On March 30, There will unveil its very own Paradise Island of iVillage women. Although the island is described by There as a "a special iVillage sanctuary" the boundaries between the iVillage island and the rest of There's world will be far fuzzier than the original fabled Paradise Island, as males will be able to freely access it and interact with "the natives."
This will be an interesting experiment for several reasons:
1 - It's a virtual space doubly marked by gender and commercial co-branding. (Is this the first of its kind? Anyone know of any precedents?)
2 - iVillage is a text-based community of women whose bonding often takes place specifically around members' relationships to their RL bodies in the form of pregnancy, dieting, health, and beauty tips. While there may be the rare case of role-playing and gender-bending in the iVillage web community (ie. men posing as women), most participants' online identities are extensions of their RL (female) selves. Will this direct tie between offline/online identity carry over into a virtual world? Or will iVillage women use There to role play, whether that means creating an avatar that looks radically different from their RL body, or even choose a male avatar?
3 - The branding of a virtual space as female automatically sexualizes it. Already some of the male community members in There are viewing the addition of iVillage island as a welcome opportunity to increase their chances for romance. How will the iVillage women respond to these romantic overtures? Is There prepared to deal with any Mr. Bungles that show up?
We'll find out soon. Next Tuesday the experiment begins.
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