The Pole Community: Opening Closed Minds

Abstract

Much has been written about ‘remote relationships’ which are conducted at a distance, primarily through technology such as the Internet, for example, Smith and Kollock, 1999 on communities in cyberspace; Bruns and Jacobs, 2006 on blogs; Whitty and Carr, 2006 on online romances; Holland and Harpin, 2008 on teens and MySpace. There is also a great deal of research about women and their remote, gendered relationships: for example, Spender, 1995, on women and talk online; Cherny and Weise, 1996 on women and communities online; Consaluo and Paasonen, 2002, on women, agency and identity online; Thiel Stern, 2007, on girls and instant messaging; and Bury, 2005, 2008 on female fans online. Among all this scholarship runs a common theme: that the Internet suits women because they can be sociable when they choose, when their children are in bed, they don’t have to risk going out at night alone, or when they don’t feel like having to dress to ‘go out’; and because online communities are, to some extent, cooperative and communicative, which, traditionally and theoretically, suits the way women interact with others. The Internet in particular, but also other technologies such as the mobile/cell phone, have been liberating for women and certainly, in this chapter, we see how the increased popularity and availability of the Internet has been of benefit to polers worldwide.