Att mötas i mediet

Språk och kön i en databuren diskussion

Abstract

The aim of the article is to convey how women and men in a local computer-mediated discussion, a so called newsgroup, act linguistically. International research has shown that women's participation in similar mixed-sex discussions is very low and furthermore that the women often get squeezed out of the conversations through certain intimidating and silencing strategies. The women and men in the study are taking courses together within a technological education. Since they are all experienced computer specialists the working hypothesis was that the women would have a greater chance of making their voices heard. The material points to various personal communication strategies, but one can also see that the women as a group are more sharp in their argumentation and keep to the matter at hand — in this case discussing sexistic "customs" within the working community — while the men to a larger extent assert themselves personally and are more attacking and impressionistic in their style. Nevertheless the result here also is that the women fall silent when their contributions are countered with unserious strategies and irrelevant arguments.