Session 6: Identity II: Constructing Community
Chair: Dena Hurst

Women on the Web: Towards a Cyberpsychology of Gender, Identity and Space in the Academic Workplace - a Feminist Review
Jill Arnold
Nottingham Trent University, UK

“Narratives of the self…serve as critical means by which we make ourselves intelligible within the social world.” (Gergen & Gergen 1998).
“…most homepages are part of communicative and cultural processes.” (Karlsson 1998)
Cultural life is now inextricably enmeshed with technology and there has been obvious need to understand how people - including those who work in academia - are conceptualising and intervening in the emerging cyberculture of our working lives. In previous papers based on our own studies and taking a critical approach in terms of Goffman’s presentation of self and recent social constructionist perspectives (Miller 1995, Arnold & Miller 1999; Miller &Arnold 2000; Arnold 2001; Arnold & Miller 2002) we discussed how though the Web provides sites for academics to present themselves and share information, we found that women academics still faced the usual ‘gender trouble’ of establishing a credible and authentic identity. In this paper we take a critical and feminist approach to review some of the wider issues for women trying to create a multi-layered and multi-functional identity, together with some ideas about the changing scene as younger and less ‘franchised’ academics find their way round the web. In the shifting ideological, rhetorical and social structures of the academic workplace, we argue that while the web has allowed some changes in distributed power (new spaces of ‘our own’?), for women academics their narratives and constructions remain vulnerable to the need to present an acceptable, professional identity and ambivalent about their visual representations. Issues remain therefore about the public and private divide for the gendered body - both sides of the screen.

The Socializing Dimension of the Virtual Sphere in Founding a Lesbian Community
Yael Rozin
Bar-Ilan University, Israel

Socialization makes us “real women”; feminine, wives, great moms, always secondary to men. No one is brought up to be a lesbian.
This paper will explore the socializing dimension of the virtual sphere in founding a Lesbian community. It will focus on the influence of lesbian women’s virtual forums upon the creation of a narrative of ‘lesbian community,’ and on creating an alternative sphere in which co-cultural women can participate, and be part of a collective.
What kind of community is formed based on virtual interactions? Are virtual relationships a substitute for real life community? What is the degree of influence, if any, of the virtual discussion group on the individual’s real world?
All the above questions will be explored through feminist theory and Lesbian feminism, which is one of feminism’s most challenging branches that offer a unique aspect of re-integration. Nowhere is this aspect more vital than on the net.

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The Body becomes Paramount: Pro-Ana Groups in Cyberspace
Irene Dunn
University of Sydney, Australia

Peer groups have been established as important sites for identity development during adolescence. A large body of literature exists which outlines the importance of peer groups for: comparisons between individuals, self-evaluation, competitiveness, and in particular, determining group ideals about femininity. However, common to all peer groups in schools is the simultaneous physical presence of members.

This paper asserts that some aspects of the Internet should also be viewed as peer groups that provide unique opportunities for identity development during adolescence in a non-corporeal setting that is unbounded by geography. For example, pro-anorexia or 'pro-ana' sites, whilst lacking physicality must be regarded as peer groups because they are places where, through dialogue, competitiveness is present, advice is offered, ideals of femininity are established, colloquial language is used and, conflict sometimes exists. Therefore, broadening of the term peer group is needed in recognition of the existence of peer groups in cyberspace.

Through focusing on pro-ana web sites as peer groups, consideration is given to the role of cyberspace in facilitating the development of an anorexic identity in domains that are supportive of non-recovery, and seek to legitimise anorexia. This 'support' is often in contrast to the support offered by family and friends.

Exploration of pro-ana sites provides opportunities for comparing pro-ana peer groups with adolescent peer groups in school settings. This paper raises some of the difficulties associated with pro-ana peer groups in cyberspace. For example, how do peer groups function in cyberspace when peers have no physical presence, how have peer groups in cyberspace adapted to this new medium?

Of particular interest are the opportunities for identity performance that are available in cyberspace. Strangely, in pro-ana sites a body-less world results in a complete focus upon the body. In cyberspace people can escape their own body, even pretend to have a perfect body, yet in pro-ana sites, this offer is not taken up, in the absence of the body, the body becomes paramount. Even in the ether of cyberspace, the anorexic cannot, or chooses not to escape their body.