Two major points of discussion on this topic that I think are relevant to this sub:

  1. Counter-effect on techno-transhumanism
  2. Gradual deterioration of anonymity

First point was inspired by the techno-transhumanism thread.

The common belief is that technology would promote transhumanism. After all, doesn't the internet grant anonymity, allowing girls to pretend to be boys and vice versa? Transhumanism has already begun!

That being said, results of technology are often completely different from expectations. Machines of burden were supposed to allow women to do more construction work. A free and open society with an advanced economy was supposed to allow men and women to do whatever they want regardless of gender roles. Turns out that not much changed, or they've been proceeding glacially.

It might not be so different for the internet. While internet anonymity might be able to give men and women a chance to forget about their gender identity, as technology advances and business interests come into play, this may be gradually undermined.

As an example, for exploratory data mining we have clustering (tag clustering, word clustering, etc). For a simple sample, check out the word clusters in this article: http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/men-and-women-speak-different-languages-on-facebook

How does this matter?

Take Betty. She adheres to very few female stereotypes. One of those few is that she uses words like "awww", "cute", and girly emoticons like <3 very often. Her comments are data mined with the rest of the girls and our web overseers determine even through the cloak of anonymity that Betty is 95% likely to be female, and 85% likely to also enjoy X news articles or Y products that other women enjoy.

Take Alice. Her mind is the much lauded "blank slate". Basically has no feminine interests. However, she still has a vagina. She goes online to buy pads or tampons. Suddenly, some ads decide that since she is female, she has 83.7% of also being interested in Cosmo article #330. She may also be interested in buying this dress ("Why not add that dress to the shopping cart with the tampon and end up saving 50% on shipping?!").

This has the potential to in fact reinforcing gender stereotypes, as individuals who initially only follow some sexual/gendered stereotypes end up adopting more through constant exposure to clustered stereotypes.

This brings us to the next point. Anonymity, which I'll rush through later when I have time.