Finding a place in cyberspace: Black women, technology, and identity

MM Wright - Frontiers: A journal of women studies, 2005 - JSTOR
Frontiers: A journal of women studies, 2005JSTOR
Race and gender take on a number of different forms when they intersect w technology,
although most of those permutations resemble their" real time" counterparts, where atavistic
attitudes and practices exist alongside progressive views and activities. This paper engages
the topic through three differe venues: the current discourse on race and technology (the
digital divide), the experiences of black women who work in technology, and the figuration
race and gender on the Web. The overarching question that links these three different …
Race and gender take on a number of different forms when they intersect w technology, although most of those permutations resemble their" real time" counterparts, where atavistic attitudes and practices exist alongside progressive views and activities. This paper engages the topic through three differe venues: the current discourse on race and technology (the digital divide), the experiences of black women who work in technology, and the figuration race and gender on the Web. The overarching question that links these three different sections is whether black women can find a" room of their own," it were, in cyberspace.
As Lisa Nakamura argues in Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on t Internet, the myth of cyberspace as a" raceless, genderless, and sexuality-fr space is one that thrives in a variety of chat room and other on-line forums Nakamura argues that" race is constructed as a matter of aesthetics, or find the color that you like, rather than as a matter of ethnic identity or shared c tural referents. The fantasy of skin color divorced from politics, oppression racism seems to also celebrate it as infinitely changeable, customizable; as en tirely elective as well as political"(53).'All of these identities, of course, exi in and are constantly reconstructed through language, a medium that, even the age of Java, still rules as the central means of signification on the Web. I deed, the success of one's Web site, career, or product can often rest almost e tirely on words-that is, whether they possess that magic combination th will earn them a spot in the top ten of a Google search. It also goes without sa ing that the language used in cyberspace operates in much the same way it do in the" real world." In a previous article," Racism and Technology," I argu that our discourse on technology bears little resemblance to the reality. In t Western imagination, technology is the exclusive provenance of the West
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