The reasons for the ratios are world famous. Computers in the past were to girls what trucks and catchers’ mitts were also: the province of boys. Thousands of men in the computer industry are still oblivious to the existence of another sex. When I write popular-level computer books, male editors often demand that I stick to the technology rather than show how _people_ use it. Most women, however, recoil from the Internet and other high tech unless they see practical reasons for bothering with UNIX commands and similar horrors; they have been raised to favor humans over gadgetry. Let’s hope that the old fears vanish as more women befriend computers and programs grow easier for both genders. Meanwhile, however, on some areas of the Internet, women can be treated like females in Asian countries that pamper baby boys but all too often let sickly girls die or even kill the fetuses. A few men ignore female Netfolks except for purposes of humiliation, sex, or combinations of the two. Although messages from women tend to draw more replies on the Net than those from males, the end results can dismay; one man reportedly welcomed a woman to a discussion group, launched a political dialogue, then shifted in a nanosecond to a request for a swap of nude pictures. Women tell of weirdoes stalking them via e-mail, flooding their Net accounts with unwanted messages. One victim, as reported in _Mother Jones_ magazine, suffered “an untraceable e-mail ‘bomb’ containing hundreds of sexual and violent messages, the mildest of which was ‘Shut up bitch.‘” At the same time women on the Internet can enjoy less of the sort of attention they desire. Some Netfolks don’t pay as much attention to the public messages of women, and besides, female Internauts may not want to post anyway in some areas, given the outright insults and sarcasm that may await them. Women seek harmony and compromise; much of the Net thrives on controversy. My wife, who, like most of her gender on the Internet, hates flame wars, has even run across a newsgroup whose people venture forth to start arguments in other groups. What is a hobby to some men can be an antisocial practice to women. Many women hesitate to speak up on the Net, whatever the topic under discussion. Disturbing statistics come from Gladys We, a graduate student at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. Writing in the magazine _Virtual Culture_, she says at least four-fifths of several hundred postings to alt.feminism were by men. She tallied figures almost as lopsided in soc.women. “Only in soc.feminism,” We writes, “amid accusations of censorship, were there comparable numbers of postings from women and men.”