03 zahedi.pmd - Semantic Scholar

WEB DOCUMENTS’ CULTURAL MASCULINITY AND FEMININITY

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Web Documents’ Cultural Masculinity and Femininity FATEMEH “MARIAM” ZAHEDI, WILLIAM V. VAN PELT, AND MARK SRITE FATEMEH “MARIAM” ZAHEDI is a Wisconsin Distinguished Professor in the MIS area, the School of Business at University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. She received her Ph.D. from Indiana University and teaches MIS courses in the graduate and Ph.D. programs. Her present areas of research include behavioral studies in Web design, intelligent DSS, software components and maintenance, intelligent systems, and data mining. She has many journal publications including those in Management Science, Information Systems Research, MIS Quarterly, Decision Sciences, Decision Support Systems, Information & Management, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, IIE Transactions, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communications, Operations Research, European Journal of Operations Research, Computers and Operations Research, Interfaces, Software Maintenance and Evolution, and Review of Economics and Statistics. She is the author of two books, has consulted for firms in the public and private sectors, has had managerial experiences in IT, and has served on the editorial boards of a number of journals. WILLIAM V. VAN PELT is an Associate Professor in the English Department at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, where he directs the Graduate Certificate in Professional Writing and Communication and teaches technical writing, business writing, rhetorical theory, and literature. He has published several articles on technology, culture, and communication, which have appeared in professional journals such as IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, Technical Communication Quarterly, and Educational Computing. He has worked as a technical writer and consultant for many companies, including Bechtel Engineering, Intel, Motorola, and M&I Data Services. He also coauthored Speculations: Readings in Culture, Identity, and Values (2d ed., Prentice Hall, 1995). MARK SRITE is an Associate Professor in the MIS area at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. He received his Ph.D. from Florida State University in 2000. His research interests include the acceptance, adoption, and use of information technologies, cross-cultural IT issues, and group decision making. His work has been published in MIS Quarterly, Decision Support Systems, Journal of Global Information Management, Journal of Computer Information Systems, and elsewhere. ABSTRACT: As online information dissemination and e-commerce transactions become globally popular, understanding the cultural aspects of Web site documents will gain critical importance. Hidden cultural dimensions could facilitate or inhibit the usability and communication effectiveness of Web sites. However, few studies have investigated the existence of cultural dimensions in Web sites. This study identifies cultural signifiers of Web documents as they relate to the masculinity–femininity diJournal of Management Information Systems / Summer 2006, Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 87–128. © 2006 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. 0742–1222 / 2006 $9.50 + 0.00.

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mension. We adopt an interpretive approach for investigating, identifying, and categorizing masculinity–femininity signifiers. Comparing and contrasting Web sites aimed predominantly at either men or women, we use grounded theory for constant comparison and categorization of data. The interpretive analysis is carried out within a framework of hermeneutics. Drawing from the literature of signs (semiology), we identify the signifiers and myths for the masculinity and femininity of Web documents, and report on the possible presence of masculine and feminine androgyny. Following the dictum of grounded theory, we present support for our results from theories and findings in diverse fields of study. We then report on the contributions of our research in three ways. First, the knowledge of cultural signifiers raises managers’ and researchers’ awareness of cultural contents of Web documents, and may lead to improvement in the clarity and communication effectiveness of Web documents. Second, our work brings forth contrasts and contradictions inherent in masculine and feminine modes of Web document development, raising questions about cultural messages within Web documents that could distort communication and promote cultural values not shared by members of the targeted community. Third, we introduce the concept of androgyny as playing a possible role in reducing such distortions. KEY WORDS AND PHRASES: activity theory, critical social theory, cultural dimensions, feminine lateral convergence, grounded theory, hermeneutics, knowledge interest, masculine upward divergence, myths, semiology.

THE INTERNET HAS EMERGED AS A GLOBAL MEDIUM of communication on which an increasing number of individuals and organizations rely for numerous types of information transmission or exchange, such as news, periodicals, product descriptions, promotional materials, scientific findings, literary outputs, information sharing, encyclopedic references, regulatory procedures, descriptive information, and educational topics. The number of Web sites on the Internet has grown exponentially, to the point where Web users have numerous sites competing for their attention and cognitive energy—valuable resources actively sought by Web site owners. With continued Internet expansion, the competition for Web users’ attention will continue to accelerate and Web designs will continue to be driven by the need for effective communication with an increasingly selective audience. However, many Web sites reportedly fail the usability test [115, 116], underscoring the importance of a user-centric approach to system design [2, 86, 94]. Such an approach first requires an in-depth understanding of users and their salient attributes and orientations. Recent studies show that gender is a salient user attribute that plays a critical role in the adoption and use of information systems (IS) [39, 123, 124, 125]. Morris et al. [86] report that the interaction of gender and age is one prominent user attribute in adoption and use. We argue that culture, particularly the masculine–feminine dimension of culture, is a salient user attribute in Web site design. Although biological gender and the masculine–feminine dimension of culture are not interchangeable, the reported significance of gender in IS studies points to the potentially critical role of cultural masculinity and femininity in the creation and use of Web sites. Web site designers need a higher


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awareness of the hidden cultural messages that Web documents convey as they strive to increase their communication effectiveness with their global users and customers. The global nature of the Web creates great potentials for cultural differences in creating and reading Web documents, which could be a source of distortion in the communication of meaning across the Internet. Ngwenyama and Lee [90] define a distorted communication as false, incomplete, insincere, or unwarranted. Such distortions could take place when the cultures of Web site creators and Web users clash. To understand, explore, and deal with culture-based communication failures, we need to identify how to recognize the cultural contents and signifiers of Web documents. Since culture has multiple dimensions, an attempt to find cultural signifiers requires the choice of a cultural dimension. We focus on the masculinity–femininity dimension of culture, since this dimension is pervasive in that every individual and social group (small, large, local, or national) immediately relates to it. It is also a controversial and underinvestigated dimension in IS literature. Hence, our research question is: What are the signifiers of cultural masculinity and femininity in Web documents? Understanding the role masculinity and femininity signifiers play in Web documents can provide an awareness of the cultural aspects that shape Web creators’ meanings. Such awareness, in turn, may help transform unintended distortions in Web messages into signals purposefully designed to increase Web messages’ communication richness and usability. Such awareness can also guide us in investigating whether one can increase the effectiveness of Web documents by matching their cultural contents with that of their intended audience. Furthermore, the identification of cultural signifiers for masculinity and femininity can make Web users aware of elements that they can “consciously” use in discovering possible distortions in Web document messages. The results of this study also add to and explain findings related to gender differences in IS literature [39, 123, 125], and increase the focus on differences in masculinity and femininity. The terms masculinity and femininity refer to cultural tendencies and categorizations of groups and not individuals’ biological designations as male and female. Maccoby has explained it succinctly: “One can be more or less feminine. One cannot be more or less female” [78, p. 762]. Gender studies share this view that gender is a social construct [27] and is what people “do,” not what people “are” [130]. Brannon [15] comes close to cultural masculinity and femininity by observing that masculinity, in its well-accepted behavior and less-accepted behavior, varies in time and place. Hence, we explore masculinity and femininity characteristics as roles played by individuals, which are affected by their physiological and psychological makeup and, most importantly, by their cultural environments. Although it is acknowledged that culture has “many meanings and connotations” [106, p. 5], culture is defined as a construct that is discovered or invented to share meanings based on assumptions, beliefs, symbols, rituals, myths, and practices that have evolved over time and can be taught to others [81, 105]. Another definition of culture is “the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group or category from those of another” [55, p. 5]. These definitions correspond to cultural psychology’s definition of culture as shared knowledge,

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experience, beliefs, and meaning, expressed in language, art, and other communicative forms [48].

Perspective and Research Methodology THE NATURE OF OUR RESEARCH QUESTION HAS LED us to adopt an interpretive perspective [65], generally following the guidelines articulated by Klein and Myers [64]. The need for comparison, contrast, and categorization has led us to the use of grounded theory methodology. Furthermore, the text nature of Web documents calls for a hermeneutic approach for investigating their underlying meaning. Moreover, the quest for identifying signifiers has led to the use of semiotics. Hence, in this study, the research question has guided the choice of perspective, methodology, and method of data analysis. Our approach could be viewed as a hierarchy, starting with the interpretive perspective on the top, next moving to a specific methodology (grounded theory), and, finally, using techniques (hermeneutics and semiology) for data collection and analysis. This hierarchy closely follows the structure of qualitative research as outlined by Myers [89]. Grounded theory is defined as “the discovery of theory from data” [42, p. 1], which is a “discovery methodology that allows the researcher to develop a theoretical account of the general features of a topic while simultaneously grounding the account in empirical observations or data” [82, p. 141]. Grounded theory involves an iterative relationship between data collection and analysis through constant comparative analysis. The duality of masculinity and femininity makes the application of constant comparative analysis a fitting method for identifying and categorizing cultural signifiers. In this method, while the researcher may start “with a partial framework of ‘local’ concepts” [42, p. 45], the review of literature should be carried out only when “the emerging theory is sufficiently developed” [41, p. 32]. The purpose of the literature review is to “integrate [the] generated theory with the other literature to show its contribution” [41, p. 33]. Hence, we present our review of substantive work on masculinity–femininity literature in various fields after the data analysis. Furthermore, since this study focuses on text analysis, it is only natural to apply hermeneutics for understanding the meaning within each piece of text, and to use semiotics to identify signs and signifiers within the interpretive framework of hermeneutics.1 In modern times, hermeneutics emerged as the dominant method for interpreting biblical texts. Schleiermacher was first to conceive general hermeneutics as a nondisciplinary approach that could be used as “the foundation for all kinds of text interpretation” [95, p. 40]. Gadamer, while tracing the philosophical development of hermeneutics from Schleiermacher and Dilthey to Heidegger, develops “philosophical hermeneutics” that is relevant in a “universal mode of philosophy” and “in all areas of inquiry” [21, p. 238]. Moreover, Habermas takes a critical approach to hermeneutics and stresses the double role of language for “reaching understanding” and “exerting influence” [47, p. 298]. Habermas promotes “critical hermeneutics” with an emancipatory purpose of understanding the “socio-cultural world in which subjective meaning is located” and exposing communication distortions [21, p. 294]. We


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use Gadamer’s hermeneutics in the analysis of data and rely on Habermas’s critical approach in the discussion of our findings. Gadamer’s hermeneutics involves a “hermeneutic circle,” which begins with a preunderstanding of the whole of the text before understanding the parts, while developing an understanding of the whole requires an interpretation of the parts. Hermeneutics has been proposed for text analysis in IS [70]. In the context of our research, the hermeneutic circle accords with the recursive comparative analysis between theory and data in grounded theory methodology, enabling the discovery of cultural masculinity and femininity textual signifiers. The foreknowledge or “prejudice” of the interpreter initiates a process that leads to a fuller understanding. “Long before we understand ourselves through the process of self-examination, we understand ourselves in a self-evident way in the family, society and state we live in. . . . That is why the prejudices of the individual, far more than his judgments, constitute the historical reality of his being” [37, p. 846]. Hence, the interpretive outcomes of this study are colored by the prejudices and prior knowledge of the authors, which have guided the selection of Web sites for this study, and the identification and categorization of signifiers. We put the results within the body of knowledge that is relevant to our hermeneutic interpretations. This is in line with the fundamental principle of hermeneutic circles as articulated by Klein and Myers [64]. In attempting to understand meaning using the hermeneutic circle, we not only look for what is said but also how it is said—searching for signs and signifiers of masculinity and femininity in Web documents. This leads us to semiotics. Initially developed by Saussure [104] and Peirce [96], semiotics or semiology is defined as “the science of signs . . . that studies the life of signs within society” and the study of “what constitutes signs and what laws govern them” [33, p. 87]. “Semiology, as opposed to semantics, is the science or study of signs as signifiers; it does not ask what words mean, but how they mean” [31, p. 5]. In semiotics, signs are defined as “phenomena that stand for something other than themselves” [6, p. 467]. As in hermeneutics, semiotics is not new in IS (see, e.g., [6, 7, 110, 111]). Anderson has developed “computer semiotics as a branch of semiotics that studies the special nature of computer-based signs and their function in use situations” [6, p. 466]. Anderson categorizes text sizes for analysis as words, sentences, and “language games” [6, p. 474]. The latter is used by Truex [121] in the examination of organizational texts in IS development. We will use the concept of “language games” in describing the unit of our analysis. We apply Saussure’s terminology to identify three components within text: (1) the signifier—the portion of the sign that is perceptible to language users and appears in the text; (2) the signified—that portion of the sign that is absent from perception, but can be understood as the meaning, idea, or concept connected with the signifier by language users; and (3) signification— the unifying relationship between the signifier and signified that holds the sign together and enables language users to assign meanings to perceptible signifiers [33]. Thus, semiotics allows our analysis to focus on the signifiers in a Web document and how they work together to form cultural constructs, rather than on the referential objects or transitory events. We see signifiers as the empirically perceptible

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portions of cultural signs that help us identify a theory of interrelated cultural meanings and concepts (signifieds). As signifiers emerge from the hermeneutic and semiotic data collection process, they need to be formalized and categorized to a higher level of abstraction. For this purpose, we draw on the theory of higher-order signifiers developed by Barthes [9]. This theory is based on Saussure’s original assertion that the relationship between signifier and signified is arbitrary and evolves culturally [104]. Barthes argues that (1) the assignment of a specific signifier to a concept is at first entirely arbitrary; (2) once the arbitrary structure of signs has been established in a language, the sign takes on specific cultural values that are historically determined; and (3) every signified can become a signifier, building up a hierarchy of historically determined complex signifiers and their underlying deep structures (Figure 1). Signifiers may underscore the “contextual interpretation” of texts that give way to an “obscure set of anonymous rules” [36, p. 210]. Such rules emerge from the social position of the text and its author [84], change over time [36], and are not “given to [people’s] consciousness” [36, p. 211]. Barthes [10] argues that after repetition and familiarity legitimize such an organization of signifiers in a culture, their organization becomes naturalized and valued as what he calls a mythology. Barthes proposes that a careful analysis of the signifiers in cultural narratives can reveal the underlying beliefs, values, and attitudes that shape the culture’s identity. He uses this approach in the critical analysis of French popular culture. Barthes’s notion that signifiers (acting also as images and symbols) are informants of a culture’s beliefs and values resonates with Campbell’s [24] theory of comparative mythology. Campbell compares narratives of distinct cultures to identify embedded symbols and images that reveal shared cultural values and beliefs. However, as a critic of rhetorical mythology, Barthes sought to show how commonplace myths in popular cultures maintain the social belief systems of dominant cultures. Following Barthes, we argue that Web documents’ cultural dimensions could be revealed through an analysis of the chains of signifiers that make up the primary stories that the Web documents convey. These stories or myths are really a collection of signifiers that cohere around a hierarchical sign system and embed cultural values in Web documents. Organizational culture studies also discuss myth in a similar fashion (see, e.g., [128]). These signifiers have a critical role in the information quality and usability of Web sites. We propose that we can observe the signifiers associated with the masculinity–femininity dimension, analyze the relationships among these signifiers, and then infer the myths and mental programming that shape the culture.

Data Selection and Collection IN THIS STUDY, THE LANGUAGE FOR INTERPRETATION is U.S. English. We apply the concept of language game from Wittgenstein [133]. Koppl and Langlois define a language game as “a set of rules about how to talk, think, and act in different situations” [67, p. 288]. Our choice of the unit of analysis is close to what Anderson calls a unit of a language game, defined as a “closed unit of interaction” containing sen-


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Figure 1. The Hierarchy of Language and Myth

tences that “presuppose each other, and form a well-defined unit in relation to other acts” [6, p. 475]. We began our data collection by identifying Web sites that we believed to be predominantly masculine or feminine in various contexts, intended to a large extent for either male or female North American audiences. As new signifiers emerged from the application of grounded theory to develop an evolving comparison of signifiers, our main concern was whether the identified cultural signifiers were specific to a context or could be observed in different contexts, in line with the principle of abstraction and generalization [64]. The wealth of findings led us to limit our analysis to North American sites, with the intention of performing a cross-country analysis at a later stage. The first two authors together identified, collected, and analyzed data through brainstorming and dialectic argumentation within the hermeneutic circle for over 90 Web pages and more than 550 text units (Appendix A). The codification, classification, and further data collection proceeded in a spiral process of constant comparison, classification, and reclassification within a text unit or across text units. No attempt was made to include or check interrater consistency or reliability, because the cultural signifiers were emergent in this stage of the research.

Masculinity and Femininity Signifiers OUR BACKGROUND FOR STARTING THE DATA COLLECTION process involved examining cultural traits as reported in the work of Hofstede [54, 55], Hofstede and Associates [56], Lewis [75], and Robinson et al. [101]. From these sources, we assembled a list of raw signifiers. As we progressed through the cycle of data collection, analysis, and categorization, we added, refined, and expanded signifiers for which we found evidence and discarded others, in line with Klein and Myers’s view of the principle of dialogical reasoning [64]. The analysis of the data set revealed a large set of cultural signifiers for masculinity and femininity. Further analysis led to the emergence of four cultural signifier categories—belief, attitude, rhetoric, and syntactic. We use the distinction between belief and attitude as in the theory of planned behavior [3] to define belief signifiers as reflecting the value system embedded within a Web document, whereas attitude

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signifiers predominantly convey feeling and perception. Rhetoric signifiers reflect how a point or argument is made or stressed in a text. For example, one may make a point by emphasizing facts, using sarcasm, or resorting to combative language or tone. Syntactic signifiers are related to rhetoric signifiers, but denote a specific use of syntactical structure in a Web document, such as commands given in the imperative mood.

Belief Signifiers for Cultural Masculinity and Femininity Belief signifiers show the underlying assumptions regarding what is perceived to be “good,” “moral,” and “desirable.” The contrasts between masculine and feminine belief signifiers are stark and pervasive. Masculine messages presume a preference for strength, challenge, winning, performance, dominance, success, daring and lack of fear, heroism, leadership, money, training, and having the latest tools and technology (Table 1). Feminine messages carry belief signifiers for sympathy for the weak, charity, relationship and relationship building (including conflict reduction and compromising), commitment, togetherness, and getting personal (Table 2). While each message carries a number of cultural signifiers, Tables 1 and 2 report examples that contain the target signifier. References for the quoted texts in these and other tables are provided in Appendix A. The U.S. Army Web documents show preferences for strength (both physical and mental), physical challenge (battle and fighting), dominance, control and power, heroism, leadership, and acquisition of skills (Mas2, Table 1). Given the public stereotype of the Army, it is hardly surprising to find these signifiers. However, Promise Keepers (Mas1) Web documents also show many of the same belief signifiers, including strength, physical challenge, skill acquisition, and a desire to rise above the ordinary and to earn money. Masculinity signifiers are also seen in other Web sites, such as Field and Stream (Mas4, winning and earning money), Men’s Health (Mas9, winning and performance), Popular Mechanics (Mas8, dominance), and Soldier of Fortune (Mas6, heroism). In contrast, femininity cultural signifiers are “other focused.” As opposed to masculine documents, which show a preference for strength, feminine documents show sympathy for the weak, charity, and a concern for quality of life, as in the Family Circle Web documents (Fem1). As examples in Table 2 show, Commitment (Fem2) focuses on relationships and personal issues while Voices of Women (Fem6) also shows belief signifiers relating to relationship, community, and sharing. The MSN (Fem5) example contains belief signifiers for relationship and success of others, whereas Healthy Woman (Fem7) has signifiers for relationship and sharing. The Country Living (Fem9) and Woman’s Day (Fem3) examples have, respectively, signifiers for community and sharing. In sum, while cultural masculinity belief myths relate to achievement and dominance, cultural femininity belief myths signify getting close, in touch, and personal (with others and self) for long and committed periods. At a higher level of abstraction, we see masculinity belief signifiers emerging as an upward divergence myth,


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Table 1. Belief Signifiers for Cultural Masculinity Belief signifiers

Examples

Strength

“I am praying great blessings on your ministry this summer . . . that God will work mighty miracles in the midst of the conference and online as well. May He give you strength and endurance to continue on.” (Mas1) “The Army inspires soldiers to have the strength, the confidence, and the will to fight and win anywhere, anytime.” (Mas2) “I have already challenged many of my friends and business associates across the U.S. to attend a PK [Promise Keepers] event near them.” (Mas1) “The Army inspires soldiers to have the strength, the confidence, and the will to fight and win anywhere, anytime.” (Mas2) “Think of it this way: Either you’ve got your deer—way to go!— or you’ve got time to hunt. It’s a no-lose situation.” (Mas4) “Do you want to win a pushup contest?” (Mas9) “This section starts off with the special report: ‘Be Better Than Average.’” (Mas9) “The readers have spoken. From Russell Crowe to Shaquille O’Neal, this year’s winners have achieved and performed in style.” (Mas11) “Army proudly claims to be the most technologically advanced and highly skilled fighting force in the world.” (Mas2) “At some point, every red-blooded American boy dreams the same dream. We all want to build the coolest car in the world.” (Mas8) “A collection of innovative advice for a successful hunt” (Mas4). “I’m not afraid anymore because I now have God in my life.” (Mas1) “We are enabled to be bold in our church to bring about revival of our men’s group.” (Mas1) “In the Rescue Season, Bob Drury tells the tale of the fearless paratroopers who try to save them.” (Mas11) “The Army inspires soldiers to have the strength, the confidence, and the will to fight and win anywhere, anytime.” (Mas2) “America’s noblest and most loyal allies, the heroic H’mong, are again doing battles against communism in their native Laos.” (Mas6) “Every day in the Army we do two things: we train soldiers and we grow them into leaders.” (Mas2) “Here’s a chance to support PK when you make long-distance calls. No monthly charges and you can also get Toll-Free services at no extra charge!” (Mas1) “If you don’t hire an outfitter, your hunt will be free.” (Mas4) “Travel costs can be minimized by driving with a few pals and sharing expenses.” (Mas4) “And don’t leave without your FREE copy of The Men’s Maintenance Manual.” (Mas9) (continues)

Battle (physical fight), challenge

Winning

Performance

Dominance, control, power

Success Dare, lack of fear, out of ordinary

Heroism

Leadership Money (earning, saving, accumulating)

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Table 1. Continued Belief signifiers

Examples

Skill (acquisition, training), having latest technologies or tools

“Their training, they believe, is what turns an ordinary man or woman into a soldier.” (Mas2) “Every day in the Army we do two things: we train soldiers and we grow them into leaders.” (Mas2) “Army proudly claims to be the most technologically advanced and highly skilled fighting force in the world.” (Mas2) Source: All examples quoted are from the texts of the corresponding Web sites identified in Appendix A.

where standing above others through achievements and acquiring the resources for accomplishments win the day. On the other hand, the femininity cultural belief signifiers tend toward a lateral convergence myth, getting close to others at an equal level through building and maintaining relationships, behaving amiably, and reducing one’s distance from the poor or weak by helping lift them up to one’s own level. As we will see in the sections that follow, the attitude, rhetoric, and syntactic signifiers for masculinity and femininity reflect these myths as well.

Attitude Signifiers for Cultural Masculinity and Femininity Attitude signifiers convey a message’s feeling and emotional state. We have observed a sharp contrast in attitude signifiers between masculine and feminine Web documents. While masculine attitude signifiers include being strong, ambitious, competitive, adventurous, noncommittal, free-spirited, and bargaining (for money), femininity attitude signifiers include being emotional, compassionate, appreciative, well-wishing, friendly, helpful, healing, fearful, needing help, and worrying, as shown in Tables 3 and 4. For example, Men’s Health employs the masculinity signifier for showing strength: “A few ways to put more religion in your Hail Mary pass . . . Develop your shoulders. Those are the muscles you need to throw long bombs” (Mas9). The ambitious, competitive, and adventurous attitude signifiers appear in various contexts as shown in Table 3. One example is Popular Mechanics’s claim for the masculine ambition of creating a supercar (Mas8). A second example is the competitive attitude exhibited in Men’s Health: “Are you as strong, fit, and healthy as he is? Do you make as much money?” (Mas9). A third example is the adventurous attitude in Army Life: “Experience as much army adventure as you can without actually signing the dotted line. Race a HumVee, fly a helicopter. From travel to high-tech equipment, the Army has adventure to last a lifetime” (Mas3). These examples also show noncommittal and freespirited attitudes, which are related to being adventurous. Texts from Playboy show the free-spirited attitude more clearly as in “race through the city . . . damn the traffic laws” (Mas10).


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Table 2. Belief Signifiers for Cultural Femininity Belief signifiers

Examples

Sympathy for the weak

“If there’s a teacher on your list, for only $24 you can supply two children in a developing country with the proper school supplies.” (Fem1)

Charity, giving

“Long after the trendy sweater loses its appeal and the sports watch stops running, your charitable gifts will keep making a meaningful difference.” (Fem1)

Relationship, other focused, conflict reduction in relationship, compromise

“Healing your relationship with your opposite sex parent.” (Fem2) “Are stepmothers really as evil as the fairy tales say they are?” (Fem2) “At mealtimes, use the together time to have your child tell you what he or she discovered that day.” (Fem5) “We invite you to get a cup of tea, sit down and relax and step inside our women’s circle for some moments of sharing, reflection, community, and sometimes transformation.” (Fem6) “There are several steps you can take to become a partner in the healthcare decision-making process with your medical team—in sickness and in health—that can help make your experience a positive one.” (Fem7)

Commitment

“For women who are committed to their work, their world, their soul mate, their children, their friends, themselves.” (Fem2)

Success is focused on others

“As a parent, you want your child to do well when he or she is old enough to go to school, to learn skills and knowledge to be a success in life.” (Fem5)

Community and togetherness

“Women are using these powerful tools to create a supportive community for themselves and each other, and, at the same time, carving a place for women on the Internet, the new communication frontier.” (Fem6) “We at Women.com want our Members’ experience in the Women.com Network to be enjoyable and useful.” (Fem9)

Sharing

“Do you have an idea to share or someone to nominate for our Friends & Neighbors Award?” (Fem3) “In these pages, real women are telling their stories, discussing issues, sharing hard-won wisdom.” (Fem6) “Share information about all medications you are currently taking.” (Fem7)

Personal

“A growing number of grandparents are raising their grandchildren. Here is the story of Donna Sakers, 50, of Folcroft, Pennsylvania, who is raising her four grandchildren.” (Fem2)

Concern for quality of life

“To squeeze in some luxury for yourself during this hectic season, take ten minutes and give yourself an at home facial.” (Fem1) Source: All examples quoted are from the texts of the corresponding Web sites identified in Appendix A.

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Table 3. Attitude Signifiers for Cultural Masculinity Attitude signifiers

Examples

Showing strength

“A few ways to put more religion in your Hail Mary pass, from Greg Knapp, quarterback coach for the San Francisco 49ers: Develop your shoulders. Those are the muscles you need to throw long bombs.” (Mas9)

Ambitious, achievement

“We all want to build the American supercar.” (Mas8) “I sometimes become very depressed because of [unsuccessful dating]. I know I’m very young and have plenty of time, but still, it is painful to watch my friends move ahead and start multiple relationships while I achieve nothing.” (Mas18)

Competitive

“Are you as strong, fit, and healthy as he is? Do you make as much money? Could you beat him in a mile run, or would he leave you sucking air?” (Mas9) “Renee Piane is a reputed dating expert and personal coach on the dating scene. She is the author of Love Mechanics, which provides ‘Power Tools’ for men in the competitive game of love.” (Mas18)

Adventurous

“Adventure is where the action is—up front alongside our battle tanks—in a Bradley Linebacker.” (Mas2) “Experience as much army adventure as you can without actually signing the dotted line. Race a HumVee, fly a helicopter. From travel to high-tech equipment, the Army has adventure to last a lifetime.” (Mas3) “We have created this big game information source for hunters who are seeking new adventures.” (Mas4)

Noncommittal, free-spirited

“Race through the city . . . damn the traffic laws, other motorists, pedestrians, and roadside objects. . . . Don’t worry about driving on the left.” (Mas10) “The level of detail that’s been put into the design of the buildings and other landmarks, along with the accurate street layouts, enhances the liberated feeling you get from committing countless moving violations in these cities.” (Mas10)

Rational, not showing emotion

“There seems to be an ongoing debate over whether it is woman’s body or face that men place more emphasis on. In an age where breast implants run rampant and everyone is scrambling to find the next miracle diet, the general consensus suggests that a great body is worth more than we think.” (Mas18) “Guys are often motivated more by sex whereas women are motivated more by the idea of a relationship. That is why a man will shamefully hit on a beautiful woman regardless of how he looks. He’s trying to look cool and macho and wants to prove to everyone that he can get a hot babe at any cost.” (Mas18)

Bargaining “How much should you pay for that . . . car?” (Mas7) (for money) Source: All examples quoted are from the texts of the corresponding Web sites identified in Appendix A.


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Table 4. Attitude Signifiers for Cultural Femininity Attitude signifiers

Examples

Emotional

“Truly sentimental and sweet memories . . . of Christmas . . . when Colin proposed to me.” (Fem1) “I felt the world sparkled as brightly as my diamond.” (Fem1)

Caring, compassionate

“There are so many civic organizations that do good work and deserve your support.” (Fem1)

Appreciative, contented

“A plate piled with homemade goodies is a welcome sight anytime, but more so during the holidays.” (Fem1) “When my mother hosted a baby shower for me, I was amazed to see a bassinet beautifully displayed in the living room.” (Fem3)

Well-wishing

“Happy planting, Anna!” (Fem8)

Friendly

“Welcome to the Women’s Day online community where you can share ideas, ask for advice or just talk about what is on your mind.” (Fem3)

Helpful

“Help your child learn to love to read.” (Fem5) “Paradise Found will provide you with at least 30 great ideas to help ensure that your end result is a successful, beautiful blooming garden.” (Fem8)

Healing, spiritual, transformative

“Surviving divorce.” (Fem2) “Saying goodbye to loved ones.” (Fem2) “Surviving heartbreak.” (Fem2) “We invite you to get a cup of tea, sit down and relax and step inside our women’s circle for some moments of sharing, reflection, community, and sometimes transformation.” (Fem6) “Nurture your spirit, deepen your faith and feel more connected. Here is how.” (Fem13) “Coming to yoga retreat is an attempt to leave all [urban traffic and way of life] behind in another time zone, in the hope that for once we can glean something more spiritual from this ancient practice.” (Fem16)

Needing help

“I need some help and recipes for Thanksgiving dinner. Can anyone help?” (Fem3) “Anyone have any suggestions on what to try so I don’t get green, orange, or red hair?” (Fem8) “How do I get started? Should I sketch a plan for the bulb beds?” (Fem9)

Fearful

“Does fear of selling terrify you?” (Fem2) “As a parent, you want your child to do well. . . . But you hear some frightening statistics about the abilities of students today.” (Fem5)

Worrying

“The holidays may be the season to be merry, but the extra shopping, eating, party-hopping and family visits can take a big toll on your health.” (Fem1) “Sometimes starting a new medication could be worrisome.” (Fem7) Source: All examples quoted are from the texts of the corresponding Web sites identified in Appendix A.

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In contrast, feminine attitude signifiers focus on warm and intimate emotions, as in Family Circle’s “truly sentimental and sweet memories . . . of Christmas . . . when Colin proposed to me” (Fem1). More specific forms of caring, compassionate, appreciative, and contented signifiers occur in the example, “There are so many civic organizations that do good work and deserve your support” (Fem1). Furthermore, feminine attitude signifiers that indicate well-wishing, friendliness, supportiveness, helpfulness, and the desire to heal others are also numerous. Femininity attitude signifiers for negative attitudes were also observed, which include needing help, being fearful, and worrying. Examples are shown in Table 4. In summary, masculinity attitude signifiers emphasize action-oriented attitudes serving the upward divergent myth, whereas femininity attitude signifiers are interaction-oriented in support of the lateral convergent myth.

Rhetoric Signifiers for Cultural Masculinity and Femininity Rhetoric has a long tradition as the art of discovering “all available means of persuasion” [29, p. 7] and has found recent use in the rhetorical analysis of scientific work and organizational studies, as reviewed by Locke and Golden-Bidden [77]. They define rhetoric as “a traditional, language-based discipline concerned with logic, composition, argument, and style” [77, p. 1025]. We categorize rhetoric signifiers in terms of how language is used for stylistic emphasis and persuasion in the presentation of facts, logic, and argument. We have found that masculine versus feminine rhetoric signifiers generally display the following contrasts: facts versus intuition, absolute assertion of facts versus attributed use of facts, authoritative emphasis or assertiveness versus deference to expertise, boasting versus explanatory and questioning, combative versus warning, and brief and assertive versus verbose and stylistic. Tables 5 and 6 summarize the rhetoric signifiers. Contrast in Use of Facts Masculine Web documents rely heavily on facts, particularly numerical facts, as in the examples from Golf Masters (Mas5) and Car and Driver (Mas7) shown in Table 5. Whereas most masculine documents rely on factual and numerical rhetoric signifiers, feminine documents tend to rely on intuition and feeling signifiers with a higher degree of flexibility and nonspecificity, as seen as Fem4 in Table 6. In masculine documents, factual signifiers are often presented as universally given realities. These documents seldom attribute facts to their sources. They present numerical data in a matter-of-fact tone, as if the facts speak for themselves: “The average man has a total cholesterol count of 202 milligrams per deciliter” (Mas9). In contrast, feminine documents qualify their facts. For example, in American Business Women’s Association (Fem22), the membership information is footnoted as “based on 81% of collected member profiles.” Such an attribution is not normally observed in masculine Web documents. Feminine documents use more nonnumerical facts,


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Table 5. Rhetoric Signifiers for Cultural Masculinity Rhetoric signifiers

Examples

Fact-focused, especially numerical facts

“The first Tournament was held March 22, 1934, and beginning in 1940, the Masters was scheduled every year during the first full week in April. The first Tournament was won by Horton Smith, and in the Fall of 1934 the nines were reversed. In 1935 Gene Sarazen hit ‘the shot heard ’round the world’ scoring a double eagle on the par 5 15th hole, tying Craig Wood, forcing a playoff.” (Mas5) “In 1975, sales topped 100,0000. Thirteen percent more room was added in 1980, and a sedan joined the lineup in 1981.” (Mas7)

Absolute use of facts

“Afghanistan is the most mined country in the world where 15 million still lurk in the ground.” (Mas6) “The average man has a total cholesterol count of 202 milligrams per deciliter.” (Mas9)

Sarcastic, use of irony, wit, impunity, irreverence, one-upmanship, challenging

“All President Robert Mugabe needs is a Nazi armband.” (Mas6) “Happiness: His ‘n’ hers Prozac. . . . Four tips to stop your life from turning into a Meryl Streep movie. . . . Watch your blood pressure.” (Mas9)

Boasting

“Denver will sell out this week! Register today!” (Mas1) “My Financial Advisor is full of practical tools that you can use to improve your financial plan.” (Mas1) “Army proudly claims to be the most technologically advanced and highly skilled fighting force in the world.” (Mas2) “Join the best team in the world and become a member of today’s Army.” (Mas3) “The quickest Benz ever sold in America.” (Mas7)

Combative

“Muzzle your wife. A Mayo Clinic study found that people who slept with snorers lost a full hour of sleep.” (Mas9) “We will remain the most respected Army in the world.” (Mas2)

Brief and assertive Emphatic, frequent use of ! or capitalization

“Win this bag!” “The results are in!” “Men’s Journal: ADVENTURE.” (Mas12) ”Muscle and Fitness Magazine focuses on the growing attention paid to physical fitness and is edited by serious exercise and athletic training enthusiasts. They want to pump YOU up . . . . Now Available for Delivery Worldwide!” (Mas14)

Impersonal “he,” “it” address

“Mike Smith is 34.4 years old, 5 feet 9 1/2 inches tall, and weighs 175 pounds. He has black hair and brown eyes. He’s 71.7 percent white, 12.2 percent black, 11.6 percent Hispanic, 3.8 percent Asian, and 0.7 percent Native American. He speaks English but knows a little Spanish, too. Mike lives in California and works in the service industry. He’s married to Jennifer and has two kids, Michael Jr. and Emily. There is no child named Brittany. They don’t own a pony. Mike exercises less than three times a week, has 24 percent body fat, and is overweight by a couple of pounds. He earns about $36,100 a year, but his wife works, so he enjoys the median family income of $53,100. Mike (continues)

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Table 5. Continued Rhetoric signifiers

Examples

Impersonal “he,” “it” address (continued)

owes $51 grand on his three-bedroom house and about $2,563 on two credit cards. He will never play pro sports. That’s Mike Smith. He is the average man—a collection of statistics and marketing effluvia held together by bone and protoplasm. Mike Smith is a nice guy, a good guy, an average guy. And, according to the people who pull all those numbers together, he’s also you. Are you him? Are you as strong, fit, and healthy as he is? Do you get as much sex? Do you make as much money? Could you beat him in a mile run, or would he leave you sucking air?” (Mas9) Source: All examples quoted are from the texts of the corresponding Web sites identified in Appendix A.

and usually attribute the facts to their sources, as if deferring to another’s expertise, as shown in the Family Circle (Fem1) examples in Table 6. Contrast in Argumentation The masculine documents use witty, ironic, irreverent, sarcastic, challenging, boasting, and combative tones for argumentation (Mas9 in Table 5). In contrast, feminine documents often use questioning to prompt explanation (Fem2 in Table 6). Masculine Web sites attempt persuasion through boasting, use of exclamation marks, and capitalization for emphasis, as in: “Denver will sell out this week! Register today!” (Mas1) and “They want to pump YOU up. . . . Now Available for Delivery Worldwide!” (Mas14). See Table 5 for additional examples. In sharp contrast, feminine Web sites attempt to persuade through explanation (for example, Fem6 in Table 6). While masculine Web documents often use present tense assertions, we have found that feminine documents tend to qualify an explanation by using “-ing” verb forms to indicate that a situation is contingent or changeable, as in the example from Healthy Women (Fem7) in Table 6, which suggests that medical knowledge is continually developing rather than being fixed or absolute. To attract the reader’s attention, masculine Web documents use a challenging and combative rhetoric, whereas feminine documents contain warnings. Contrast the following example, “Muzzle your wife. A Mayo Clinic study found that people who slept with snorers lost a full hour of sleep” (Mas9), with the warning style of Fem7 in Table 6. The previous examples also show how the brief, assertive, and emphatic rhetoric signifiers for masculine Web documents contrast with the expansive and stylistic rhetoric in feminine documents. The stylistic rhetoric of the feminine Web document could be characterized as chatty or arty in a positive way designed specifically to share and enjoy the same style of communication with a sympathetic audience. Contrast this blunt statement from the Army Web document, “we will remain the most respected


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Table 6. Rhetoric Signifiers for Cultural Femininity Rhetoric signifiers

Examples

Intuition, feeling oriented, flexible (nonspecific)

“Often your creative spirit percolates to the surface during a good aerobic session.” (Fem4) “Music helps integrate physical senses with feelings and emotions, and you can call on the relaxation response when the music is played at other times of the day.” (Fem4) “In addition to these activities, just about any workout can help you get in touch with your spirituality.” (Fem4) “Researchers at Colorado State University in Fort Collins found that adding two bowls of high-fiber, nutrient-rich oat cereal to your diet each day can help reduce the amount of fat you eat.” (Fem1) “To sooth pains caused by overeating at a big meal, try peppermint tea. It has a calming effect on the stomach, says Linda Prout, M.S., nutrition therapist at the Claremont Resort & Spa in Berkeley, California.” (Fem1) “Modern medicine continues to evolve. Medical researchers are continually asking new questions and studying new theories about all types of diseases. This means that we do not have all the answers we need to treat many illnesses. Making medical decisions involves reviewing the most current knowledge available and making the best choice based on this information. Your healthcare professional should have the most up-to-date medical information, and you should feel comfortable asking him or her about the latest treatments for your condition.” (Fem7) “According to the National PTA, one of the most basic things you can do to foster your child’s ability to learn is to get involved.” (Fem5) “Hypnosis has been endorsed by a National Institutes of Health (NIH) panel for the relief of various types of chronic pain. (Fem7) “When diagnosed with a chronic or serious medical condition, suddenly the balance shifts—we are in a new, unfamiliar territory, yet we are expected to weigh the benefits and risks of treatments and to make the same types of decisions regarding our medical care.” (Fem7) “When was the last time you took a course in having a successful relationship or upgraded your love skills from basic love to advanced love?” (Fem2) “You probably framed your child’s first attempt at drawing or coloring, right?” (Fem4) “An emerging body of work from women writers and artists, however, is defining the erotic from a feminine perspective, drawing upon rich language, images and emotions. Not limited to what is overtly sexual, these writings encompass a more holistic view of beauty, love and sensuality in the experience of everyday living. So we ask women to take heart and go public on this formerly taboo subject.” (Fem6) (continues)

Attributed use of facts and numerical facts

Contextualizing by using “-ing”

Deference to expertise

Warning

Explanation by questioning the reader

Explanatory

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Table 6. Continued Rhetoric signifiers

Examples

Stylistic (arty) and expansive (chatty)

Arty: “Alabama-born, Manhattan-based designer Richard Keith Langham—no stranger to the gracious life and the grand gesture—came to her rescue.” (Fem11) “Yet this is not his most remarkable play on pattern. That honor is reserved for the Bessarabian rug he designed for the living room. . . . Along with the pink paint and the tongue-in-chic indoor palm trees, the rug makes a formidable room feel young and lighthearted. It is the decorative equivalent of witty repartee—a Langham specialty which cuts down the least hint of ostentation and saves a formal house from calcifying into a museum.” (Fem11) Chatty: “You’ll want to utilize every inch of your ‘small, urban back yard.’ Let’s not think of it as a bulb-only space. You’ll want to get your garden blooming in every area, throughout the entire season.” (Fem8) Personal “As you can see, Voices of Women offers a unique and “you” address, comprehensive empowerment package to the region and can relationship style be your doorway to a world of empowering opportunities. You can join this expanding and dynamic community simply by subscribing! ” (Fem6) “Hello from Cosmo! We’re writing to keep you totally in-the-know about all the exciting features available to Cosmo online readers right now.” (Fem12) Source: All examples quoted are from the texts of the corresponding Web sites identified in Appendix A.

Army in the world” (Mas2), with the two examples reported in Table 6 from Good Housekeeping (Fem11) for stylistic (arty) and House Beautiful (Fem8) for expansive (chatty) signifiers. Contrast in Impersonal and Personal Address Masculine Web documents appear to have more frequent use of impersonal address, whereas feminine documents tend to build a personal relationship with readers through a “you” orientation. This use of the second person resembles Buber’s idea of the “I–thou” relationship, stressing human-to-human relations rather than the human-toobject relations [20]. The feminine documents create an intimate relationship by using “you” to connect with readers, which is distinctly different from the imperative of masculine documents, which drop the “you” as understood to imply a more impersonal “one.” Table 5 provides examples of masculine rhetoric signifiers displaying wit, sarcasm, competitiveness, and the impersonal third person, whereas the last example of Table 6 shows how the femininity rhetoric signifiers use the personal pronoun “you” to connect women in mutually beneficial, caring, friendly, “I–thou,” and “we” relationships. Here, too, we conclude that the rhetoric signifiers for masculinity


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and femininity are consistent with the myths of upward divergence for masculinity and lateral convergence for femininity.

Syntactic Signifiers of Masculinity and Femininity Syntactic signifiers are related to rhetoric signifiers and to Searle’s theory of speech acts [107] and its applications in IS [59]. According to this theory, “speech acts are basic units of communication expressing a human intent, such as making a promise or asserting claims” [59, p. 169]. In looking for patterns and relationships among the signifiers in the rhetorical analysis of documents, we have found a distinct difference in the way masculine and feminine documents use syntactic signifiers. Masculine texts display a large incidence of imperative syntax, whereas feminine texts avoid imperative syntax by varying degrees of less imperative, less commanding, and more qualifying syntaxes. Through constant comparisons, categorizations, and recategorizations of data, we have identified six categories of syntactic structures: 1. Commanding imperative: you should or must do something. (“Do Y.”) 2. Embedded imperative: command is embedded in justification, explanation, circumstance, or related signifiers that circumscribe and lessen the force of the command. (“X is important. Do Y.”) 3. Questioning imperative: poses a direct question in order to urge compliance. (“Do you want X? Do Y.”) 4. Qualifying imperative: implies dependence on contingency that provides compliance options for the reader. (“If you want X, then do Y.”) 5. Suggestive imperative: implies a suggestion or recommendation that you can or may want to do something. (“You can do X” or “You will want to do X.”) 6. Indirect imperative: a nonimperative form that weakly implies doing something; often uses the “-ing” form. (“Doing X is a good idea” or “Doing X may be interesting.”) These syntactic categories range from direct (commanding imperative) to indirect (indirect imperative), as shown in Figure 2. However, all six syntactic categories are intended to persuade readers. They focus solely on imperative illocutionary directives for ordering, persuading, or coaxing others, as discussed below. The strength of each category depends on semantic and pragmatic levels. Therefore, the direction of the categories from direct to indirect holds true only when everything else remains the same. Commanding Imperative (Type 1) The most direct imperative is the commanding imperative, which frequently appears in masculine Web documents. This form is often delivered in an unmistakably authoritative and decisive tone. For example, when prompting their audiences to participate in activities, the Promise Keepers and Gentlemen’s Quarterly Web sites use the imperative commands “Tune in and ‘Get in the game’” (Mas1) and “Acquire

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Figure 2. Categories of Discovered Syntactic Signifiers

these competencies by earning a master’s degree from . . .” (Mas11). Other masculine documents combine the imperative command to act or do something with additional masculine signifiers of success, boasting, and performance, as in “Join the best team in the world and become a member of today’s Army” (Mas3). Similarly, Car and Driver urges readers to “Enter today for your chance to win some authentic C/D gear” (Mas7), combining masculine signifiers of winning and performance with a direct imperative. While the authoritative “commanding imperative” is common in masculine Web documents, feminine Web sites usually avoid it, except when combined with femininity signifiers that soften the commanding tone. For example, we have found commanding imperatives couched in suggestive, qualifying, and justifying tones, as in the following list (Fem3): • Give a bouquet of daises to a friend, just because. • Start a new sewing project, even if you’ve never picked up a needle and thread before. You’ll be amazed at the level of accomplishment. • Sleep in as late as you can on a Saturday—without feeling guilty.” Embedded Imperative (Type 2) Feminine Web documents often embed imperatives within justification and extended explanation, a technique that seemed to be absent from commands in masculine Web documents. For example, the Healthy Women Web site embeds the command to “Take steps” within a sympathetic you-oriented opening and a lengthy explanation of why the recommended action is good for you:


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Your good health starts with you. Take steps to reduce your risk of disease and talk to your healthcare professional about your potential health concerns. Women now demand more from medical research and from the healthcare system. As a result, more women have become partners in their medical care, working with their healthcare professionals to make medical decisions. Here are several tips that you can follow to be an active partner in managing your health. (Fem7) Feminine sites also soften imperative commands by changing the syntax to a “you can do X” or “you may want to use Y” structure, which both personalizes the statement and makes it more suggestive. This avoids the starkness of an actual command, as in “You can automate all kinds of tasks around the house . . . you may want to use low tech modules” (Fem8). This embedded imperative contrasts strongly with instructions in Promise Keepers directing readers to “Get your video, DVD, or Soundtrack . . .” (Mas1). The Popular Mechanics site provides a whole page of instructions for changing the oil in your car that consists of 13 concise, authoritative imperative commands with little or no explanation, no embedding, and no use of such softening phrases as “you can” or “you might.” In contrast, Good Housekeeping provides advice in the following way: You can automate all kinds of tasks around your house with relatively inexpensive plug-and-play products and software such as Active Home by X-10 Wireless Technology ($50; 800-675-3044) or IBM’s Home Director Starter Kit ($29; 800-762-7846). These packages, both for the PC only, link your computer to your house wiring, so you can manage appliances from the keyboard or a remote control. For simple on/off functions, you may want to use lower-tech modules that plug into your outlets. (Fem8) Brody [17] argues that the concise, directive, and authoritative style of writing has been valorized by a long tradition of “manly writing” and “plain speaking” in the masculine tradition of Western culture, whereas the more fluent and loquacious feminine style has been marginalized as less authoritative. Although the “manly style” may dominate technical communication and instructional writing in our more masculine American culture, the feminine use of embedded imperatives may offer a style of instructional writing more compatible with audiences from feminine cultures. Another contrast in the use of imperatives appears in the feminine embedding of an imperative form within phrases emphasizing a conscientious politeness not present in many masculine documents. This is shown in the use of “please” in the Country Living site, where viewers are asked, “Do you have a question for Rebecca? Please submit it here and check back each week to see a new reply” (Fem9). Questioning Imperative (Type 3) This form of imperative is less persuasive in that it provides the reader an option of not following the suggestion by first posing a question. For example, “When was the last time you took a course in having a successful relationship?” (Fem2). In some cases, the questioning imperative is followed with a friendly imperative answer, as in

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“Does shopping take the happy out of your holidays? Relax. We’ve got all your shopping needs covered” (Fem3). Or, it combines qualifying and questioning imperatives, as in “Computer smart? If you have a home computer and want to have some educational software to enhance your child’s learning, you should remember that good educational software is interactive” (Fem4), which also displays the expansive rhetorical style of femininity already discussed. Qualifying Imperative (Type 4) We have found another imperative usage, which we call the “qualifying imperative.” This imperative occurs more often in feminine Web documents than in masculine documents, and takes the form of “If you want something, then you need to do X to get it.” Here, some contingency or condition qualifies the imperative so that it applies to the person only if he or she assents to the condition. For example, “If helping releaf our planet appeals to you, check out American Forests, the oldest nonprofit organization in the country” (Fem1). Thus, the qualifying imperative is weaker than the questioning imperative described in the previous section. Suggestive Imperative (Type 5) We have observed another feminine version of the imperative form, the suggestive imperative. Rather than blatantly commanding, the form suggests that you can or might want do something. For example, “The Transforming Power of Unconditional Love: Learn how giving unconditional love can improve your relationships and lead you to a peaceful place of healing” (Fem2). In this case, the message suggests that it is possible for you to accomplish something desirable through a “giving” love relationship that achieves healing and thus improves your quality of life. Although “learn” is the actual imperative here, the emphasis shifts to the suggestive “can” and away from the imperative command. Thus, the suggestive imperative is gentler than the other imperatives. Similarly, the admonition “It’s not too late to get a flu shot” (Fem7) also shows this form. Rather than simply using the commanding imperative “Get a flu shot!” the commanding imperative is transformed into a gentle reminder. Such suggestive advice shows sensitivity to the reader’s subjective situation, implying that the imperative may or may not be followed, according to the reader’s needs. Indirect Imperative (Type 6) Finally, a sixth form of the imperative, often observed in feminine Web documents, uses an “indirect imperative” approach in suggesting that the reader do something. The indirect imperative often uses an “-ing” form or a rhetorical question and is the furthest removed in forcefulness from the masculine commanding imperative form. For example, Commitment features the following simple indirect suggestion: “Banking Online: Understanding the Potential Risks and Rewards” (Fem2). This example does not constitute a direct imperative but implies that understanding the risks and


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rewards might make it possible for you to bank online, and therefore indirectly recommends the activity. Similarly, substituting a question or request achieves indirectness: “Anyone have any suggestions on what to try so I don’t get green, orange, or red hair?” (Fem8). Here, rather than telling others to “send information,” the example employs an indirect request for information.

Contrast in Androgyny WHILE IDENTIFYING AND CONTRASTING WEB SITES intended for predominantly female or male audiences, we have encountered several sites that aimed their communications at one gender, but have used dominant signifiers from the other gender. For example, NOW (National Organization for Women) clearly has a female focus, but employs primarily masculine signifiers to get its message across. We have observed a number of such signifiers (such as brevity, assertiveness, combativeness, and leadership values) in NOW’s Web documents, as in “NOW Applauds Senate Judiciary Committee Rejection of Pricilla Owen Nomination” and “NOW supports proven leadership for women’s equality in New Hampshire” (Fem27). We call such combinations “feminine androgyny.” Similarly, Web sites clearly intended for men, such as Dadsnow.com or MensJournal.com, deploy a large number of feminine signifiers when they discuss topics such as family or food preparation. We call such combinations “masculine androgyny.” Contrasting androgynous Web documents allows us to investigate which signifiers are assimilated from one group into the other. Furthermore, those signifiers that persist in each group (masculine or feminine) could be considered core signifiers. We should caution that since the number of androgynous Web sites in our analysis is small, our results in this respect should be considered preliminary and tentative. In general, we have observed that both masculine and feminine androgynies retain most of their belief signifiers. However, feminine androgyny adopts many masculine belief signifiers (strength, performance, power, success, leadership, heroism, money, and skills), whereas masculine androgyny adopts very few (if any) feminine belief signifiers. This pattern of adoption reverses in attitude signifiers, in that masculine androgyny adopts many feminine attitude signifiers (such as helpful, friendly, worrying, and caring). We have observed one stark exception: masculine androgyny seems to resist direct adoption of feminine “emotional” attitude signifiers. The article “Remembering September 11” from Father’s World illustrates this point: I was driving my 13-year-old son to school. It was overcast. I was wearing blue jeans. His shoes were untied. My knee was sore from hiking the day before. The car smelled faintly of spearmint gum. At 7:45 A.M., Pacific Standard Time, I turned on the radio. I have no memory of the rest of our drive, until we arrived at school. (Mas24) While the passage implies an intense emotion, the emotion is not directly expressed (also note the short sentences and factual nature of statements). We have found little evidence of feminine androgyny adopting masculine attitude signifiers (except for bargaining for money). Feminine androgyny retains its caring, togetherness, “you–

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we,” commitment, and relationship focus. In rhetoric signifiers, however, we have observed that feminine androgyny adopts many, if not all, masculine signifiers. Masculine androgyny retains almost all of its rhetoric signifiers and rarely adopts feminine signifiers such as “you” address and “warning” signifiers. Among syntactic signifiers, we have also observed more adaptation of masculine signifiers by feminine androgyny than vice versa. Our findings show that feminine androgyny adopts almost all masculine signifiers except for masculine attitude signifiers while retaining its feminine belief signifiers, whereas masculine androgyny retains all its signifiers and adds only feminine attitude signifiers and a few rhetoric and syntactic signifiers. Feminine androgyny displays far more transference toward masculine signifiers than masculine androgyny displays toward feminine signifiers. From our limited observations, we conclude that feminine androgyny abandons its myth of lateral convergence in favor of upward convergence in that it strives to converge with its masculine counterpart while continuing to focus on caring, sharing, you–we, togetherness, and commitment. On the other hand, masculine androgyny keeps its myth of upward divergence but carries it out with more feminine attitude signifiers and a somewhat modified rhetoric.

Literature Review and Integration Phase THE LAST PHASE OF GROUNDED THEORY involves a thorough review of literature to integrate the emerging theory with existing knowledge and to highlight the contributions of the emergent theory. Our findings concerning cultural signifiers for masculinity and femininity are supported by a diverse literature on culture and gender published in a variety of fields.

IS Literature Although there is a strong and growing interest in cultural differences related to the use and adoption of information technology (IT), few studies differentiate cultural masculinity and femininity as a major determinant in IS. Most gender-related research studies in IS focus on biological gender. For example, women’s encounters with IT have been investigated by Adam et al. [1], Igbaria and Baroudi [57], Igbaria and Chidambaram [58], Kase and Trauth [62], Lim and Teo [76], Morgan et al. [85], Smits et al. [109], Thatcher et al. [117], Trauth [119], von Hellens et al. [126], and Wilson [131]. Von Hellens et al. [126] refer to gender-specific dualism in IT work and observe a number of contrasting dualisms between men and women, including men’s assertiveness and technical skills contrasting with women’s communication skills. There are also studies on gender differences in end-user computing [51], female retention in the computer science major [27], gender-based student perceptions of IS work [50], and the use of decision support systems for making decisions [93, 99]. Gefen and Straub [39] extend the technology acceptance model by including social presence information richness (SPIR) and the moderating effect of gender. They re-


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port that women perceive a higher degree of social presence in e-mail communication than do men. Furthermore, women consider e-mail to be more useful and are more likely to use it. Similarly, studies have reported differences, across genders, in terms of computer conferencing and communication styles [62, 113]. Stowers [113] shows that, when involved in a computer conference, men post more informational items, whereas women post more discussion, personal, and support items. Jackson et al. [60] report in their analysis that women use the Internet for communication, whereas men use the Internet for searching the Web. Our results on the feminine lateral convergence myth explain the rapport-building tendencies in communications among women. Furthermore, Dittmar et al. [32] explore the attitude changes among men and women when shifting from brick-and-mortar to online shopping. While men’s attitudes do not change, women become less involved in shopping and more concerned with barriers and facilitators of online shopping. Venkatesh and his colleagues use the theory of planned behavior in studying the role of gender in technology acceptance and use. Venkatesh and Morris [123] report the influence of biological gender. In a longitudinal study, Venkatesh et al. [124] report that men’s reactions and use are more strongly influenced by their attitude toward using the new technology, whereas women’s reactions and use are influenced by their perception of subjective norm and behavioral control. Morris et al. [86] report on the interplay of age and gender in the acceptance and use of new technology in a similar vein. Of the literature we have examined, only Venkatesh et al. [125] explore the role of masculinity and femininity in IT. They report that technology usage decisions are more strongly influenced by perceptions of usefulness in men, whereas women are more strongly influenced by perceptions of ease of use and subjective norms. These findings are consistent with the feminine belief signifiers of relationship and the myth of lateral convergence. This myth implies that any communication technology that increases the likelihood of convergence and aids in relationship building would more often be perceived as useful by women than by men. On the other hand, men’s focus on the usefulness of the technology as a tool to increase performance and success is consistent with the masculine myth of upward divergence. Further evidence could be found in Argamon et al. [8] and Koppel et al. [66], who show that quantitative techniques in an automated text categorization tool could predict the gender of the author with 80 percent accuracy. They report that women use many more personal pronouns (I, you, she, her, myself, yourself, herself) to present things in a relational or “involved” way and to personalize the writer–reader relationship. Men use many more determiners (that, these), quantifiers (one, two, more, some), and plurals (they) to encode things in classes, to quantify information, and to depersonalize and create a masculine “informative” style. While these results correspond with our findings, we note that such algorithms for determining gender identity could be fooled easily, because women can write in a masculine style and men can write in a feminine style. Therefore, we emphasize that it is the cultural signifiers embedded in the text, rather than the biological gender of the authors, that determine the suitability of the document for masculine or feminine audiences.

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To explore the possibility of multiple perspectives as recommended by Klein and Myers [64] and grounded theory, we have exposed our results to the relevant findings in various disciplines, as reported below.

Literature on Feminine Relationship/Emotion and Masculine Success Rosenblat [103] categorizes masculine and feminine reading styles based on differences in reading goals, identifying the masculine style as “cognitive” with an informational goal and the feminine style as “affective” with an experiential and relationship goal [112]. This dichotomy is also consistent with sociolinguistic research related to gender-based communications [14, 26]. Moreover, Stern and Holbrook’s research [112] on masculine and feminine romance in advertising reveals the centrality of love and success in marriage and relationship (winning a commitment) in feminine fictions, whereas masculine fictions focus on conquest and success (winning a sexual adventure with no ties). In technical writing, Allen [5] similarly confirms that women tend toward harmonizing and shy away from confrontation in professional communications. Brannon [15] and Rapping [100] observe that advertising in women’s magazines emphasizes relationships, not financial advice or careers, whereas ads in magazines aimed at boys and men use more tough words and have little emphasis on relationships. In career building, Gallos [38] finds that career development is linked to relationships and attachments for women, whereas career development for men leads to autonomy and greater separation. Similarly, Van Velsor and Hughes [122] report that women place a greater reliance on relationships as sources of career learning and development than do men.

Literature on Masculine Independence and Leadership Tannen [114] discusses masculine and feminine communication styles and argues that masculine communication focuses on hierarchy and competition for attaining and showing status [15, 114]. Further support for the leadership signifier in masculinity could be found in a study by Walker et al., reporting that “in mixed gender groups, males are five times more likely than females to exercise opinion leadership” [127, p. 255]. Kent and Moss [63] have studied the effects of gender and sex roles on the perceptions of leaders and on how a leader emerges. They conclude that subjects possessing androgynous and masculine traits were those most likely to emerge as leaders.

Literature on Feminine Empathy and “Other” Orientation Stern and Holbrook, in the interpretation of advertising, observe that the female observer “tends to regard her reading as demonstrating the feminine virtue of empathy” as opposed to the male observer’s “more distanced propensity to pass evaluative judg-


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ment” [112, p. 38]. Furthermore, in the analysis of “help-self” versus “help-others” tendencies in advertising for charity giving, Brunel and Nelson [18] conclude that male respondents prefer “help-self” ads, whereas female givers prefer “help-other” ads. Similar findings support women’s “other-focus” as a femininity signifier. Robnett [102] observes that in the civil rights movement, women had more nurturing and caring roles than men. Manza and Brooks [80] conclude that women tend to favor Democratic candidates due to their appeals to feminine nurturing issues such as health care, education, and child-based themes, whereas Republican candidates espouse more masculine issues such as resistance to the Equal Rights Amendment, support for an aggressive military policy, and opposition to abortion. Glass and Camarigg [43] show that women often prefer nurturing professions and are willing to accept low-paying jobs that allow time for family and child rearing, choices that support commitment, giving, and concerns for quality of life. Finally, McAdam [83] reports that women tend to occupy supporting roles with a nurturing emphasis.

Literature on Masculine Power, Money, Competitiveness, and Self-Orientation Several studies of organized sports link masculinity with aggression, power, and dominance. They argue that organized sports represent masculinity by promoting achievement, respect for authority, dominance over peers, and low sensitivity to other people [19, 34, 92]. Furthermore, Koretz [68] reports that females are far less responsive to competitive pressure than males. Beutel and Marini observe that “females are more likely than males to express concern and responsibility, less likely than males to accept materialism and competition,” and that female relationships are “characterized by greater emotional intimacy, self-disclosure, and supportiveness” [13, p. 436]. Moreover, Brines [16] reports that regarding division of labor in the home environment, earning money is a clear marker of masculinity.

Literature on Masculinity and Femininity Contrasts Various psychological theories (such as gender schema theory and gender script theory) explain the masculinity–femininity dichotomy through internal differences or social learning [15]. Moreover, specific differences appear in research on personality traits, which shows that some traits are more common in women than men [22]. “Women score higher on traits such as empathy, guilt, fear, and altruism, whereas men score higher on such traits as dominance, aggressiveness, excitement seeking, and anger” [44, p. 75]. Bem [11, 12], in her inventory of the personality traits, similarly identifies masculine traits as aggressive, competitive, forceful, independent, individualistic, selfreliant, and self-sufficient, and femininity traits as cheerful, childlike, avoiding harsh language, gentle, soft-spoken, sympathetic, understanding, warm, and yielding. Using three studies, Giligan [40] argues that women speak in different voices than men, are more caring, less competitive, and less abstract than men, and use the ethic of care in moral issues, whereas men use the ethic of justice. In advertising, Albers-Miller

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and Gelb [4] report that “effective,” “convenient,” and “productivity” appeals correlate positively with cultural masculinity, whereas “natural,” “frail,” and “modest” appeals correlate negatively with masculinity. These findings correspond with the performance signifiers found in our study. Considering emotional expressions, anger is the only emotion that is missing from feminine stereotypes and is the only emotion attributed to masculinity [52, 97]. This difference is attributed to the nurturing and care-giving specialization of females and the aggressive and competitive specialization of males [15].

Literature on Masculine Absolute Facts and Quantitative Orientation The feminist critics of scientific methods provide support for our findings regarding masculine quantitative orientation and absolutism in communicating facts. Oakley [91] argues that the quantitative/qualitative dichotomy in scientific methodology has a gender association. Feminists tend to criticize a masculine bias toward experimental methods (positivist) in science and social science, and favor the primacy of the “qualitative” (interpretivist) approach. They support a research paradigm that would allow “women studying women in an interactive process without the artificial object/subject split between researcher and researched” [91, p. 33].

Literature on Feminine Lateral Convergence and Masculine Upward Convergence Myths In an empirical study of gender stereotypes and writing styles in two Internet mailing lists, Herring [53] identifies gender differences and concludes that men tend to express their views as assertions of “fact” and engage in contests, whereas women tend to express support for others, create solidarity, and promote harmonious interaction. In a follow-up study, Mak confirms Herring’s findings and reports that in electronic conferences, men used many adversarial, assertive, and aggressive comments to challenge others, but women posted more messages to build rapport, to foster a sense of community, and “to provide social support to one another through affirmation, appreciation for help/support and encouragement” [79, p. 36]. Both studies support the masculine myth of upward divergence versus the feminine myth of lateral convergence. Further evidence could be found in developmental psychology. Freud’s psychological theory invokes the tragedy of Oedipus Rex (Oedipus inadvertently kills his father and marries his mother) to hypothesize that young men’s feelings of aggression, competition, and hatred for their father arise from competing for the affection of their mother, and are resolved by redirecting these feelings toward legitimate and socially accepted competitiveness. In contrast, Butler [23] theorizes the developmental process from a feminist perspective by invoking the tragedy of Antigone. In this tragedy, Oedipus’s daughter, Antigone, seeks to restore the family bonds in defiance of the male authority, King Creon. Thus, Antigone represents a new idea of femininity, which asserts the right of kinship as a principle of family relationships that super-


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sedes the abstract universal law represented by the masculine state and its monarch. Butler [23] further suggests that Freud’s psychological model relies on masculinity signifiers such as struggle, conflict, winning, and success that are firmly embedded in the Oedipal myth. She asks, “What would happen if psychoanalysis were to have taken Antigone rather than Oedipus as its point of departure?” [23, p. 57], suggesting that family relations might provide a more inclusive psychological model based on femininity signifiers. In the same vein, Chodorow [25] posits that girls’ personality development is in harmony with their mothers, which promotes interpersonal closeness, whereas boys must separate themselves from their mothers in order to establish their gender identity. Giligan [40] similarly argues that the male’s moral sense is more likely based on abstract principles of justice, whereas the female’s is more likely based on the value of human relationships. Likewise, Brannon observes that “Men are oriented toward ‘separateness,’ whereas women are oriented toward ‘connectedness’ and ‘care’” [15, p. 119]. Hence, the differences in masculine and feminine signifiers that we have identified, particularly the belief and attitude signifiers, are consistent with both Freudian and feminist psychologies.

Literature on Androgyny In discussing measures of femininity and masculinity, Bem refers to androgyny as “the relative amounts of masculinity and femininity that the person includes in his or her self-description” [11, p. 158]. Venkatesh et al. [125] use Bem’s measures to categorize employees into masculine, feminine, and androgynous. They report on the presence of a large percentage of androgynous female employees who exhibit results similar to masculine employees. In technical communication, Lay [71, 72, 73] identifies gender differences in students’ collaborative writing strategies, noting a feminine tendency toward connectedness and caring and a masculine tendency to engage in conflict and argumentation. This finding leads her to recommend “androgyny” as a strategy enabling each gender to adopt and benefit from the successful collaborative strategies of the opposing gender. Smith and Thomson’s [108] extensive review of recent scholarship confirms the emergence of androgyny as a successful cross-gender communication strategy. Flynn et al. [36] associate “hierarchical collaboration” with masculine behaviors that create problems for women’s participation in mixedgender writing teams, and they recommend strategies for writing teams that favor feminine behaviors of “dialogic collaboration.” In a study of the relationship between eating disorders and gender roles, Timko et al. [118] refer to the “superwomen.” These women “are expected to encompass traits of both traditional masculine and traditional feminine gender role stereotypes” [44, p. 76]. Moreover, Fischer and Gainer report that women involved in sports must “play by men’s rules” and “become or act as ‘masculine’” to gain participatory status [34, p. 100]. While feminine androgyny adopts masculine traits, studies show that boys receive significant pressure to maintain their masculine gender roles [15].

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Igbaria and Baroudi [57] refer to gender stereotyping to explain how the interaction between gender and performance may cause discrimination against high-performing female IS employees. Wilson [131, 132] also refers to gendered spheres in discussing gender and technology. Gender stereotyping has its history in the “doctrine of two spheres”—men and women have divergent interests and spheres of influence [75]. The “cult of true women” (developed between 1820 and 1860) identifies femininity with piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity [129]. Its masculine counterpart, “male sex role identity” [98], identifies masculinity with “no sissy stuff,” success, status, confidence, self-reliance, aggression, and daring [15]. Hence, masculinity resists any move toward femininity (“no sissy stuff”), whereas such a resistance is not inherent in femininity, so that girls who act as “tomboys” may achieve positive notoriety. Along the same line, Jung [61] identifies masculinity and femininity as complementary psychological forces that exist together within every person. In cultural terms, men tend to appear outwardly and consciously masculine, but possess an inward, less visible, and less conscious feminine character potential. The opposite is true for women. Jung’s psychology resembles Haraway’s [49] concept of the “cyborg” consciousness, which is capable of androgynous recombination of masculine and feminine parts into an evolving mix of gender possibilities. In a cross-generational study, Guastello and Guastello [45] show a movement toward androgyny from the older to the younger generation.

Discussion and Implications IT IS INSTRUCTIVE TO CAST OUR FINDINGS in Habermas’s typology of knowledge interests, since such a framework provides a road map for using our results from multiple perspectives. In developing critical social theory, Habermas [46] argues that all human inquiries are driven by three knowledge interests—technical, practical, and emancipatory. Technical knowledge interest is based on rationality and develops the means to achieve given goals; hence, it is evaluated by how well the goals are achieved. One of the important aspects of practical knowledge is to understand “social forms of life, traditions, social behavior and relations,” which produces “improved social consciousness and humanity” and is validated with regard to “truth and clarity” [89, p. 270]. “Emancipatory knowledge interest is related to our concern for freedom from physical and mental restrictions and social distortions” [89, p. 270]. Emancipatory knowledge interest uses dialectic for critical reflection on the existing structure and promotes freedom. Habermas [47] distinguishes between “communicative action” (which intends to reach understanding) and “strategic action” (which intends to exert influence). Critical hermeneutics promotes communications that are free of dominance and distortions. Our findings can be evaluated at all three levels of knowledge interest. For technical knowledge interest, our findings about the signifiers of masculinity and femininity alert Web developers and designers of cultural signifiers within text documents. Furthermore, our results motivate Web designers, seeking to improve the communi-


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cative effectiveness of their Web sites, to be cognizant of the cultural tendencies of their target audience, and to create documents that are in line with the audience’s culture. Our findings also extend existing knowledge about how to create Web documents that are in harmony with masculine, feminine, or androgynous cultures. It is possible to personalize Web documents and Web sites based on the masculinity or femininity of Web users, identified by the pattern of their behaviors when visiting Web sites. Furthermore, our results reinforce those by Venkatesh et al. [125] and alert researchers to be cognizant of the differential role cultural gender plays in developing and testing behavior models in IS. Moreover, these findings may help explain differences attributed to gender effects in IS research. We also need to compare the information richness and communication effectiveness of the duality of masculinity–femininity versus androgyny in creating Web documents. This issue is of critical importance to the multicultural and global nature of Web-based information exchange. If usability and design studies of Web sites are to serve culturally diverse groups, then researchers and practitioners alike should address questions such as: Is androgynous culture the best way to develop Web documents? Under what circumstances would a purely masculine or purely feminine culture constitute the most effective and useful way to prepare documents? Should organizations examine their Web sites for hidden cultural signifiers that run counter to their audience’s culture? For practical knowledge interest, our findings expose differences in masculine and feminine communicative actions on the Web and raise our collective consciousness concerning social implications of using (or not using) each class of signifiers. Our results promote a greater “self-understanding” of our communicative actions. They raise our awareness of the values and beliefs that such actions intentionally or unintentionally convey and promote. Such self-awareness may initiate intellectual debate about the impact of signifiers in cultural stereotyping. One may raise questions such as: Does self-awareness of masculinity and femininity signifiers help us write and communicate more clearly? Does such self-awareness lead us to extreme masculinity– femininity positions or to androgyny? Does such self-awareness promote a multicultural mode of writing and communications on the Web and in other channels? For the emancipatory knowledge interest, our findings open an avenue for the dialectic of masculinity, femininity, and androgyny. We now can ask: Are there dominant cultural signifiers of masculinity or femininity in corporate and government Web documents? Could masculinity and femininity signifiers be used to identify the dominant culture within an organization or community? Does the use of dominant signifiers help define and promote certain cultural values that may not be shared by a majority of members in the community for whom the documents are created? Is the move toward masculine or feminine androgyny the right path in reducing distortions in Web document communication? The distinct differences between masculinity and femininity signifiers could be studied as contradictions that need to be overcome in order to improve Web development processes. This is the “activity theory” perspective, which is a superset of critical social theory. (See, for example, Kuuti [69] and Truex [120] for an exposition of this theory

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from the IS perspective.) In this theory, the unit of analysis for human praxis is defined as “activity,” which is midway between individual and social dichotomy and is “a minimal meaningful context for individual actions” [69, p. 531]. From this perspective, researchers may raise questions pertinent to the developmental process of Web documents, such as: Do differences in masculinity–femininity signifiers indicate potential conflicts in the cultures of creators and users of Web documents? Are there “culturally more advanced forms” of Web document creation? Is androgyny a more advanced form of communication in Web documents or just a more subtle form of the same cultural message and myth? Does the use of signifiers impact activities performed by Web site creators and users and their cultural environments? In sum, the activity theory perspective sheds a critical light on the possible hidden conflicts that the signifiers may uncover and proposes facing contradictions in order to overcome them.

Limitations and Future Directions CRITICAL SOCIAL THEORY RECOGNIZES that social science is not value free and that scientists are responsible for explicitly identifying their value positions. We therefore acknowledge that our findings are colored by the biases and foreknowledge of the first two authors, who performed the data collection and analyses. We neither claim time and space invariance of our findings nor posit their unconditional generality. This work calls for further explorations and extensions as well as alternative interpretations. Furthermore, our work indicates the presence of masculine and feminine androgyny in Web documents, which should be investigated in greater depth for its structure and evolution over time. Moreover, we have limited the data set to North American Web sites. A multicountry investigation of signifiers may shed light on differences in cultural signifiers around the world. Given the global nature of the Internet, the awareness of cultural differences in Web documents would be of particular interest for the promotion of Web-based global communication. Hence, the next stage of this study is a multicountry investigation of our findings and an extension to include other cultural dimensions, such as power distance, individualism–collectivism, and uncertainty avoidance. Furthermore, our analysis has focused on textual contents. One may ask whether similar signifiers may be present in graphics and other forms of communication on the Web and other venues. Our work has strong implications for future usability research. It casts doubt on the possibility of creating universally preferred Web documents and calls for a fundamental rethinking of usability design and evaluation of Web sites. Furthermore, our results indicate a need for culturally sensitive measures of usability and the development of cultural-fit theories for Web site design. IS researchers who incorporate gender into their research need to distinguish biological gender from cultural masculinity and femininity. More importantly, comparative studies of Web design for e-commerce, e-government, and information providers need to address the impact of Web sites’ hidden cultural differences on users. Finally, we have shown that it is possible to identify cultural signifiers in Web documents. Using the vocabulary of Monod et al. [84], we have also shown how signifiers


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in Web documents reflect a set of mythologies, organized by an “obscure set of anonymous rules” [36, p. 210, also quoted in 84, p. 250]. Collectively these rules form a “sociology of language” that evolves over time. It would be of great interest to study how these obscure rules of culture change over time as they simultaneously reflect and promote social evolution. Hence, one can argue that Web documents are leading informants of cultural change. While the Web demands that its designers foster cultural awareness in order to satisfy user needs, the Web also informs us of evolving cultural movements. Investigation of cultural movements could inform us of mythologies that govern and shape the Web’s possibilities for usability, social interaction, and emancipation. In promoting communication effectiveness, in general, and Web usability, in particular, IS researchers and managers need to be informed of this dual cultural role of the Web. Our paper is a first attempt at building a conceptual framework for studying culture from the Internet and for the Internet.

Conclusion THIS STUDY MAKES THE FIRST ATTEMPT to investigate and identify signifiers of cultural masculinity and femininity in Web documents. The uncovering of these signifiers may bring to light the hidden cultural constructs present in Web documents, which could enhance or inhibit their communication effectiveness. Our research takes an interpretivist approach and uses grounded theory as the method of analysis. Semiotics and hermeneutics guided the data collection and analysis processes. The analysis led to the emergence of masculinity and femininity cultural signifiers and myths. We have found four categories of signifiers—belief, attitude, rhetoric, and syntactic— and identified the myth of lateral convergence for femininity and upward divergence for masculinity. We also have identified the presence of feminine androgyny and masculine androgyny, which changes the feminine myth of lateral convergence to upward convergence in the case of feminine androgyny and reinforces the persistence of upward divergence with modified attitude in the case of masculine androgyny. We have searched the literature in multiple fields to integrate our findings with the current knowledge in these fields. Our results could be used to explain findings related to the effects of gender differences in IS research and to predict differences in beliefs and attitudes with respect to technology and its use. We also have found strong support for our results in other disciplines, including technical writing, psychology, personality development, gender studies, feminist criticism, marketing, and sociology. Our results indicate the presence of strong signifiers of masculinity and femininity in Web documents written in U.S. English, and raise our collective consciousness about the possible use of these signifiers for more effective communication on the Web.

NOTE 1. “In Greek, hermeneutikos means ‘interpreter,’” from Hermes, the messenger God [29, p. 149]. Hermes “had to understand and interpret for himself what the gods wanted to convey before he could proceed to translate, articulate, and explicate their intentions to mortals” [87, p. 1].

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URL familycircle.com commitment.com womensday.com womencentralmsn.com womencentralmsn.com voicesofwomen.com healthywomen.com www.goodhousekeeping.com www.countryliving.com women.com www.housebeautiful.com mywomen.com

Name

Family Circle Commitment Woman’s Day MSN Women Central—fitness MSN Women Central—family Voices of Women Healthy Women Good Housekeeping Country Living Women Message Boards House Beautiful Cosmos

Table A1. Data Set for Femininity Analysis

Appendix A. Data Sources (Collected During 2000–2002)

1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Number of Web pages used

16 18 13 7 7 15 17 3 6 4 6 11

Number of text units examined

Fem1 Fem2 Fem3 Fem4 Fem5 Fem6 Fem7 Fem8 Fem9 Fem10 Fem11 Fem12

Identifier code for reference

126 ZAHEDI, VAN PELT, AND SRITE

Ladies’ Home Journal Allure Bride’s Magazine Sports Illustrated Women Essence All Navy Women’s National Alliance Military Women Organization Daughters of the American Revolution Vanity Fair American Business Women’s Association Foreign Wives of Iranian Men National Council of Women’s Organizations Women’s Resource Guide (feminine androgyny) Women in Technology International (feminine androgyny) National Organization for Women (feminine androgyny) Total 1 1 1 3 2 1 1 1 3 1 2 2 1 2 10 45

www.lhj.com www.allure.com www.brides.com www.siwomen.com www.essence.com www.anwna.com www.military.org www.dar.org www.vanityfair.com www.abwahq.org www.zanamu.com www.womensorganizations.com www.geocities.com/Wellesley www.witi.com www.now.org

47 266

19

2

5 8 1 22 6 3 4 3 6 7 5 5

Fem27

Fem26

Fem25

Fem13 Fem14 Fem15 Fem16 Fem17 Fem18 Fem19 Fem20 Fem21 Fem22 Fem23 Fem24

WEB DOCUMENTS’ CULTURAL MASCULINITY AND FEMININITY 127

promisekeepers.org usmilitary.com, army.mil goarmy.com fieldstream.com masters.com sofmag.com caranddriver.com www.popularmechanics.com menshealth.com playboy.com gq.com mensjournal.com sportsillustrated.cnn.com www.mensfitness.com www.maximonline.com www.menshealthnetwork.org www.e-mensmd.com www.askmen.com www.nfl.com www.dadsnow.com www.100blackmen.org

Promise Keepers U.S. Army Army Life Field and Stream Golf Masters Soldier of Fortune Car and Driver Popular Mechanics Men’s Health Playboy Gentlemen’s Quarterly Men’s Journal Sports Illustrated Men’s Fitness Maxim Men’s Health Network Men’s Total Health Digest Free Men’s Online Magazine NFL Dadsnow.com 100 Black Men of America Men’s Resource Center of Western Massachusetts (masculine androgyny) Nation of Men (masculine androgyny) Father’s World (masculine androgyny) Total www.valient.com www.eyesofmen.com www.fathersworld.com

URL

Name

Table A2. Data Set for Masculinity Analysis

1 2 4 45

1 2 1 3 1 1 2 3 1 1 1 2 2 1 3 1 1 8 1 1 1

Number of Web pages used

7 9 54 288

12 4 7 14 4 10 4 24 9 4 8 8 12 4 9 3 3 66 3 7 3

Number of text units examined

Mas22 Mas23 Mas24

Mas1 Mas2 Mas3 Mas4 Mas5 Mas6 Mas7 Mas8 Mas9 Mas10 Mas11 Mas12 Mas13 Mas14 Mas15 Mas16 Mas17 Mas18 Mas19 Mas20 Mas21

Identifier code for reference

128 ZAHEDI, VAN PELT, AND SRITE