Doing gender online through flirtation

Abstract

The art of flirtation seems to have proliferated since the advent of Web 2.0 because, among other reasons, online communication is perceived as having lowered risk for embarrassment compared to in-person communication. My research explores the phenomenon of digitally mediated flirtation among American students that involves the formation of new sexual scripts or social norms for online interactions. Findings from interviews and focus groups with students at a small liberal arts college in the northeastern United States reveal the persistence of traditional gender norms within romantic relationships despite ambivalence towards sexual double standards. Heterosexual and queer students alike participate in the reification of gender inequality through their flirtatious interactions. Cultural constructions of risk, as shaped by ideologies of gender and sexuality, play a role in the development of online norms for romantic interactions. The inconsistencies between their awareness of gender inequality and their conventional approach to gender dynamics is evidence of the slow pace of social change in private relationships. This study has implications for understanding how heteronormativity and male dominance shape the ways in which young people do gender in the co-construction of developing digital cultures.