Second Life and Gender

Chapter 2 of the Rymaszewski text (Second Life: The Official Guide) gives some useful suggestions for getting started in this virtual world. Very helpful was the link for keypad shortcuts in Second Life. This can be found at http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Help:Keyboard_shortcut_keys and has shortcuts for everything from changing one’s view to looking at one’s inventory. Once logged back into Second Life, I was able to hit Control-I to see my inventory and found that I, much as expected, had not accumulated much of anything.

Further reading in Chapter 2 informed me of advantages of different views (e.g. the first person view vs. the mouselook – top bar under views). Upon trying the mouselook, I could see its potential advantages but found that it made me a bit motion sick. This did, however result in the most serendipitous occurrence for as I was winding around with the mouselook, I found a PowerPoint presentation on my current Ed Tech Island and was stunned to see that the slide displayed was that about gender in Second Life. Fascinated by this topic I had just finished reading in the Rymaszewski  text that women often feel much greater equity in Second Life than in real life. One quote in the text put this well, “SL is a world where women have equality to a much greater extent than in RL. The primary advantage men have over women in RL, which influences many things, is physical strength. Here I am just as strong as any man….” – Jennifer McLuhan (Rymaszewski , p. 14). Thus, I felt quite elated as I scanned through the PowerPoint presentation before me in Second Life. The birds were chirping in the background and I could hear the occasional tugboat on the ocean. I read, “Players who have tried Gender-bending oftentimes talk about how the experience has changed their understanding of gender roles….” (Yee, 2004, p. gender-bending). I cannot tell you the excitement that I felt upon finding this one presentation! With each experience in Second Life and with my continued reading, I begin to think that I may be able to establish connections with individuals and resources that will assist not only in teaching but in educational research. This was further confirmed when I logged onto my dashboard on the Second Life website and saw that there is to be a Virtual Worlds Best Practice in Education Conference on March 12 and 13. I better get my avatar up and moving so I can find the right place.