Digc101 Reflection Essay

Hegemonic Masculinity and Sexism Online Since the inception of the modern day Internet, we have seen a drastic change in the way we exist. The ways in which we contact one another, entertain ourselves and live out our day to day lives have been dramatically altered by this new medium of communication. Having said this however, certain prejudices and cultural stances have been carried over into this virtual world, perpetuating their legitimacy. Hegemonic Masculinity is defined by Connell as being a “configuration of practice, structured by gender relations”, that is, hegemonic masculinity is a culturally relative label. Connell explains that hegemonic masculinity is the label we give to the current dominant gender role; white, western, upper-middle-class male. Other, non-hegemonic masculinities can be seen as marginalized or subordinate (Ashe 2007, p145). It is important to note that a hegemonic masculinity based society values emphasized femininity, that is, women who are pleasantly submissive to men and complicit in their own subordination (Hughes 2002 p126). Despite the anonymity, the Internet, Web 2.0 and New Media technologies in general, manage to perpetuate these cultural norms through a variety of forms. Internet forums, social networking services, user-generated content based websites, such as YouTube and Reddit, and online gaming communications can all be seen as avenues where hegemonic masculinity is produced and reproduced. Naturally, the problems with hegemonic masculinity online are comparable to those in the real world, with the major issue being the degradation and lower social level of those not in the dominant position. The most obvious victim of hegemonic masculinity is of course, women. What must be said, first and foremost, is that whilst gender anonymity as an online choice is possible, it is not always employed and can often be easily discerned from the truth (Berman & Bruckman 2001). Furthermore, New Media writer danah boyd believes that gender roles do not play out differently online; “we primarily reproduce our embodied identity in the digital world” (O’ReillyNet 2007) With this being the case, the numerous problems hegemonic masculinity creates in the ‘real’ world are going to exist in the ‘virtual’ world too. However, there are several allowances for misogyny and sexism online that are simply not present in an offline interaction. Despite mentioning above how gender anonymity is easily discernable, this does not mean that Internet anonymity does not grant the anonymous user certain liberties. Kathy Sierra is a writer, programmer and game developer who also is an avid blogger and Twitter user. In 2007, she was subject to a tirade of hate filled, sexist comments and diatribes on her blog and her private data, such as social security number and telephones number, were being posted on numerous blogs and forums. Whilst trolling on forums and blogs is hardly new or indeed localised to one gender, the manner in which Kathy Sierra was threatened with death, rape and combinations thereof, was a sign that Internet anonymity and the accompanying democratisation of discussion are not without their drawbacks (Valenti 2007). This is not an isolated incident either, feminist blogger ‘Alison’ on skirt!.com raises several examples and speaks of her own experiences in sexist discussions online. Jill Filipovic, another feminist blogger who has suffered sexist attacks online, raises a very valid point in regards to trolling and gender. She says that “the harassment of women is far more sexualised - men may be told that they're idiots, but they aren't called 'whores'” (Valenti 2007). It could be argued that anonymity online simply creates an environment where people are not afraid to say what is on their mind; free from the judging eyes of society, they need not double check their views for political correctness. If this is the case, are

there more sexist, bigoted misogynists amongst our society than we care to admit? If this is true, what are the implications this has? If this is false, is the Internet creating an even darker aspect of hegemonic masculinity, where this kind of speech is encouraged? Postgraduate student Alice Marwick thinks this may be the case; “There's the disturbing possibility that people are creating online environments purely to express the type of racist, homophobic, or sexist speech that is no longer acceptable in public society, at work, or even at home” (Valenti 2009) These popularly cited examples often appear in mainstream media, often asking readers what they think of sexism on the Internet, yet as an avid user of Internet myself, I believe these attacks are not the main problem. These attacks, insulting and offensive as they may be, are looked down upon by most every facet of the media and these people would not be held in high regard should their identities ever be found out. I feel a larger problem is the implicit hegemonic masculinity and emphasised femininity associated with modern web2.0 sites and forums. To be more specific, I am deeply concerned with the attitudes these largely male dominated sites take towards women as members and produsers. Through primary research, I do not see the men acting vengeful or malicious towards the women, rather, I see the men as acting faux-jokingly hegemonically masculine, towards the women and proudly hegemonically masculine to the idea of women. Examples of this are easily found on the comment pages on social bookmarking site Reddit.com. Reddit is a community website where users post links and can then ‘up-vote’ or ‘down-vote’ links, with the more popular pages appearing at the top of the list. Commenting is also possible for members. One of the more popular discussion threads was born on the 7th of August 2009, when a user named tiffmck claimed to be an attractive, 18-year-old girl with over 100 sexual partners and counting. Comments like “Stupid whores! Fuck yeah!” and “that is SO unbelievably fucking hot” were rife, and being up-voted often. The problem with this, whether or not tiffmck is actually a promiscuous 18 year old girl or not, is that these comments’ popularity perpetuates the idea that they are not offensive. Redditor tffmck, if she is indeed female, is the ultimate result of Simone de Bouvier’s fears of women being complicit with their own subordination, (Chaner 2007, p10). Furthermore, Reddit offers several ‘Sub-Reddits’ that act like different boards on a forum. Sub-Reddits such as NSFW, JailBait, Sex, Sexy and particular Women of Color all help to popularise and normalise the notion of hegemonic masculinity in the online sphere. These are all tagged as being for 18-years-and-over visitors to the site, but it is the ‘Women of Color’ SubReddit that is of particular concern for me. Despite only having 715 active members, the Sub-Reddit exclusively posts sexual pictures of women who do not fit into the hegemonic discourse of emphasised, white femininity for any number of Reddit visitors to view. Not that I am one who believes that free speech should be controlled, the issue here, I feel, is education. Those who perpetuate this do so, largely, without Internet anonymity, showing that they either do not realise they are lowering the female gender, or they do not mind that they are doing so. Still, this raises the same questions as the academic research; are these products of the Internet? Or, is just the private becoming public, as Travis Holland (2009) says? Despite these obvious, and perhaps obviously offensive, examples of hegemonic masculinity, they are not the only ones at play. Personally, I am guilty of perpetuating this hegemonic attitude, even if only in passing. This is discussed at greater length in this 26/8/2009 blog post. In regards to my fictional New Media persona of Stace Kingford the

ex-retired Bush Poet, the comparisons are more difficult. Since I created the fictional persona as a means of parodying a time of yore, the few posts he ‘authored’ have been in that voice. Take these two tweets, for example. Here, I’ve implied that Stace does not care for the skinny, non –bush familiar men and suggested that his wife washes his clothes exclusively. These are both decidedly hegemonic statements, yet does the fact that I’ve said them in jest make them OK? I, like Randall Munroe of xkcd, deride many Internet users (and produsers) for similar faux-joking, ironic statements. There is, of course, no answer for this question, and it should largely be without concern, owing the small number of people who will actually read these statements. Nevertheless, I am definitely guilty of perpetrating what I hate. Stace Kingford’s comment in regards to a skinny man not understanding the bush, whilst deriving from my own experiences ‘out west’, promotes thought on the other notions of masculinity in New Media. It is no secret how blatantly masculine games such as Fallout and Halo, and their accompanying online communities, are. As someone who can be, and has been, labelled a ‘nerd’ for their enjoyment of video games, I am secretly resentful of the jocks who are socially allowed to revel in Halo. In other words, I am feeling the brunt of hegemonic masculinity myself, albeit in a very minor way. This role reversal relates to the much older than the modern day Internet arguments regarding masculinity and the different roles men construct in different social situations (Messerschmidt 1993). For example, a male who is neither a ‘nerd’ nor a ‘jock’ would relate to his football playing friends much differently to the way he would relate online to his online gaming friends. Whilst this does step beyond the boundary of online hegemonic masculinity, it is still most definitely an interesting point worth thinking about when discussions such an issue. Connell’s idea of Hegemonic Masculinity being a configuration of practice, rather than a static definition, allows the theory to be applied to a variety of situations and times. As the Internet, web2.0 and so-called new media technologies in general are at the forefront of many of discussions; it is little wonder then, that the hegemonic masculinity theory has been placed over so many of these discussions involving gender politics. The problem, of course, is that hegemonic masculinity has been a prevalent issue in the real world since it was defined (and, according to Connell, much before). Naturally, this makes the notion of ‘solving’ the problem online seem a nigh-impossible task. Nevertheless, reflecting on my own hegemonic traits online, I will attempt to not perpetuate the stereotype, but it raises problems. I prefer black and I prefer more masculine music, so perhaps in small isolated instances, hegemony online is simply a reflection of it in the non-virtual world.

Sources Cited Ashe, F 2007, The New Politics of Masculinity, Routledge, England Berman, Joshua and Bruckman, Amy 2001, ‘The Turing Game’, Convergence, vol.7, no.3, pp83-102, http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~asb/papers/convergence-tg-01.pdf Chanter, T 2007, Gender, Contiuum, London Holland, Travid 2009, Week 5 Blog, tumblr.com, accessed 25/8/2009, http://tah727.tumblr.com/post/171762829/digc101-week-5-blog

Hughes, C 2002, Women’s Contemporary Lives, Routledge, England Messerschmidt, JW 1993, Masculinities and Crime: Critique and Reconceptualisation of Theory, Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham Maryland O’ReillyNet 2007, Interview with danah boyd, by danah boyd and Tatiana Apandi, accessed 24/8/2009, http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/womenintech/2007/09/07/interview-with-danahboyd.html Parsons, Chad 2007, ‘The Halo Effect: Hegemonic Masculinity in Online Gaming’, Paper presented at The Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, New York, New York City, Aug 11, 2007, http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/8/3/8/6/p183869_inde x.html Valenti, Jessica 2007, How The Web Became a Sexists’ Paradise, Guardian.co.uk, accessed 24/8/2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/06/gender.blogging Valenti, Jessica 2009, The End of Anonymous Trolling?, Feministing.com, accessed 25/8/2009, http://www.feministing.com/archives/017322.html