Menu-Driven Identity Workshop Response

It is interesting to analyse sites such as Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail since I am so used to using these types of menus in my online experience. I never really considered the assumptions made when constructing these menus prior to reading Nakamura's article. On reflection, the categories available to choose from in these menus are very restrictive. Racism is not overt within these sites, there are no sign postings telling particular ethnicities that they are not welcome in the site, but as Kali Tal suggests, racism is present in the absence race withing the sites and the assumption that users are white, middle class and male. We can see this assumption in a few of the different information categories that the sites request. Firstly both Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail assume the user to be English speaking and living in the United States. If a country is chosen other than the United States, the whole menu has to be reset. Interestingly enough, Lavalife also assumes the user is searching for someone from the United States even though one would assume the site Lavalife.com.au to have an Australian bias due to the .au suffix. If the user is not of the United States, they are required to select one other country which does not give the option for partial residency in more than one country. Although there are many different country options available, the language options do not reflect the multiplicity of languages spoken in these different countries. (Although Yahoo! Mail is more flexible in this example giving options of different types of one language such as Mexican Spanish or Spanish as spoken in Spain etc. , but even this does not allow for different dialects within Mexican Spanish such as Chicano.) Other languages such as 'native' languages like Nyunga or any African language and even Japanese are not offered either. The languages offered are predominantly European colonising languages, although Chinese and Korean are available. So these menus do not allow for fractured or less 'dominant' languages. This would have something to do with the effort and space needed to rewrite the sites in all languages, but does show the assumptions made about the ethnicity of the user as predominantly European.

We can also see what assumptions are placed upon the user through the choice of secret question. "What is your favourite pet's name?" assumes domesticity; "What is your favourite movie?" assumes use of and access to mass culture which is predominantly Western; "What is your anniversary, spouses name, firs't child's middle name" assumes family values such as marriage and children; questions about high school assume a medium/high level of education; "What is your favourite sports team?"; assumes interest in sports. Two of the sites asked "What is your father's middle name?" which is patriarchal. One other site asks about the mother instead, but the question is "What is your mother's maiden name?" which assumes once again that the mother is married and that she has chosen to take her spouse's name. Other questions not on the Hotmail site such as "What is your favourite book?" assumes competent literacy and questions such as "What is our favourite pass-time?" privellage leisure time. These questions support values held by dominant, white, middle class, Western individuals. On the Lavalife website, the default search assumes the user to be a heterosexual male. These assumptions are passively racist because they do not allow for an equal oppurtunity for different identies on these sites.

Another area where there is no room for partiality or transcendental identity is that of gender. Every site has only two options, male or female and no option for transexual, transgender and other gender identifications.

One could suggest these sites are attempting to cater for mass use and as such offer choices that reflect the majority of users, but these categories are created by the makers of the sites and thus more accurately reflect their assumptions on race, class and gender which, if reaffirmed in the distribution of the users, is only so because there are no other options available.