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Staging gender online: gender plays in Swiss internet relay chats

UNIVERSITY OF BERN, SWITZERLAND, daniel.rellstab{at}germ.unibe.ch

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.

Key Words: conversation analysis • cyber-communities • deconstruction of gender • doing gender • internet relay chat

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Discourse & Society, Vol. 18, No. 6, 765-787 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0957926507082195


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This Article Abstract Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Rellstab, D. H. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?