week 1 reading: identity

This week I choose Delia Dumitrica and Georgia Gaden's research article about gender performance in second life to read. The research is conducted from the view of a post-structuralist feminist and through the method of autoethnography which means all results come from the researchers' own experiences. In the virtual world, the boundaries of gender binary are obvious, not only through looks but gestures, even animals are gendered. At first these female researchers felt uncomfortable and scared in a new environment that almost all of the female avatars have slender bodies, tiny waists, big breasts, long hair and revealing clothing, so some of them swapped their avatars to male. I don't understand why they had this discomfort, because one of the most interesting things for me in SL is I can change my avatar's body features and choose any clothes as I like, which can't be achieved in reality. It's a second life and people get a chance to become perfect, then why give up. However, I truly agree with the researchers' words that although we rationally knew the visual representations of the avatars are nothing like the real-life bodies, we unconsciously imagined them in our minds in association with their avatars. If your look is male, people will regard you as a male in SL, even though the way you speak, manner and interpretation of experience are all belongs to female.

After a time, case, they decreased their initial heightened gender-awareness gradually and focused on the discursive practice. They found that how gender is 'done' in SL resides not only at the intersection between our own gendered perspectives and the platform, but also in the technical skills we have. I don't think our identities are fixed in SL, they may be changed because of appearances, surroundings and technologies. This is why the game is attractive. It's life but beyond life.

Wendy