Skip to main content
Log in

What is cyberwoman?: The Second Sex in cyberspace

  • Published:
Ethics and Information Technology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In this paper I wish to show that, although traditional notions of genderand sex break down in cyberspace, a revised Beauvoirian understanding ofsexual secondariness is applicable and useful in coming to terms with thepossible ethical and philosophical ramifications of this relatively newcommunication medium. To this end, I argue that persons who enter intocommunication in online chat rooms necessarily deny the bodily aspectsof their own identity. In so doing, these persons make themselvesinessential, or secondary, in Beauvior's sense. For Beauvoir, this isa denial of one's own freedom, and thus commmunication in cyberspacebecomes an instance of self-oppression. Yet, if self-oppression canbe avoided, the self-oppressor is morally responsible for her or hisown oppression. Ultimately, I argue, cyberspatial communication is aninstance of such self-oppression.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Anne Balsamo. The Virtual Body in Cyberspace. In Joan Rothschild and Frederick Ferré, editors, Research in Philosophy & Technology, vol. 13, Technology and Feminism, pp. 119-39. JAI Press, 1993.

  • Simone de Beauvoir. Le deuxieme sexe. 2 vols. Gallimard, 1949.

  • Simone de Beauvoir. The Ethics of Ambiguity. Bernard Frechtman, translator. Citadel Press, 1997.

  • Simone de Beauvoir. Pour une morale de l'ambiguité, suivi de Pyrrhus et Cinéas. Gallimard, 1966.

  • Simone de Beauvoir. The Second Sex. H.M. Parshley, translator. Knopf, 1993.

  • Judith Butler. Sex and Gender in Simone de Beauvoir's Second Sex. In Elizabeth Fallaize, editor, Simone de Beauvoir: A Critical Reader, pp. 29-42. Routledge, 1998.

  • Kevin Crowston and Ericka Kammerer. Communicative Style and Gender Differences in Computer-Mediated Communications. In Bosah Ebo, editor, Cyberghetto or Cybertopia?: Race, Class, and Gender on the Internet, pp. 185-203. Praeger, 1998.

  • Karen Green. Sartre and de Beauvoir on Freedom and Oppression. In Julien S. Murphy, editor, Feminist Interpretations of Jean-Paul Sartre, pp. 175-99. The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999.

  • Gilbert Herdt, editor. Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History. Zone Books, 1994.

  • Michele Hunkele and Karen Cornwell. The Cyberspace Curtain: Hidden Gender Issues. In Susan J. Drucker and Gary Gumpert, editors, Voices in the Street: Explorations in Gender, Media, and Public Space, pp. 281-93. Hampton Press, 1997.

  • Sonia Kruks. Simone de Beauvoir: Teaching Sartre About Freedom. In Margaret A. Simons, editor, Feminist Interpretations of Simone de Beauvoir, pp. 79-95. The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995.

  • Catriona Mackenzie. A Certain Lack of Symmetry: Beauvoir on Autonomous Agency and Women's Embodiment. In Ruth Evans, editor, Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex: New Interdisciplinary Essays, pp. 122-58. Manchester University Press, 1998.

  • Vivian Sobchak. Democratic Franchise and the Electronic Frontier. In Ziauddin Sardar and Jerome R. Ravetz, editors, Cyberfutures: Culture and Politics on the Information Superhighway, pp. 77-89. New York University Press, 1996.

  • Sherry Turkle. Tinysex and Gender Trouble. In Patrick D. Hopkins, editor, Sex/Machine: Readings in Culture, Gender, and Technology, pp. 395-416. Indiana University Press, 1998.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Westfall, J. What is cyberwoman?: The Second Sex in cyberspace. Ethics and Information Technology 2, 159–166 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1010053521802

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1010053521802

Navigation