Looking at men and masculinities through Information and Communication Technologies, and Vice Versa

The lecture series that led to this paper, “Gender-Effects: How Women create Technology of Tomorrow”, has an explicit focus on women. However, in this article in keeping with a relational approach to gender, we focus on men and masculinities, seen within the context of and gender power relations, and the diverse interrelations of men and masculinities with information and communication technologies (ICTs). This includes addressing to some of the shortcomings of contemporary studies of men and masculinities that neglect ICTs; the different kinds of social relations of men and masculinities to ICTS, in work, organizations, and social change more generally; and the implications of ICTs for sexualities and sexual violences, ending with the current case of online revenge pornography. As such, we seek to bring two areas of scholarship, critical studies on men and masculinities (CSMM) and studies of ICTs, into closer dialogue. We begin with a brief overview of academic debates in studies on men and masculinities without ICTs, followed by an examination of some aspects of the relations of men, masculinities and ICTs, with a final short discussion of the case of ICTs, sexualities, sexual violences and revenge pornography.