abstract:

New network technologies were often seen as contributing to a feminization of labor. Early online sex work complicates that argument. The early online sex work examined in this article masculinized what was traditionally women's work, while training workers and clients in the fluid, feminized communication skills that became a cornerstone of technologically-mediated office work. In the 1980s and 1990s, France's state-run videotext network, Minitel, connected millions to a wide array of public and private services. Its erotic chatrooms were among the most popular, profitable, and prominent. Throngs of citizens paid by the minute to chat anonymously with each other or, unwittingly, with mostly male professional hosts who tailored their digital personas to indulge their clients' sexual proclivities. This article reconstructs the chat hosts and their labor at the nexus of gender ideologies and emerging network technologies. These online self-presentations provide instructive parallels to today's shadow labor on digital platforms.

摘要：

新的网络技术通常被认为有助于劳动力的女性化。早期的在线性工作使这一论点变得更加复杂。本文研究的早期在线性工作将传统上的女性工作男性化，同时对工人和客户进行了流畅，女性化的沟通技巧的培训，这些技巧成为了技术中介办公室工作的基石。在1980年代和1990年代，法国的国营视频文本网络Minitel将数百万人连接到各种各样的公共和私人服务。它的色情聊天室是最受欢迎，最赚钱和最著名的聊天室之一。群众的群众按分钟付费，以匿名方式彼此聊天，或者不知不觉中与大多数男性专业主持人聊天，这些主持人量身定制其数字角色，以沉迷其客户的性倾向。本文重构了聊天主持人及其在性别意识形态和新兴网络技术之间的关系。这些在线自我演示为当今数字平台上的影子工作提供了有益的借鉴。