The book looks very interesting, and I took a look at the article too. I'm not a MU*-er, so I don't know much about what Lori Kendall is talking about first-hand but it does make sense from a sociological point of view. I studied online communities a bit last year in sociology and we looked at gender only briefly, so I'm glad to have had this opportunity to read more closely about it. That the article reflects my own beliefs about gender and online interaction just makes me like it more.

Personally, I've not thought of the internet as a gendered medium much. I've tried thinking about it like that, as a space defined by male understandings of the world, but the people I mostly interact with online don't really present interactions conducive to that kind of thinking. People who I know who talk about gender online themselves play with gender and the kinds of stereotypes and expectations Kendall was talking about...
I think waywind and postvixen would find this an interesting read.

In my own interactions, mostly foruming and IM chat, I haven't found this to be an issue. Maybe it's the nature of the communities I'm involved in, or the kind of conversation that goes on, or the age groups involved, though.
But there are other issues to do with gender and power in online interaction than characterisation and behaviour, I think. I'm still trying to sort those out.

Thank you for posting the link.