First, insisting that the computer is just a tool is a defense against the experience of the computer as the opposite, as an intimate machine. It is a way to say that it is not appropriate to have a close relationship with a machine. Computers with their plasticity and malleability are compelling media. They have a psychological ‘holding power.’ Women use their rejection of computer holding power to assert something about themselves as women. Being a woman is opposed to a compelling relationship with a thing that shuts people out.