Digital Decodings? Becoming-Ungenderable in Online Spaces

Abstract

The online self is a new kind of body, producing new kinds of affects and offering new opportunities for self-expression. This paper draws on the ontological framework developed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in their seminal work Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1983; 1987) to explore the operation of gender in digital space. The constitution of the (gendered) self online is understood as a deliberate, measured act, allowing users to curate their identities in ways more fully expressive of their desires than is possible offline. Two possibilities thus emerge: the imposition of gendered subjectivities may be resisted – and perhaps escaped altogether – or the masculine/feminine binary may be further entrenched through the visual medium. In either case, the Internet Age is characterised by more dynamic, creative and intense modes of gender politics.