Dale Spender (b. 1943) is a feminist scholar, writer, teacher, and consultant from Australia. She is a co-founder of the database WIKED (Women’s Internationl Knowledge Encyclopedia and Data) and the founding editor of the Athene Series and Pandora Press, commissioning editor of the Penguin Australian Women’s Library, and associate editor of the Great Women Series (United Kingdom). Her many books include Man Made Language (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980), For the Record: The Making and Meaning of Feminist Knowledge (Women’s Press, 1985), and Writing a New World: Two Centuries of Australian Women Writers (Penguin Books, 1988). "Gender Bending" is from her recent book Nattering on the Net: Women, Power and Cyberspace (Spinifex, 1996); see also her selection in Chapter 6.
"Gender Bending" (Composing Cyberspace p. 69) is not available online.
1. Spender offers many examples of how "we mold and modify our behaviour on the basis of gender" (¶ 5). How persuaded are you by these examples? Can you provide any similar examples from your own experience? Can you provide any counterexamples or instances when your behavior was not so influenced by gender?
2. Based on this selection, how would you define gender-bending?
3. Spender discusses the potential benefits of gender-bending in cyberspace for women and women’s roles in society; summarize these benefits. What benefits do you think there might be for men? What potential disadvantages or dangers can you foresee for either sex?
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