Cyberfeminism in the Arab World: Analysis of Gender Stereotypes in Arab Women's Web Sites

The Internet has become a viable source of news, information, entertainment and social integration for people worldwide. The Internet is also a medium where gender identity operates strongly. Feminists, in particular, hailed the medium as a domain where women can assert their identities without patriarchal constraints and can challenge their stereotypical portrayal in the media. But does the Internet provide such utopianism? This book provides a content analysis of 18 Web sites targeted at Arab women. The results demonstrate that the Internet is tarnished by the same gender stereotypes that have pigeonholed women for decades, circumscribing them in their domestic roles as housewives and mothers and rendering them merely as objects of beauty and visual gaze. The analysis should be especially useful to students, researchers and professionals in the field of gender studies.