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Chinese Women and the Cyberspace Khun Eng Kuah-Pearce, Amsterdam University Press, 2008, 275 pages
The cyberspace has become an increasingly important part of Chinese people's lives since the introduction of the Internet in 1994. This technology has opened a new world for Chinese netizens by changing the way they communicate among themselves and with the outside world as well as by facilitating further parts of their lives. Although this phenomenon has come to the attention of both academia and the popular media (see e.g., Barboza & Rusli, 2011; Frean, 2011; Liu, 2010), to date, few systematic studies have been done to provide a broad picture of it. By presenting twelve fascinating articles in the book Chinese Women and the Cyberspace, Khun Eng Kuah-Pearce (2008) and her co-authors contribute towards filling this gap and participate in discussions regarding how the cyberspace affects not only working life but also the social and personal spheres of Chinese women. By using a gendered perspective, they investigate different issues concerning how and why Chinese women use the Internet and analyze the socio-cultural influences of emerging digital media on different aspects of these women's lives.
Kuah-Pearce begins this book by introducing the stereotype of cyberspace and the Internet as viewed as a masculine space. This, however, has gradually changed in contemporary China; Chinese women have not only found their places in this electronic domain but have also used cyberspace to empower and "reframe themselves within [the] existing social structure" (11). She encapsulates the content of the book and argues that the cyberspace is both a liberating and oppressive gendered feminist space as it is "an alternative channel and an agency," which eases women's daily chores such as such as billpaying and information-searches (12); "a platform for self-expression" which provides both middle-class and working class women a space to conduct online communication through cyber-relationship and communities (13); "a repressive platform" which may mirror and reinforce offline gender relations and the patriarchal social structure (14); and "a social capital to facilitate cyber-communication and the formation of social networks" (14).
Articles in this book are contributed by authors from the Mainland, Hong Kong, and overseas countries such as Norway and Australia. Different cultural and research backgrounds allow them to touch upon different spheres...