The 1990s have seen the emergence of a significant new media form. Unparalleled commercial interest has been generated around the Internet which, in terms of its potential impact upon the conduct of Westernised societies, has been compared to the Gutenberg Press whose capacity for mass production of the printed text was one of the principle ushers of the industrial age. Amongst the heralding and marketing of this new digital epoch, a good deal of thought has been dedicated to the utilisation of information technologies for progressive social ends. Cyberfeminisms, as a popular avenue for contemporary feminist intervention in technologically mediated structures of power (in particular the Internet), have flourished in an environment traditionally hostile to feminist viewpoints and respond to the male domination of information technologies. Computer-mediated communication, where male users traditionally outnumber women, facilitates forms of sexism and misogyny which can be far more prevalent online than in the physical world. Feminists employed in electronic, science and communications industries and research have long identified the Internet as an important social institution dominated by men and hence in need of feminist attention. Put simply:'Cyberspace cannot escape the social construction of gender because it was constructed by gendered individuals, and because gendered individuals access it, in ways that reinforce the subjugation of women." I Cyberfeminisms have set out to challenge the male centred culture of the Internet and to imprint their own models of open and accessible computer-mediated communication onto the new technologies. First coined by Sadie Plant, the term cyberfeminism refers to a diverse range of practices and discourses all generically identifiable by their commitment to exploring non-oppressive alternatives to existing relations of power through the'manipulation of information technologies. Ideologically, cyberfeminist practice retains as a basic tenet a commitment to feminist principles of gender equality. Beyond this, there exists no singular cyberfeminism per se; certainly no theoretical party line which needs to be adhered to for acceptance. Cyberfeminist activity is frequently utopian in its outlook; draws heavily on postmodernism and psychoanalysis, and is commonly technologically determinist, uncritically supporting the contention that