(Un)Gendered Experiences in the Virtual Space

This book critically examines the ever-evolving relationship between gender, identity and technology, investigating how identity is shaped, expressed, and contested within virtual environments. It brings together empirical essays from various geographies including Israel, Italy, South Africa, Spain, Brazil, and India, to explore how gender constructs, religiosity, social support structures, ethical discourses, biases and toxicity weave into the digital fabric. While the digital space can build community and open up liberating possibilities, it also retains echoes of real-world social and gender dynamics. The absence of the physical body does not shield virtual spaces from deeply entrenched socio-cultural and political contexts. Through an exploration of different virtual platforms and digital apps like Facebook, WhatsApp, and Tinder among others, the book invites readers to contemplate the boundless possibilities and pressing challenges that arise when gendered experiences converge with the infinite expanse of the virtual space(s). The chapters in this volume offer great analytical insights into these dynamics supported by well-surmised theoretical and methodological backdrops. The book will be of interest to practitioners of social sciences, especially those interested in issues of gender and identity politics as well as research in the digital or virtual space. It will also be a valuable resource for students and researchers of anthropology and sociology.

Indrani Mukherjee is a socio-cultural anthropologist. She is Ethics Officer of the Indian Anthropological Association (IAA); Editor, IAA Newsletter; and Chair, IUAES Commission on Anthropology, Public Policy and Development Practice. Subhadra Mitra Channa is Professor of Anthropology (Retd.), Delhi University, India and is Co-Editor of Reviews in Anthropology. Her research interests include gender, cosmology, inequality and marginalisation, identity and urban studies.

List of Figures. List of Contributors. Preface. Introduction 1. Virtual "body" through (un)gendered emojis:) 2. Fractal rhythms of Tinder, trust, and gendered relationships in Cape Town, South Africa 3. An ethnography of mobility in a dating homo-affective app: the prominence of re-westernisation processes 4. "We share everything here": Femininity and Nationality through a WhatsApp group of Jewish women married to Arab-Muslim men 5. Gated but unbound: Ethnographic reflections through a women's WhatsApp group during COVID-19 and ethical moments of crisis (Gurgaon, India) 6. When faith meets feminism: Progressive Evangelical women's experiences and their activism in the virtual space 7. Perceptions and categorisations of gender-based online hate speech 8. Misogyny and gender censorship in the digital age. Index.