Although distance education is employing new mediums that are intended to reach nontraditional students, such as single mothers, many of the same problems that occurred in face-to-face classes are likely to occur in distance courses.  It is no coincidence that distance education in the United States is relying more and more on computers, web pages, and electronic conferencing as a means of facilitating classes since these same mediums are popular in the larger society.  Aware of this fact, many scholars have studied computer-mediated communication to explore whether gender differences in electronic communication actually exist, especially since many claim that the virtual world erases gender differences and promotes a more equitable democracy for all.  The verdict is still out on the extent that gender differences in electronic communication actually does exist.

The natural assumption would be that a gender difference does exist given the historical literature on communication differences.  For instance, Carol Gilligan (1982), a prominent psychologist, argued that women's voices are different, and because they have been ignored, they need to be brought out of the margins and into the light of day.

In "Education Expert: Classroom Gender Bias Persists,"  Jill Goetz similarly discusses gender bias in the traditional classroom, causing educators to self examine their own actions and biases.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicles/4.25.96/gender.html

Herring (1994) in "Gender Differences in Computer-mediated Communication: Bringing Familiar Baggage to the New Frontier" believes that these biases are transferred into the classroom.
http://www.eff.org/pub/Net_culture/Gender_issues/cmc_and_gender.article

Herring introduces the idea of gender differences in communication online, highlighting differences between the sexes. She claims that men and women certainly do have different ways of communicating online. Therefore, she advocates that women become more involved online, and in ways that begin to establish "women's ways" of communicating as part of the foundation of the online environment.

Furthermore, in "Why Bring Gender Online?" Lisa Schmesier similarly argues that instead of encouraging women to erase gender differences online, women should embrace difference.
http://www.december.com/cmc/mag/1996/mar/ed.html
 

In "Gender Styles in Computer Mediated Communication (CMC)
Are the Experts Talking?" Susan Githens (1996) argues the same points as Herring (1994).
http://www.georgetown.edu/bassr/githens/covr511.htm
 

 Ferris (1996) argues that  "A review of the literature leads to the conclusion that women's
communication in cyberspace often mirrors that of face-to-face communication, linguistically and relationally."
http://www.helsinki.fi/science/optek/1996/n3/ferris.txt

According to Ferris:

"Parks and Floyd (1996) found that women are significantly more likely than men to form personal relationships on-line, and the FeMiNa (1996) survey found that 43% of 1150 women respondents considered community an important reason for going on-line (specifically, 13% stated that their main reason for going on-line was for a sense of community, while an additional 30% stated that their main reason was to communicate (through e-mail)."

Ferris (1996) also says that this valuing of relationships is a positive when it comes to communication online because they tend to form electronic communities and networks that create "a slow but steady establishment of women's spaces and women's voices"
(p. 35).

Gender issues are becoming so important in distance education that universities are starting to offer courses on the topics.  ASU offers a course at http://seamonkey.ed.asu.edu/~mcisaac/emc598ge/ and Athabascau offers one at http://www.athabascau.ca/html/syllabi/mdde/mdde651.htm.

However, not all gender studies show the same results.  In "Gender Similarity in the Use of and Attitudes About ALN in a University Setting," John C. Ory, et al. (1998) presents the results of an investigation of male and female student use of and attitudes about asynchronous learning networks after one year of implementation in a university setting. The results of the study revealed no significant gender differences.
http://www.aln.org/alnweb/journal/issue1/ory.htm

Even theoretically, scholars are starting to question the simplicity of how gender identity is approached. Elizabeth Lane Lawley (1993), in "Computers and the Communication of Gender," examines the ways in which our definitions of "woman" and "man" shift in the new virtual communication environment. She argues that "we cannot fix a single center from which the experiences of women with computer and communication systems can be viewed, and that such fixity would only serve to deepen inequities rather than exposing and removing them. It is possible to use new theoretical perspectives on the shifting boundaries of gender definitions to rethink a previously deterministic view of the effect of new technologies on society, and particularly the effect of those technologies on women."
http://www.itcs.com/elawley/gender.html

Additionally, even outside of the virtual world, critics are questioning the extent of differences among the sexes (http://www.public.asu.edu/~tiffany/thesis.doc).  Gilligan has come under extreme attack by modern feminists and multiculturalists since her testing did not involve a representative sampling and she made sweeping generalizations about women without accounting for sexuality, race, religion, and other socio-cultural factors. Whatever the final conclusions, distance educators will need to be aware of gender, as well as cross-cultural, communication discrepancies and will have to take a pedagogical approach to how they want to treat gender issues in their course.
 
 

Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Palattella, J. (1995). Formatting patrimony: The rhetoric of hypertext. Afterimage 23/1.