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It's not just for the
boys, you know...
(This one's from the 1996 archives...)
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Five years ago, the net only existed for me
as a science fiction vision which was very
slowly coming together as Groupware and
CSCW.... I'd read the books about groupware,
even worked as an editorial researcher on one
of them, but I was still attached to the view
of a computer mainly as a means of producing
print for communication and maintaining elaborate
databases, rather than combining the two focuses
into a single communicating tool.
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Returning to university as a mature student
in a women's college changed all that. I was
given an email account, and there were a couple
of aged terminals dedicated to quiet Telnet-ing
or Gophering in the computer room, with a notice
on the wall indicating that preference would
be given on these computers to those working
, rather than emailing. This didn't immediately
convince me that we had leapt into a new Communication
Age! However, as soon as Netscape became available
on the Macintoshes, there was a noticeable increase
in the amount of people who could be found 'researching'
via the Web. Since then, creativity can often
be seen, particularly at 3am, when the dedicated
Mac users can be found changing their backgrounds,
stealing the odd .gif or three, or cursing the
[male] computer officers for their failure to
fix the rodents on the machines where they have
our own personal favourite sites bookmarked!
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My own personal road to Damascus came in two
parts. First, there was The Joy of Email. Friends
who graduated before me were going to jobs where
having an email account was as normal and everyday
as it was at university. My girlfriend moved
to Edinburgh, and "email to be used for academic
purposes only" took on a whole new meaning!
The second revelation came with the ability
to search for Websites with gay and lesbian
resources under the guise of 'research'. This
only hit me a year later when I was frantically
searching for a viable dissertation topic.
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I would have been quite happy to have spent
a year on sheer content analysis of every bisexual/lesbian
resource on the whole of the Web, had there
not been a need to narrow down the topic to
10,000 words. Searching for media images of
lesbians supposedly gave a greater focus to
what I was doing, but I'm sure many other women
have tales of how they decided to "Just look
at x" and five hours later their rumbling stomach
reminded them that woman cannot live by digital
input alone... Small gems from this research
were the articles I found: try Cathy
Grigger's "Lesbian Bodies In The Age Of (Post)Mechanical
Reproduction" Or for soothing female images,
sexuality unknown, Pre-Raphaelites
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Way back in 1977, I wrote in Gay News about
how lucky those who defined ourselves as gay
were compared to heterosexuals. When we moved
through our jobs, we immediately consulted the
centre pages of Gay News to see where the local
gay groups and venues were. Community existed
in the provinces through the small GLF or CHE
groups, supplementing Heaven and Gateways in
the capital. Now, with the development of the
Internet, there is a similar sense of digital
community growing within those who accessed
the gay & lesbian pages, and found their
way to the lists such as UK-motss and UK-poofs.
Despite occasional flame wars, a growing global
digital gay community is being established.
Lesbian participation may be smaller numerically,
but it is rapidly catching up with the gay males.
There is, if anything, a greater diversity in
the membership of the women's groups, because
they are less likely to fragment into specific
interest areas.
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This is not to say that community itself is
restricted to sifting through dozens of emails
each day from people whose faces you'll never
know. Any Netsearch under "lesbian" will, once
you have got past such horrors as 'Hot Sleazy
Pictures'[no, I'm not including a link to this
site], eventually bring you to the homepages
of lesbians who have dedicated themselves to
the task of linking with all the useful resources
out there. Probably the best place to start
for anyone new to this journey is Dykes'
World : the page itself opens up into an
exploration of the best sites for lesbian and
bisexual women. Although this site is professional
enough to frighten those still struggling to
change the background colour of their home page,
the sense of identity which looking at other
women's web pages gives is important. This has
been fostered by several companies who are offering
free web pages, which is giving us all the opportunity
to be creative not only with our identity, but
with the image we project to the world.
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Why should this be important to us as women?
Probably because the first search for "lesbian"
on the net will still turn up pornography aimed
at heterosexual males. When you're isolated
geographically from any other lesbian and bisexual
women, this sight of what the web holds in the
way of lesbian images doesn't necessarily automatically
lead to a positive self-image. Reassure yourself...
they are merely extensions of the Page 3 mentality
which is unfortunately alive and well, and transferring
its virtual
tabloid self merrily onto the Web.
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The Visible Lesbian , Alison
Hennegan's Gay
New's literary pages were once the only
public face of lesbianism in the UK... we've
gone through Arena Three, Sappho, and occasionally
appeared in Spare Rib... all have passed away.
We revel in glorious colour in Diva... but these
media have always been flat, with the sense
that they are laid on us rather than creating
them ourselves always predominating. For me,
the importance of the Web is the opportunity
to create our own form of visibility. For now
this might be the free pages given on sites
such as Geocities, or the chance for other lesbians
to write for online magazines. But it's also
participating openly as lesbians in the meeting
places on the Web where women who are not necessarily
all or even predominantly lesbian/bisexual gather,
but who have a stated policy for acceptance
of all sexualities and an intolerance for bigotry,
such as the Star Trek Women's Terrorist Task
Force.
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Lesbian and bisexual women have an important
part to play in encouraging this ethical stance
throughout the web, giving more opportunities
for facilitating diversity in secure, non-hostile
environments...as well as at a local level,
campaigning for more access to the Web for other
women who are at present excluded. This is an
important issue for all women, and crosses all
the boundaries of sexualities. Whether you're
out or not, you could be campaigning for public
libraries to allow free internet access, or
supporting projects such as Anne Campbell MP's
Cambridge On Line City. The only way we can
be certain that it's not just for the boys is
to stop lurking on the edges, and get out there
and participate!
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© 1996 Franni Vincent
Originally commissioned
by Andi Hinkinson,a former editor of QVision,
an online gay magazine (now deceased)...
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