This is reflected in our choice metaphors surrounding computer technologies and the Internet. The construction of the computer as a metaphor for the lack of emotions or an escape from reality alienates women. This is further reflected in the stereotypes we hold about computer users, that they are hackers, technogeeks, male adolescents, who are enacting out fantasies through computers. As Dale Spender argues, men do dominate conversations on-line and actively determine what is worthwhile on the Internet, just as they dominate knowledge and the construction of knowledge in the real world. These social relations still exist and organize the relations on the Internet.
Men still shape and determine the culture of the Internet in their own interests.
Using harassment and hostility while on-line, flaming others who hold different perspectives, using valuable Internet space to share fat women jokes or post pornographic images creates a climate that in unfriendly and intimidating to women. Regardless of how much harassment, flaming, stalking and pornography actually exists on-line, other mass media contribute to the social construction and definition of the Internet as an unsafe space by focusing exclusively on these as worthwhile issues for discussing the Internet. Women have come to fear of Internet as a siteof harassment, rape and pornography through media hype, without ever having experienced the Internet for themselves. Though both are bound in the Spiral dance, I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess. While this essay has served to articulate and clarify the problematic relationship women have with the Internet, it is important to remember some other relevant elements.