Virtual Invisible Men : Privacy and invisibility as forms of privilege in online venues for fathers during early parenthood

• Given the proliferation of support technology for men entering parenthood invirtual forums this project’s aim was to explore a virtual forum exclusively forfathers and elaborate on gendered questions for men’s parenthood within thatmilieu. An archival forum study was undertaken using principles for nethnography.The categories presented in the results overall indicate that the onlinevenue creates a privileged invisibility from experiences in “real life” genderrelations. This suggests that both horizontal and vertical homo-social dimensionsare present in the forum support/negotiations which occur among theforum posters, whereby issues of invisibility and entitlement in some casestake a central position. We suggest that being virtual invisible men entails participationin both a marketplace of opinions and a homo-social competition.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Genusstudier (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Gender Studies (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Sociologi

Sociology

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)