This paper explores online ‘text-in-interaction’, i.e. written interaction on the Internet, using a CA methodology (cf. Antaki et al., 2005; Benwell & Stokoe, 2006, for other examples of such work). The data consists of a Swedish Internet forum thread about sick leave and the analysis focuses on how gender is oriented to and made relevant in the interaction. The participants interacting in the thread are presented as women (for instance, female first names are commonly used as aliases) and a recurring topic of the thread is everyday chores in the home, such as cleaning, washing up and doing dishes. Rather than merely arguing that these chores should be understood as category-bound activities, the descriptions of them working to constitute gender, the point of departure is that such inferences should be drawn from evidence in the data itself (see e.g. Stokoe, 2009). The analysis engages with descriptions indexing gender, exploring how gender is constituted and what such categorizations are being used to do in the interaction. Examining the details of the interaction, the analysis points to how emoticons and other textual and non-textual markers (compensating for the absence of audio-visual context) are used to invoke gender ironically. It is argued that gender-indexing ironic commentary on the performance of household chores are used to delicately resist a housewife categorization, without undermining the notion of being responsible and useful, taking care of the home despite being home sick from work.
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