Gender-Bending in Cyberspace

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I'm having pain in my playing now, he continues. "The woman I'm playing in MedievalMUSH [her name is Mairead] is having an interesting relationship with a fellow. Mairead is a lawyer. It costs so much to go to law school that it has to be paid for by a corporation or a noble house. A man she met and fell in love with was a nobleman. He paid for her law school. He bought my contract. [Note that Case slips into the first person here.] Now he wants to marry me, although I'm a commoner. I finally said yes. I try to talk to him about the fact that I'm essentially his property. He says, "Oh no, no, no . . . We'll pick you up, set you on your feet, the whole world is open to you.

"But every time I assert myself, I get pushed down. It's an incredibly psychologically damaging thing to do to a person. And the very thing that he liked about her—that she was independent, strong, said what was on her mind—it is all being bled out of her."

Case looks at me with a wry smile and sighs, "A woman's life."

Case has played Mairead for nearly a year, but even a brief experience playing a character of another gender can be evocative. William James said that philosophy is the art of imagining alternatives. Virtual communities can test philosophy about gender issues via action; it's a form of consciousness-raising. For example, on many MUDs, offering technical assistance has become a common way in which male characters "purchase" female attention, analogous to picking up the check at a real-life dinner. In real life, our expectations about sex roles (who offers help, who buys dinner, who brews the coffee) can become so ingrained that we no longer notice them. On MUDs, expectations are expressed in visible textual actions, widely witnessed and openly discussed.

When men playing females are plied with unrequested offers of help on MUDs, they often remark that such chivalries communicate a belief in female incompetence. When women play males on MUDs and realize that they are no longer being offered help, some say those offers of help may well have led them to believe they needed it. As a woman, "first you ask for help because you think it will be expedient," says a college sophomore, "then you realize that you aren't developing the skills to figure things out for yourself."

Shakespeare used the evocative nature of gender-swapping as a plot device for reframing and reconsidering personal and political choices. As You Like It is a classic example: The comedy uses gender-swapping to reveal identity and increase the complexity of relationships. In the play, Rosalind, the duke's daughter, is exiled from the court of her uncle Frederick, who has usurped her father's throne. Frederick's daughter, Rosalind's cousin Celia, flees with Rosalind to the magical forest of Arden. When Rosalind remarks that they might be in danger because "beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold," Celia suggests that they rub dirt on their faces and wear drab clothing, a tactic—becoming unattractive—that often allows women greater social ease. Rosalind takes the idea a step further: They will dress as men.

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