Gendered Identities Online

This entry offers an overview of those studies that have focused on the relationship between identity and gender, connecting gender to the issue of digital media in order to understand the current challenges of a gendered identity in an online environment. Against this background, the entry discusses the multifaceted perspectives of gender and feminist studies on the relationship between identity and technologies. Second, it explores that line of thought that has approached the internet as a space of experimentation for gender and identities by looking specifically at how gender performances may have changed, from the dichotomy between virtual and real to that between online and offline spaces, and by paying particular attention to the aspects of gender swapping, anonymity, and visuality. It explores the relationship between embodiment and disembodiment in the online experience by looking at materiality, sexuality, and experimentation. Finally, it looks at social media and mobile digital technologies in order to examine some of the major issues surrounding identity, gender, and online experiences in the present day, such as security and privacy, or the tension between sexual control and freedom of gender expression