Women-Focused Cyberculture and Internet Information

Last updated: January 20, 2011

welcome to Internet

Here are selected sites offering women-related information about the Internet and/or cyberculture (and see also the women-related science/technology sites page:

Babeloop: Femmes Cybersolidaires
(A Canadian Francophone women's web ring that includes a number of interesting sites. It provides the following description: "Le cercle Internet des femmes francophones déterminées à aller droites à la hauteur de leurs rêves dans la solidarité.")

BitWitch
(In an attempt to help women navigate the Internet, BitWitch offers to answer Internet-related questions. Previous questions and often humorous answers appear online.)

Blog This! An Introduction to Blogs, Blogging, and the Feminist Blogosphere
(This article by Vicki Tobias in the Winter-Spring 2005 issue of Feminist Collections explains what blogs are and looks at a variety of blogs by women, for women, and/or discussing women's issues.)

Blog Sisters
(Keeping a blog, or web log, has become a very popular online activity among both men and women, but for some reason men's blogs tend to receive more publicity. The Blog Sisters site brings together female bloggers, offers links to their blogs, selected bios, and humorous team blog.)

Brillo
(A savvy feminist 'zine offering much valuable info about women in and out of cyberspace.)

The Construction of Gender at UBC Computing Services
(Interesting essay by Diane Currie, who works at the computing department at the University of British Columbia. The essay's relevance extends far beyond UBC.)

CyberCulture, Identity, and Gender Resources
(Frank Schaap's site offers valuable resources concerning cyberculture, identity, and gender, including a bibliography of online articles, one of books and print articles, links to online journals, MUD and MOO resources, Schaap's M.A. thesis that deals with "how the players of MUDs 'perform' or 'enact' a convincingly gendered character," and more.)

Cyberjanes and Cyberjitters: Myths and Realities of Gender Differences and the Net
(A very interesting and well-documented review of literature about women's use of the Internet and gender differences in Internet use. Transcript of a talk by Women's Studies librarian Phyllis Holman Weisbard at the Wisconsin Association of Academic Librarians conference in April 2000.)

Development Gateway: Gender and Development
(The Development Gateway takes as its motto "Putting the Internet to Work for Developing Countries." The Gender and Development section of this large site provides information about women's use of the Internet, especially in the developing world. Sections include News, Events, and Resources, among others. Limited parts of the site are available in French and Spanish.)

Digital Divas
(Web site of a network of talented women who "make magic on the Internet." The site showcases their work and also offers extensive resources for others with similar interests: computer-related articles, tutorials, product reviews, "ask a diva" questions and answers, links to related sites, and more.)

Digital Opportunity Chanel
(The mission of the Digital Opportunity Chanel is "to educate a global audience on the use of information and communication technology (ICT) as a tool for promoting digital opportunity for all..." The site is a portal that highlights news and current trends in ICT for development, as well as issues such as the digital divide and the efforts to tackle it. The site also showcases best practices and provides shared spaces for interested practitioners to network with one another, collaborate on common projects, and campaign for common goals.

Eldis ICT for Development Resource Guide
(Eldis describes itself as a "gateway to information on development issues." The Resource Guide offers an extensive collection of high-quality reports, news, web sites, statistics, etc. concerning ICT [information and communication technologies] and development. One section deals with ICT and gender. Eldis is hosted by the Institute for Development Studies at the University of Sussex in England.)

Electronic Gender: Art at the Interstice
(This special issue of the electronic journal Switch has articles on gender ambiguity, grrl power, gender roles in computer games, women artists using technology, and several articles dealing with cyberfeminism.)

ENAWA: European and North American WomenAction
(ENAWA is "a network of media, ICT, information, and advocacy organizations strengthening and integrating a feminist analysis in the information and media landscape in relation to social movements" around the world. The ENAWA web site offers related news, publications, reports, searchable databases of web sites and information centers, a calendar of events, and more.)

Feminist Collections: A Quarterly of Women's Studies Resources
(Information about the latest print, audiovisual, and Internet resources for research and teaching in Women's Studies.)

Frag Dolls
(The Frag Dolls are a group of girl gamers whose site includes their individual blogs, a forum, and a calendar of events, including opportunities to play against one or more of the Frag Dolls in online games.)

Gender & Computing
(Norwegian academic Hilde Corneliussen originally created this blog [i.e., web log] to focus on her research on gender and computing. More recently, the focus has shifted to gender and ICTs in a historical perspective.)

Gender and Electronic Discourse
(Four hypertexts dealing with the effect of electronic discourse upon gender and/or the effect of gender theory upon electronic discourse, along with three indirect "responses." From Kairos: A Journal for Teachers of Writing in Webbed Environments)

Gender Harassment on the Internet
(Essay prepared in 1995 by Vicki Bell and Denise de La Rue, students at Georgia State University College of Law. Includes extensive documentation, online bibliography, and other sources and readings.)

Gender Identity Media Art
(Prof. Verena Kuni prepared this "online working sheet" to supplement her lectures and courses. It includes recommended readings and links for such topics as agency, body check, cyberfeminisms, the cyborg, mediated identities, next sex, technologies of gender, and trans/gender utopias.)

Gender in the Blogosphere
(Doctoral student Clancy Ratliff is writing her dissertation on women, gender, and blogging. She has put together this collection of links to discussions of gender in the blogosphere [i.e., women's participation, representation, etc. in web logs]. The collection is arranged chronologically, from early to late.)

Gender in the Internet Age
(The Winter 2000 issue of The CPSR Newsletter, edited by Ellen Spertus and Evelyn Pine, is devoted to exploring "how the Internet and other computing advances subvert or reinforce gender roles." The issue includes articles by Susan Herring, Lisa King, Virginia Eubanks, Elizabeth Buchanan, Alison Adam, Karen Coyle, Vanessa Davies, Tracy Camp, Dale Spender, and Ellen Spertus.)

Gender Issues in Cyberspace
(This is chapter 7 of Anita Colyer's Penn State thesis, "A Trip through Cyber Cinema Fandom: The Ethnography of CINEMA-L." The entire thesis is available online.)

Gender-Related Electronic Forums: Internet Info
(Annotated, frequently-updated listing of women- and gender-related email discussion forums focusing on Internet information/culture.)

GenTech
("An applied research project whose mandate is to create conditions within which girls and women have maximum access to, and confidence in, a wide range of new information." Includes useful articles and related links.)

Girl Game Advance
(Girl Game Advance describes itself as "a weblog and online journal that brings alternative perspectives to videogame culture. We want to analyze various aspects of gaming but also we want to put it into context, into the larger arena of modern pop culture." The editor in chief, Jane Pinckard, is especially interested in "how gender considerations impact the culture of gaming.")

"Girls Need Modems!": Cyberculture and Women's EZines
(Krista Scott's Master's Research Paper, submitted at York University in 1998. The paper outlines some of the theoretical ways in which cyberspace and gender intersect and applies these to the study of women's ezines.)

GuerrillaGirlsBroadBand
(According to the web site, GuerrillaGirlsBroadBand [GGBB] was "formed in 1999 to tackle the primordial discrimination of our technological world. Our mission is to combat sexism, racism and social injustice in the art world and beyond through electronic and other means." The GGBB web site offers good links to cyberfeminist and other relevant sites; bios of some notable women; posters; activist streaming video; letters to send anonymously to a politically clueless boss; a "participatory exploration of fashion and feminism," and more. The web site claims that GGBB is one of Guerrilla Girls' three wings. One of the other wings--GuerrillaGirls On Tour--makes a supporting statement, but the third--GuerrillaGirls--disavows any affiliation with the others. All three sites offer useful resources.)

Guilded Lilies: Grown Women Playing Games
(Guilded Lilies is a blog "designed to explore the unique experience of being a grown woman playing computer games.")

Information and Communication Technologies and Gender Seminar Series
(This series, affiliated with the World Bank, looks at the impact that information and communication technologies (ICT) are having on gender relations and innovative ways that ICTs are being used to overcome gender inequalities. The site offers presentation materials from the seminars, including links to video recordings.)

Internet Use by Women
(Links to several sites that provide reports and data about women's use of the Internet, including some that focus on information of use to business/marketing interests.)

Isis International - Manila
(Isis International is a feminist NGO [non-governmental organization] dedicated to women's information and communication needs. The Manila-based branch focuses on issues advancing women's rights, leadership, and empowerment in Asia and the Pacific. The site provides reports, news and announcements, information about online and offline resources, and links to relevant sites. It is also the home of the online publication Women in Action.)

Know How Conference on the World of Women's Information
(International project and conference to "improve the accessibility and visibility of women's information services throughout the world." Site available in English, French, and Spanish.)

LiveWire: Computer Confidence for Women
(A series of approximately 20 enjoyable, well-written columns by Rachel Adelson that explore "the ways that women can become confident and self-sufficient" in dealing with computers.)

Mapping the World of Women's Information Services
(A searchable database of women's information services available throughout the world. The aim of the Mapping the World project is to increase the visibility of women's information services and to facilitate access to gender-specific information among women, women's organizations, policy makers, and general information services.)

Netwoman
(Tracy Kennedy, a graduate student in Sociology at the University of Toronto, has created this exceptionally interesting blog (i.e., web log) focusing on gender, technology, and the Internet. In addition to news and views about these topics, it includes an archive, links to other blogs, links to other relevant sites, and a link to Kennedy's homepage.)

New Game Plus
(This interesting blog by Ariel Wetzel, a college undergraduate, focuses primarily but by no means exclusively on women and video games.)

Old Boys Network
(The Old Boys Network describes itself as "the First International Cyberfeminist Organisation." The web site offers work by Faith Wilding, Helene von Oldenburg, and others attempting to explain what cyberfeminism is and is not, as well as links to related sites.)

Sexuality and Cyberspace
(Issue #17 of the journal Women and Performance is devoted to the topic "Sexuality and Cyberspace." Full-text essays are available online and are organized into the following categories: Towards a Prosthetic Feminism, Closets in the Matrix, Bodies that Materialize, When the Digital is Political, and Resources.)

She's Such a Geek!: Women Write About Science, Technology, and Other Nerdy Stuff
(Blog by the editors and some of the contributors to the 2006 book of the same title. The website's name provides a pretty good indication of the blog's focus and lighthearted tone. Also included are links to the websites of many of the book's 20+ contributors.)

Shiny Shiny
(Describing itself as "a girl's guide to gadgets," London-based Shiny Shiny aims to appeal to women and girls who find most geek sites oriented overwhelmingly toward males. Categories include accessories, cameras, celeb gadgets, gadgets, games, grooming, music on the move, phones, product reviews, soft 'ahem' furnishings, telly stuff, and things to do online.)

Studio XX
(A bilingual [French/English] Canadian site focusing on media arts and on demystifying women's experience of digital technologies. Includes art exhibits, activist projects, workshops, and an annotated list of related resources.)

Techno Dyke
("The gathering place for the web savvy dyke," Techno Dyke offers forums, dating ads, and info about music, books, etc. What makes it stand out from many other dyke sites are the columns and features about technology, reflecting the welcome assumption that women are interested in and savvy about technology.)

Tracking Life Online: How Women Use the Internet to Cultivate Relationships
(A report issued in May 2000 as part of the Pew Foundation's "Internet and American Life" project. The sections include "How Email is Changing Women's Lives," "How Email Improves Internet Users' Social World," "Daily Life on the Web," and "Who Does What Online?")

Violence Against Women on the Internet
(A 6-week lecture and discussion session sponsored in 2002 by the Beekman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard Law School. Though the discussions are over, many of the resources are still available online. The session was organized into five modules: Campus Sexual Assault Policies; Pornography; Sex Trafficking; The Internet as a Site of Resistance; and Safety.)

Virtue and Virtuality: Gender, Law, and Cyberspace
(Proceedings of a conference held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in April 1996. The site includes participant bios and abstracts and, in many cases, full text of the presentation.)

WHOA: Working to Halt Online Abuse
(Formerly called Women Halting Online Abuse, this site provides information about the WHOA e-mail list, safe sites, resources for site administrators, and strategies individuals can use to combat online abuse.)

Wired Woman
(An ezine that "explores how technology affects women's lives--from our day-to-day challenges to the ways we interpret art, culture, and society.")

Wise-Women
(An international community and network dedicated to supporting women who work as, or aspire to become, web designers, developers, and programmers. The site includes many helpful features and tutorials about web design and more general use of computers, along with surveys, gender-related articles, and information about several affiliated email lists.)

Women and Girls Last: Females and the Internet
(Janet Morahan-Martin's 1998 paper about the often problematic climate for women on the Internet. Includes reference to research about women and computing.)

Women and the Internet
(Subtitled "An Exploratory Study of Feminist Experiences in Cyberspace," this honours B.A. thesis by Tracy L. M. Kennedy deals with the experiences of women who maintain websites on the Internet. It includes online interviews with 17 women who describe their encounters with other Internet users, encounters that shape their experience of cyberspace.)

Women and Language
(A vast collection of links dealing not just with language and linguistics but also with "women and the web," "women and Internet language," computer-mediated communications scholarship, and more.)

WomenConnect
(A UK-based organization whose motto is "using and shaping the Internet together," WomenConnect aims to build an electronic network of women's organizations and resource contacts throughout England. The site offers information about relevant events, resources, links, etc.)

Women in Computer Science: Two Studies on the Effects of Stereotypes
(An undergraduate honors thesis by Maria Enderton of Macalester College. It deals with issues relating to the systematic under-representation of women in computer science, offering both a review of research and studies designed to further our understanding of the issues. One of the studies collects and analyzes female computer scientists' experiences with and views about the effects of gender stereotypes for women in computer science.)

Women in Computing Professions: Will the Internet Make a Difference?
(This Adobe Acrobat file includes position papers by sixteen scholars from around the world. The papers were prepared for an Oxford Internet Institute Forum held in 2004.)

Women in Cyberspace
(This paper by Professor Ellen Moody "look[s] at the general experience of women trying to build lives and identities, and communicate with one another in cyberspace," and considers as well the obstacles to women's using cyberspace effectively and what can be done to make the online experience more appealing and hospitable for women. The paper, which was presented at a conference in 2006, includes extensive documentation.)

Women in Games
(Issue 17 [November 2005] of The Escapist is devoted to women in games and gaming. Several articles and interviews.)

Women in Information Technology
("An annotated list of sites about and for women in the fields of library & information science, information technology, and computer science." A combination of blog/news and excellent, annotated links organized in several sections: Readings; Cool Links; Education, Events; In the News; Organizations; Working. An earlier version was called Web-sters' Net-Work. Unfortunately, the site does not seem to have been updated since 2006.)

Women in Podcasting Directory
(The website's name says it all. A directory of women who have podcasts. The site also provides the opportunity for women to add their podcasts. If you're not sure what a podcast is, check the Wikipedia definition.)

Women in Podcasting: The List
(Amy Gahran has compiled and updated an annotated list of women who host or co-host a podcast. A podcast is online audio content that's delivered via webfeed. She explains all this in more detail on her site [actually, part of her blog]. She also makes an argument for why more women should become involved in podcasting.)

Women in Technology & Culture: Researchers, Designers, and Artists Working in Pervasive Computing-Related Fields
(Anne Galloway has compiled this listing, which includes name, institutional affiliation, research interests, country, and a link to each person's web site.)

Women Internet Researchers
(Nicola Döring has created this very useful annotated listing of "women who think and write about the Internet and its social implications, mostly from an academic view." The listing includes women from many countries, describes their interests, and provides links to their personal home pages whenever possible.)

Women in the New Economy: Insights and Realities
(Results of a survey conducted in 2000 of 265 women working in "new economy" companies. Among the issues covered are the upside and downside of working the in new economy, how women are treated, the effect on women's personal lives, the strategies women use, women's wishes for how their companies operated, the factors that keep women in their companies, and more.)

Women: Lost in Cyberspace?
(Essay by Kenyon College professor Laurie Finke calling attention to the loss of human agency in most accounts of the benefits of information technology and urging more attention both to feminist pedagogy and to information technology's impact on women.)

Women's Information Technology Transfer (WITT)
(This site has been established as a portal to link women's organizations and feminist advocates for the Internet in Eastern and Central Europe. It supports Eastern and Central European women in developing the web as an instrument of social activism. The website proclaims WITT's commitment to "bringing women's actions, activities, and struggles into the spotlight" and "promoting the use of free software as a way to highlight women's voices.")

Women's Relationship with the Web
(Jennifer Brayton's site includes two bibliographies ["Women and the Internet" and "Gender and Technology"], an essay, book and film reviews, and links.)

Women's Space Work
(Yvonne P. Doderer's site, based in Germany, provides annotated links to resources concerning cyberfeminism as theory and activism, political networking, feminist and lesbian activism, art on the net, and much more, including many outside the U.S. Doderer also offers a thoughtful essay entitled "Women's Space Work" that provides a feminist perspective on technological possibilities. The essay is available in both German and English.)

WWWomen
(Extensive links to women's resources, including a search engine)


Go back to complete list of women-related WWW sites


Copyright 1994-2011 by Joan Korenman.

Please send all additions and corrections to: Joan Korenman .   However, please do not ask me to suggest web sites or other resources, and do not ask me to link to sites that are not rich in academic women-related resources. I unfortunately do not have time to respond to such requests. Many thanks.