Gail E. Hawisher and Patricia A. Sullivan: "Fleeting Images: Women Visually Writing the Web" (15)
The question of gender and its online constructions has been a hot topic of discussion in the last few years. In their article "Fleeting Images," Gail E. Hawisher and Patricia A. Sullivan examine a number of web pages--separated into the categorie of "Commercial," "Institutional," and "Professional to Personal"--in the light of arguments by feminist Susan Bordo, who surmises that it is necessary to analyze representations of bodies on the web by first looking at how these representations are "homogenized" and then examining how these homogenized images "normalize"--"that is, how they go about representing that which the self continually measures, judges, disciplines, and corrects itself by" (271). Hawisher and Sullivan also look at these web pages in relation to the cyborg studies of Donna Haraway and Susan Leigh Star by forming connections "that might extend or refashion pre-existing categories" of body image on the web.
Commercial Websites
In a fashion quite reminiscient of its print counterpart, the Victoria's Secret web page features lingerie-clad women whose purpose on the Web is "to sell wares to online society" (274). Hawisher and Sullivan point out that the images of these Victoria's Secret models are not representations of the women in the photos; instead, the messages and voices of the models are manipulated by someone other than themselves--someone whose goal is "to sell the items featured, the images of the women as well as the clothes" (274). In this way, the women's images become homogenized, a single-dimensional picture of the ideal woman. As Bordo would charge, these images establish that standard of desire and beauty by which women compare themselves, and become normalized to the typical representation of the female body. In comparison, however, is Carla Sinclair's web site, "Net Chick Clubhouse," which offers information about Sinclair herself but also serves as a promotional site for her book, Net Chick. Sinclair controls how she, as a woman on the web, is portrayed both as an individual and as a female. As Hawisher and Sullivan point out, her incorporation of the "Magic Eight Bra" game, in which players consult the bra for answers to their deepest questions (a la the Magic Eight Ball of the 1970s), suggests the many different attitudes of the woman on the web--a little rebellious, a little modest, a little alluring--but, most importantly, all personal.
Institutional Websites
Homogeneity rears its head again in the standard institutional web sites of many university departments and faculty members. Hawisher and Sullivan observe that many of the university web sites feature pictures of the buildings on campus, representations of the physical structures translated to the web via graphical elements of web design. Faculty web pages are quite similar--professional photo, scholarly interests, publications, teaching information--the necessary information one might need about a particular faculty member, but little personal information. Such pages have become, in Bordo's terms, normal. Other faculty pages, especially those geared towards students, show more design thought and creativity, though they still center on institutional and teaching issues. These homogeneous web sites, Hawisher and Sullivan argue, stifle the self-representation of women on the web.
Professional to Personal Websites
In this section, the authors examine the different ways that some women on the web have created their virtual identities, despite the homogenization of most images of women. Nancy Kaplan's webpage at the University of Baltimore offers readers more information about her life via a link to her personal page. Art student Amanda Wolf features her graphic designs as well as pictures of her tattoo, inspired by her imaginary childhood friend. Graduate student Eve Andersson's picture on her homepage features a headshot photo of her manipulated to look like an alien. These women push the boundaries of the typical images of women on the web as they "blur the boundaries between physical selves and virtual selves" (287), becoming, as Haraway and Star would suggest, more cyborgian by using technology to change their own personal images on the web. It is the attitude, not the aptitude, that makes these women claim this territory as their own.
As women become more comfortable with technology and with the idea of their "virtual selves," many images of women on the web will change. However, as Hawisher and Sullivan observe, "the World Wide Web is doing little more than imitating the material world we all inhabit" (289), citing the visual as the operative part of the image women are forming both on the Web and in society.
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