AFFIRMATIVE - CRITIQUE - FEMINIST CRITIQUE OF PRIVACY 153

ANSWERS TO FEMINISM CRITIQUE–LINK TURNS

PRIVACY IS GOOD FOR WOMEN

PRIVACY LAW CAN BE BENEFICIAL FOR WOMEN AND SHOULD BE ENDORSED BY FEMINISTS

Linda C. McClain, Professor of Law, Hofstra University School of Law, March, 1999; WILLIAM & MARY LAW REVIEW, " RECONSTRUCTIVE TASKS FOR A LIBERAL FEMINIST CONCEPTION OF PRIVACY," EE2001, hxm P.

Feminist condemnation of privacy raises the "substantive moral and political question" of whether women have "no interest in the values of privacy and intimacy," or in keeping the state out of their lives in at least some circumstances. n75 Allen's normative work on the value of privacy for women moves a considerable distance toward answering that question. I am in general agreement with her two-fold conclusion: feminists have good reason to be critical of "what the privacy of the private sphere has signified for women in the past and what the rhetoric and jurisprudence of privacy rights can signal for the future." n76 "At the same time, there is little doubt that women seeking greater control over their lives already have begun to benefit from heightened social respect for appropriate forms of physical, informational, proprietary, and decisional privacy." n77 Both privacy and private  [*774]  choice are important to the goal of women being free, equal, safe, and intimate.

CONTROL TO CHOOSE WHETHER OR NOT TO KEEP INFORMATION PRIVATE IS ESSENTIAL TO THE FEMINIST PROJECT

Linda C. McClain, Professor of Law, Hofstra University School of Law, March, 1999; WILLIAM & MARY LAW REVIEW, " RECONSTRUCTIVE TASKS FOR A LIBERAL FEMINIST CONCEPTION OF PRIVACY," EE2001, hxm P.

A better reading may be that cyberspace provides new possibilities for privacy as well as self-disclosure, and for connection and community as well as isolation. Indeed, it is the ability to engage in selective disclosure of personal information that "in-  [*788]  vites and affirms intimacy"; loss of such control would hinder the ability to construct "deep social relationships." n158 What could be a more isolated act than surfing the web in the privacy of one's own home? What act, though, could be more potentially self-disclosing than communicating anonymously with others on the web? For the lonely and isolated gay teenager, such an act may provide an important source of community and connection. n159 We might think about cyberspace as affording new ways of exercising private choice and decisionmaking about self- disclosure and concealment, as well as new opportunities voluntarily to play with one's identity. Recent scholarly work on gender and cyberspace, for example, stresses women's efforts to create networks of support, which often follow different values than those prevalent in male-dominated spaces in cyberspace, as well as to play with and construct oppositional identities. n160 With this development come new and different forms of association and connection.