to online discussions both as "female talk" and "conflict talk".

Shade's research, although not linguistic in nature, is useful to provide a background into women's roles in constructing the Internet.  She begins by reviewing research on gendered uses of various communications technologies, including the telephone, radio, and television. She discusses cyberactivism and feminism, as well as public policy determining women's access to the internet.  She cites a case study of women in China and internet access implementation and concludes with a discussion of whether women are merely consumers targeted by merchants or active citizens in an online sisterhood (discussions that we have held in class as well).

In Gender and Politeness, Mills provides a new perspective on common assumptions of women's and men's speech with regard to etiquette and politeness.  In her introduction, she positions herself in the "third wave" of sociolinguists interested in women's speech - who are critical of the "second wave" of linguists such as Deborah Tannen, Dale Spender, and Robin Lakoff (cited elsewhere in my bibliography) for asserting the existance of "women's speech".  Mills prefers to discuss language in terms of "communities of practice" where people are drawn together to perform a common task.  She uses models developed by Judith Butler, Alice Freed, Bonnie McElhinny and others which position that gender is an act which can take place in contexts which are also considered gendered, such that she can attempt to describe gender at a discourse level instead of just at an utterance level or individual level.  As such, she can argue that men and women can alter their levels of politeness based upon interactional context with other speakers instead of following set gendered linguistic patterns.  While none of her research involves online or internet communication, I find her analysis to be an excellent counterpoint to the other linguists I have cited because of her challenge to previous assumptions.

Penntext/PDF available

In this essay, Frederick examines the question of whether computer-mediated communication is truly a democratic utopia where feminist values can flourish.  By studying data from 2 newsgroups, alt.feminism and soc.feminism, she demonstrates that discrimination and exclusion/hostility can continue to occur, even in a supposedly inclusive and politically feminist context.  She concentrates on the ethos of the newsgroups as the basis for constructing either a welcoming or distancing communication arena.  My interest in this article stems from this notion of ethos because I think that it a highly influencing factor which combines with inherent linguistic features of women's speech to produce a speech community.  I believe that any future discussions of the social structure of online communication must address ethos as well as linguistic differences in order to prevent factionalization or balkanization of men and women online, much as one might approach a dialog about multiculturalism and the internet.

In this second edition of her text, Cameron begins with an introduction to the study of language along feminist lines.  She continues with a basic framework of linguistic approaches to language variation and gender and separates the feminist "folklinguistics" from actual empirical studies of language use.  The second half of the book becomes more theoretical, investigating the links between gender and grammar and debating about the power of sexist language.  She overviews the radical feminist theories of silence, oppression, and alienation of women via language.  Later, she recaps the ideas of Spender, Lacan, and Irigaray among others to discuss the concept of a "gendered subject" as seen in a Postmodernist context.  Finally, Cameron wraps up her work by posing issues and concerns to gender studies as she meditates on methods of integrating feminist discourse and language study into real world policies and social change.  While this book does not deal in computer-mediated discourse, the issues addressed are valid in online contexts as well. 

In this text, Coates and Cameron attempt to address in a quantitative way how sociolinguistic differences are found between men's and women's speech.  While the research does not include online communication, it does show grounded empirical studies of women in their own speech communities such as among British Black women and women in mining communities in Wales.  They go on to address gender differences in communication "style" above and beyond format, and delve into examples of gossip, tag questions, and shop talk as female or male speech.  In all cases, the authors attempt to challenge prior academic research and offer new perspectives on the task of analyzing speech on gender lines, as in the example of Swann's "Talk Control: an Illustration From the Classroom of Problems in Analyzing Male Dominance of Conversation."

PDF/text available

Baron begins her analysis by situating instant messaging as a form of computer-mediated communication and attempting to create a profile for IM communications among undergraduate students.  She first reviews the linguistic differences in spoken speech: social vs. informative speech and standard vs. non or sub-standard usage by men and women.  In terms of written language, she reviews concepts related to personal letter writing and studies about gender identification of online texts. She analyzed the IM data for turn taking, sequences, conversation length, and lexical issues to determine possible effects of gender.  She found no differences in turn taking, but found that women had greater overall conversation length and length of ending sequences.  From the lexical analysis, Baron found that men used more contracted forms of words (e.g. "I'm" instead of "I am") than women.  Most interesting to me, and not at all surprising given my real-world online experiences, was the finding that women used more emoticons than men in the IM conversations.

In this compilation of essays edited by Jones, the central theme is about how the internet is a virtual culture of its own and how that culture can be described in sociological terms.  Of particular interest to me for fan related discourse is Watson's study of the Phish.net fan community, which describes an online fan base of 50K+ members and their interactions.  Shaw discusses gender and sexual orientation and internet communities in his essay "Gay Men and Computer Communication: A Discourse of Sex and Identity in Cyberspace", which although does not related to women's speech, does deal with issues of communication and constructed identity.  Later in the volume, Dietrich takes on gender and internet journals in their construction of a body politic.  Finally, Zickmund addresses the problem of internet hate speech or "cyberhate" and how "the other" is defined online.

While I am not dealing with the subject of "cyberrape" as we read about LambdaMOO in the class assignment, if anyone is interested, Richard MacKinnon has a chapter in this volume titled "Punishing the Persona: Correctional Strategies for the Virtual Offender" which further discusses the rape and subsequent punishment of online offenders at LambdaMOO and elsewhere.

This very recent compilation (2005) contains 11 scholarly articles on the subject of adolescent girls and their use of the web, from perspectives of age, gender, ethnicity, and sociology/media theory.  With regard to the subject of teenage girls and fandom, I am interested in Scodari's work on the negotiation of age and gender in TV fan newsgroups, since I am also discussing women's speech in such groups.  Mazzarella continues this topic with her discussion of the "cultural economy" of teenage girls fandom on the internet.  Finally, Thiel takes on the description of the construction of identity and gender identification for girls over instant messaging, which she describes as both a cultural and an experimentation space.  While this text does not discuss specific linguistic topics, it does serve as an interesting sociological reference for young women's behavior on the internet, which could influence or inform linguisitic decisions online.

This text consists of three sections regarding women's use of the internet.  Part One deals with the definition of gender as part of a user's identity on the net, in particular for internet gamers (Paasonen) and female professionals (Dorer)  The second part concerns how women are addresses as consumers of the internet and networks, with examples from online communities like Oprah.Com (Cooks/Paredes/Scharrer) and other women's websites (Gustafson).  Part Three gives examples of everyday uses of the internet for bringing girls and women together, and also discusses the problems and strategies inherent for lesbians online (Poster).  Finally, the fourth and last part talks about gender and new media in the contexts of the school, politics, and television viewing.  This looks to be a very interesting text from a sociological perspective which can supplement the other linguistic texts in the bibliography.

Robin Lakoff is one of the so-called "first generation" of linguists to look at women's speech as being quantitatively different from men's speech, and also one of the first generation of feminists to look towards linguistics as a scientific study to which to prove inherent sexism in language.  Although this text is dated (1975), it does serve as a key cited secondary reference for many of the articles published recently about gender and discourse.  Even other linguists who go on to refute Lakoff's dichotomies continue to cite her work regularly.  For my purposes, I may choose to quote from part 2 of her book "Why Women are Ladies" which deals with forms of politeness and how women specifically express politeness in speech, topics which I feel are still relevant today on the internet.

In this academic text, Tannen begins by examining the relationship between power and solidarity in various linguistic strategies - namely indirect speech, interruptions, silence, topic changes, and conflict.  She continues to expand upon the cultural, ethnic, stylistic, and gendered differences in conversational interruptions.  She compares the physical alignment of speakers to topical cohesion of the discourse and finds positive correlations. Finally, with Robin Lakoff, she explores the pragmatics of conversational strategies from a selection for Scenes From a Marriage.  Unlike her general books, this text goes into more scientific linguistic detail and analysis which could prove useful to apply to internet speech between genders.

Although this text of Deborah Tannen's is geared toward the general reading public more than an academic audience, and focuses upon verbal speech more than written, it proved useful on various fronts.  Tannen writes from the perspective that sociolinguistically, boys and men have been socialized differently from girls and women, and that their discourse reflects such societal influences and expectations.  Chapter 6: "Community and Contest" discusses the differences between the genders with regard to cooperation, community building and partnership versus fighting, conflict, and competition.  Chapter 8: "Dammed if You Do" focuses upon issues of politeness, apology, criticism, and boasting as key differences between male and female speech, which can be extended to internet media communication as well.

Tannen writes from the perspective that there are key, quantifiable differences in men's and women's speech from a sociolinguistic perspective which can be applied to workplace communication.  Although this book was written for a general non-academic audience, it can offer some interesting theories of spoken language and gender and power in an office environment, which arguably could be extended to email or electronic communications on the job.  Chapter 2 deals with conversational rituals that take place on the job: routines such as apologizing, giving criticism, ritual fighting, compliments, and complaints.  Chapter 2 discusses "Indirectness at Work" and how indirect speech can be viewed as both powerless and powerful depending upon the gender of the speakers and listeners.  In my experience, such rituals and directness/indirectness are key features in gendered speech found both in real-time verbal speech and in written internet venues.

This journal article discusses the reality that, despite popular opinion, female fans are just as knowledgable as male fans.  This will present another example of evidence that contradicts the commonly held opinion that female fans are mostly into sports for the attractive guys.

Quirk actually takes a serious attempt at a self-help book for Sportsaholics and their significant others.  This is exactly the common perception of male sports fans that is necessary to counter the rising number of female fans.  What do the two groups mean to one another? How do they reflect on their genders as a whole?

Guttmann takes a historical stance on sports fans, beginning all the way back in Ancient Roman and Greek times.  He also presents the idea of the "hooligan." The concept of the "hooligan" is deceptively complicated, but seems to embody what most would claim to be masculine traits with aggressiveness being a major foundation.  What do these "hooligans" imply on female sports fans?

Perrin illuminates a variety of aspects of American fans, in particular sports radio hosts.  His discussion of the prevalence of male hosts highlights the gender bias present within sports media, let alone fan cultures.

Miller discusses the relatively recent shift in sports fan cultures, particularly with the marketing shift that has targeted female sports fans.  It is interesting to see how he takes on lesbianism in relation to sports. There is a lot of great material to use in relation to my paper.  

Sports Illustrated for Women ended its publication back in 2002. This could imply a lack of female sports fans to read this magazine. In looking at this website, especially in comparison to Sports Illustrated's website, it is clear that not as much work or effort went into its creation. Although, this difference could be from the 3 year span between when SI for women ended and today, during which SI's website could have had major additions and transformations.

This article focuses on the psychological aspects of being a fan.  By including a psychological perspective, in particular one that discusses inclusion and exclusion from fan cultures, the implications of being included in a fan culture despite being female will be explicated, as well as vice versa. 

This article was cited in the "Myth of the 'Puck Bunny'" article.  The strength of women affecting the fandom of men implies that the questioning of gender norms for one sex affects how the other views themselves.  This could corrulate with the argument that female fans are seen in opposition to gender norms.

This is the first article to differentiate between biological sex and gender constructions.  This differentiation comes as a test to see if gender constructions or sex were a better predictor of who would be a fan.  By differentiating between gender and sex, this article helps to clarify whether being a sports fan conflicts with the gender norms associated with being a woman.

This article presents an older look at sports fans, prior to the recent influx of female fans, which again is up for debate.  The authors attempt to differentiate sex associations based on different aspects of being a fan.  With an older look at fan behavior, the recent popularization of female fans can be determined as a changed perception or an actual increase in the numbers of female fans.

Crawford and Gosling attempt to debunk the myth of the 'puck bunny.' In their efforts, they recognize no difference in knowledge between male and female fans. This significant disjuncture from common beliefs helps to legitimize female fans as being genuine.

This is yet another indication of the corporate benefits being enjoyed by the increase in female fans or perhaps just the increased awareness of female fans.  There could be no significant increase in female fans, but the perception of these fans could be changing.  This website offers an alternative view of female fans from the negative portrayal usually associated with such an idea.

NFL.com will help provide information on the significance of feminized sports hats and other such products. As mentioned in another article, presence of pink hats has caused a significant response by both women and men.  Women tend to like them, whereas men think they are wrong, infuriating, or any number of other negative opinions.

These authors try to determine the likelihood of men and women to become fans in general and then more specifically as fans according to gender to comparable sports like, college basketball.  Also, it counters the many articles that emphasize and often exaggerate the number of female fans, finding data that denies an equal level of fans in both sexes. Men, of course, are more represented as fans.

This article takes a significantly more involved advertising slant.  It provides another example of how female sports fans are becoming a force to be reckoned with, be it their male counterparts or advertisers.  In particular, this showed that advertisers need to differentiate their marketing strategies for men and women, because although they are all fans, the "image congruency" is lacking.

Trail and Robinson focus on intercollegiate sports, but offer interesting statistics about spectators as a whole.  Their focus on advertising relates to the advertisers of professional sports.  However, an argument could be made that female college fans do not carry over into professional sports fans, due to the specialized setting under which their fandom is developed.

The authors attempt to distinguish a difference in perception of female fans by men who were sports fans themselves or nonfans.  How men perceive female fans is crucial in determining the implications that female fans have on the fan cultures of professional sports, as well as, gender constructions.

The article exposes the significant effect that female fans have had on professional sports.  An entire night devoted to female fans is the premise of this article. Also, it shows how advertisers are being influenced by the realization that women are interested in sports.

This article fits in with my argument that the presence of women fan's in a fan culture predominantly made up of men causes significant changes to gender constructions as well as the fan culture, itself.  This article focuses on the creation of pink hats for almost every professional sports team.  The author finds fault with this creation, which adds weight to the belief that women "shouldn't" like sports.

I am not sure whether I will be actually able to use this article, because it does not appear when I click on the link from PennText.  However, from the abstract in EBSCO, it seems like it would fit right in with my argument that female fan cultures affect gender norms.  It is a TV Guide Survey of NFL female fans, with attention being drawn toward the affects that female fans have had on the NFL, particularly in its product line.

"Unlike many other film criticism collections, which concentrate on the representation of a particular group or genre, this volume collects a range of writings on a number of very different and specific topics and links them together through the rubric of gender. Pomerance (sociology, Ryerson Polytechnic Univ., Toronto) has divided the book into three main areas: gender in non-American films, gender as coded through actions, and transgressive representations of gender that are held up as "paragons or pariahs." While the range of topics makes the volume difficult to pin down conceptually, the essays are, for academic work, quite readable. This collection is unusual enough to warrant a spot in most academic libraries with collections devoted to film studies or gender issues." (Library Journal, 05/01/2001, Vol. 126 Issue 8, p88)

Doreva Belfiore

Linguists such as Deborah Tannen and Robin Lakoff have sought to examine the conversational styles and practices between men and women in order to formulate theories of gender-specific discourse.  In my final paper, I plan to take the theories of such linguists and apply them specifically to Internet venues (chatrooms, discussion boards, and Yahoo groups) to highlight differences in male and female user communication strategies.  It is my theory that while online, female members employ more verbal deference mechanisms and more consistently defend the use of “netiquette” than male members of similar age and regional background in order to preserve group unity and cohesiveness while discouraging group divisiveness.  From the theoretical readings assigned in class, I plan to cite from Republic.com by Cass Sunstein, and possibly also the 2 articles by Henry Jenkins, in addition to the other bibliographic citations.

article reporting on study done about IM use by college students...focus on gender differences and speech patterns

Heterosexual anxiety and the idealization of 'the wife' are seen as central components of "Pulp fiction"; focuses on the near-constant scatalogical references in the film's dialogue and the fractured nature of the narrative itself as evidence of this.